Sault College is taking some tough steps — including a hiring freeze, salary freeze and program suspensions — to address its $5.7-million deficit heading into the 2024-25 academic year and beyond.
The deficit stems from a reduction in the number of international students who will be attending Sault College’s private partner college: Brampton’s TriOS College. A portion of revenue from tuition fees paid at that college pays for much of Sault College’s operations, but in January, the federal government announced a two-year cap on the number of international students allowed to study in Canada and stopped issuing post-graduate work permits to students at private partner colleges.
Sault College’s deficit also comes at a time when an Ontario government post-secondary tuition fee freeze has been extended for another three years along with a continuing freeze on grant funding for students.
“We are doing everything we can to ensure our fiscal sustainability, which has certainly been a challenge,” said David Orazietti, Sault College's president, in a virtual interview with reporters on July 5.
“We’ve implemented a number of cost-saving measures such as a hiring freeze with exceptions as required. We’ve also implemented a base salary freeze for all administrators for this fiscal year and next fiscal year and we’re continuing to review and assess the programs that we’re offering to ensure they are relevant to students and employers,” Orazietti said.
No full-time Sault College faculty or staff members will lose their jobs.
Orazietti said full-time faculty in suspended programs will be moved into other program areas but that approximately 30 to 35 non-unionized part-time faculty will likely not be receiving new contracts at this time.
Programs that will not be offered at Sault College in the fall of 2024 and fall of 2025 include:
Fall 2024:
- Automated Manufacturing
- Construction Project Management
- E-Learning Training
- E-Learning Design and Development
- Environmental Sustainability Analysis
- Fitness And Health Promotion
- Office Administration – Executive
- Professional Nursing Practice
- Supply Chain Management
- Supply Chain Management - Emergent Technologies
- Robotics
Fall 2025:
- Child and Youth Care
- Electrical Engineering Technician – Process Automation
- Electrical Process Technology
Orazietti said the E-Learning Training, E-Learning Design and Development, Professional Nursing Practice, Supply Chain Management and Supply Chain Management – Emergent Technologies programs were already on hold due to low enrolment before Friday’s announcement of program suspensions.
However, Orazietti acknowledged that programs such as Robotics — an in-demand field of study — is on the list.
“That’s certainly a program that in past years has had good uptake and relatively stable interest from students so that is a program unfortunately at this point we need to suspend. These programs can be brought back so there is a difference between a program being cancelled and temporarily suspending intakes,” Orazietti told SooToday.
“Are these all the programs? Will we be considering more in the future? We’ll make that assessment as we determine what uptake we have at the college in terms of our enrolment numbers, both domestic and international, and we may need to reassess program offerings going forward as well but, for the time being, the board has approved the suspension of those programs for fall 2024 and 2025,” Orazietti said.
Students currently enrolled in affected programs will be able to continue their studies, complete their programs and receive their credentials, he added.
The Sault College board of governors decided on its current course of action to address the school’s deficit in a July 4 closed session.
Staff and faculty were informed of the college’s decisions the following day, Orazietti said.
The college is receiving some relief in the amount of approximately $2.5 million from the Ontario government’s Postsecondary Education Sustainability Fund.
That sector-wide $1.3-billion in funding was announced by Minister of Colleges and Universities Jill Dunlop in June.
“That is not permanent base funding. That is one-time funding expected to be provided, according to the ministry, over the next three years, (but) it does help us address our deficit,” Orazietti said.
The deficit is affecting the college’s wish to build a new student residence building.
“We are reassessing our ability to be able to move forward with that project at this time,” Orazietti told reporters.
“It is still a project that is a very high priority for the organization. We need housing capacity. It’s something that should have been done many years ago in this organization when we see similar-sized institutions with 600-plus beds on campus while we have a residence of 157 beds in a building that’s 32 years old. It’s something that has been lacking at our institution and needs to be addressed,” Orazietti said.
The college’s plans for a multi-sport turf field, track and field house also appear to be on hold, although Orazietti said the college still intends to start up its men’s football team — using another field — in 2025.
A total of 1,749 international student study permits have been approved by the province for Sault College’s Northern Avenue campus for 2024-25. The college has consistently had approximately 1,000 international students — over fall, winter and summer intakes — on its campus for the last four years.
The federal government’s January 2024 announcement of a two-year cap on international students was put in place to keep ‘bad actors’ from taking advantage of high international student tuition.
‘Bad actors’ is a term Ottawa has used to describe unethical colleges that exploit international students with high fees while not delivering quality education.
Ottawa says the cap is also being put in place while the country experiences a national housing shortage.
Orazietti said he agrees with that decision but remains upset that public-private partnerships, such as that Sault College has with TriOS College, have been affected.
“I understand and completely accept the fact that we need to reduce the overall study permits being granted in the province of Ontario, but it was how that was done. It was the distribution and the inequity of that decision.”
“There are much larger colleges in this province that have large endowment funds, that have significant reserves and surpluses today and this significant policy change was for them a non-event, but small, Northern and rural colleges have borne the brunt of the federal government’s decision,” Orazietti said.
He said the college is facing financial challenges for the foreseeable future.
“We’re expecting a similar challenge next year given the impact on our public private partnership. I would say at least as significant as this year if not greater.”
— SooToday
