As New Brunswick universities sign funding agreement, St. Thomas draws a line in the sand

St. Thomas University has found itself at odds with the New Brunswick government with its refusal to sign the memorandum of understanding on funding that the province has put forth. They claim that the current proposal is inequitable and unfair. University of New Brunswick, Mount Allison University and Universite de

Moncton — the province’s other three publicly funded universities — have all signed the agreement, which outlines tuition and operating grant funding over a four year period.

St. Thomas president Dawn Russell sent an email to the student body and over 10,000 alumni last Tuesday urging them to contact local politicians on the matter.

“The 2007 Commission on Post-Secondary Education found that, ‘St. Thomas clearly suffers from a funding anomaly that needs to be addressed’ as the university is ‘supported at a level well below the other universities in the province,'” the email reads, “Our operating grant is approximately 89% of the provincial average in terms of the operating grant per weighted full-time student. This means our annual operating grant is $1.4 million lower than it should be.”

The email also points out that students at St. Thomas receive less funding than out-of-province students attending school in New Brunswick.

A statement by New Brunswick Minister of Post-Secondary Education Minister Roger Melanson on Wednesday addresses many of the arguments STU is presenting.

“The historical funding formula was developed and agreed upon by all four public universities, and it is designed to allocate available funding to institutions in an equitable, not equal, fashion,” he wrote.

He also argues that “University funding is not distributed based on a simple enrollment calculation but takes into account a number of factors that affect institutional costs. Some programs cost more to deliver than others, for example engineering, the sciences and nursing, due, in part, to the nature of materials, equipment and the techniques used to deliver these programs.” 

Representatives from St. Thomas are expected to meet with Premier Brian Gallant in the coming weeks to negotiate the terms of the agreement.