By Vanessa Broadbent (The Cascade) – Email
We’re only halfway through the semester and students may only be thinking as far ahead as midterms, but UFV is already planning their 2016 / 17 budget.
This week two budget forums were held, one on October 19 at the CEP campus, and another on October 21 at the Abbotsford campus. The purpose of these meetings was to introduce the new budget to the UFV community.
The new budget allocates $117,459,000 for UFV to work with — a slight increase from last year.
The new budget’s increase comes from expected adjustments like the regular two-per cent increase to student tuition, as well as discontinuing programs like the fashion design program. UFV had recently announced that because the fashion design program will be discontinued, there will be a budget surplus of $327,700.
UFV president Mark Evered explained that this cut couldn’t be avoided, especially because the program only had roughly six applicants this year.
“There are risks to the creative arts,” he said. “We’re under a lot of pressure, and unfortunately much of that seems to be interpreted as failure to recognize the value of creative arts, and yet within our institutional learning outcomes we’ve stressed the importance of creativity.”
Evered also explained that hopefully, this is the only creative arts program that the university has to cut.
“We may have to be more creative in how we help the creative arts not just survive, but thrive in a difficult environment,” he said. “It is sad to see programs like that go, driven because students don’t see the value and employers — at least, not initially — see the value.”
The projected budget also includes a planned decrease in enrollment in upcoming years due to a lower population of 18- to 24-year-olds.
“Even here in the Fraser Valley, we’ve seen a bit of a downward trend,” Evered said.
Even though UFV has a larger adult population than other universities, this change could still affect them, and UFV will look into targeting other age demographics.
“Our population has been quite different from that of many other universities across the country in that the average age of our students is older than most other institutions,” said Evered. “I see that as very positive. People are coming back to school after some time off. People are returning to develop new skills because they lost a job or want to take on another job.”
Evered also explained that one potential age demographic is retirees.
“Universities have started to think about retirees,” he said. “I’m going to retire at some point and I don’t like to think that that’s the end of learning opportunities.”
One of the departments that will be responsible for bringing in new students is continuing education.
“We’ve placed some pressure on continuing education to provide greater opportunities and create revenue for us through better service to our community,” Evered explained.
In upcoming years, UFV is also planning to have a slightly lower student admittance depending on how much government funding is secured. Although more students means more tuition, UFV relies heavily on government funding.
“On average, a student’s tuition covers about a quarter of their education,” Evered explained. “It’s risky because we’re taking students without that additional government contribution to help pay for their education.”
Video recordings of the meetings will be made available for students unable to attend, but have not been posted at time of print.
