Something about this week’s federal budget stopped me mid-scroll. Not because of the headlines or the partisan spin, but because of what it says, quietly, but clearly, about the future of higher education in Canada.
I’ve been reading federal budgets for years. Usually, they come and go like polite dinner guests. You nod, take in the highlights, and return to your real work. But this one lingered.
It felt like a shift.
The language around post-secondary wasn’t just about spending; it was about structure. About redefining who gets to play, how they’re funded, and what their purpose will be in the years ahead.
The government is narrowing student aid eligibility to public and not-for-profit institutions. That means private, for-profit colleges, the ones that have ballooned over the last decade, are in trouble. Their access to federal support will shrink, and with it, a big part of their business model.
At the same time, Ottawa is cutting the number of international student permits in half. Half. That’s seismic. Entire institutional budgets have been built on those tuition dollars. For some schools, this isn’t a small correction.
It’s an earthquake.
And yet, underneath the tremor, there’s something else.
An opportunity.
The budget also expands work-integrated learning. It adds funding for student jobs, for co-ops, for programs that connect classrooms with the real world. It’s as if the government is quietly saying: education must link more directly to life. Not just in the transactional sense of job-readiness, but in a broader sense of relevance.
That, to me, is the real headline. The money matters, yes.
But the subtext matters more.
Because when you strip it down, this budget asks every institution the same uncomfortable question: Are you built for the world we’re moving into, or the one that used to be?
It’s tempting to react with defensiveness. We all know how hard-won each line item in a university budget can be. But maybe this moment is less about defending and more about re-defining.
If international enrollments decline (and they will), what fills the gap?
How do we make learning both financially sustainable and deeply valuable again?
How do we balance the economics of survival with the ethics of education?
I keep thinking about what this means in human terms.
The bursar tightening forecasts. The dean recalculating enrollment. The faculty member wondering if their research stream will survive. The student services team trying to explain why tuition might rise even as opportunities shrink.
It’s a lot.
But within that pressure is a chance to build something sturdier.
This is the moment to double down on our strengths:
Our local partnerships.
Our ability to connect learners with communities.
Our capacity for nimble, creative teaching that prepares students for what’s actually coming, not just what was.
There’s new funding for work-integrated learning and summer jobs. Those aren’t throw-away lines. They’re signals. They tell us where policy is moving - toward applied, experiential, human-centred learning.
That’s where the future is being built.
Yes, the research base grants took a hit. But there’s new investment in recruiting global researchers and post-docs, and in creating pathways for world-class talent to choose Canada.
That’s not nothing.
It’s a recognition that intellectual capital still matters.
So where does that leave us? Somewhere between anxiety and possibility.
It’s easy to see the risk: fewer international students, tightening aid rules, flat operating grants. But there’s also an invitation here—to rethink what we offer and how we deliver it.
If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that agility is possible. We changed platforms, rewrote syllabi, built online classrooms overnight. Now the challenge is to apply that same adaptability, but with foresight rather than panic.
The budget is telling us the wind has shifted. The institutions that thrive will be the ones that treat this not as a storm to endure but as weather to understand.
We can start small. Review your programs through the lens of employability and meaning. Strengthen community partnerships. Align research agendas with national priorities, but keep space for curiosity-driven work too.
Rethink how we measure success beyond enrollment and endowment.
For leaders in higher education, this is the midlife moment we talk about in people but rarely apply to institutions. The question isn’t whether we’ve achieved enough; it’s whether we’ve outgrown who we were.
I’ve been in and around universities for most of my life. They are living ecosystems—part tradition, part innovation, endlessly self-correcting. When the landscape changes, they adapt, sometimes awkwardly, but always with purpose. That’s what keeps me optimistic.
Budgets come and go. Policies shift. Governments rotate. But learning, when it’s done well, remains one of the most hopeful acts there is.
So maybe this isn’t a reckoning after all. Maybe it’s a recalibration.
A chance to move from expansion to intention.
From growth to depth.
From reaction to design.
As someone who spends her days at the intersection of academia, policy, and practice, I don’t pretend to have all the answers. But I do know this: curiosity will serve us better than certainty.
Let’s read this budget not as a verdict, but as a prompt.
Because if we can meet it with openness, collaboration, and a willingness to change, the next chapter of higher education in Canada could be one of its most defining.
Here’s to curiosity, courage, and the slow, necessary work of re-imagining what education can be.