For the first time in three years, the university has managed to avoid any cuts to their budget, but some uncertainty still looms
Illustration by Sona Eidnani.
UVic announced it is moving forward with a balanced budget for the 2025–26 fiscal year, without the need for cuts or restrictions.
This is the first time in three years that the university has been able to announce a balanced budget without cuts. Both the 2023–24 and 2024–25 fiscal years saw four per cent budget cuts across the board.
Additionally, provincial funding has allowed UVic to expand targeted programs that align with government priorities. The Software Engineering, Computer Science, Health Information Science, and Nurse Practitioner programs have been expanded by a combined 175 full-time student enrolments as a result.
This announcement comes amid a period of financial stress for post-secondary institutions across Canada, as many are either slashing budgets or running deficits that range into the tens of millions of dollars. Vancouver Island University (VIU), for example, recently announced the cancellation of 14 programs and the suspension of six others, beginning in fall 2025, due to budget constraints.
Many of the financial challenges facing Canadian universities right now stem from the significant restrictions placed on international student visas by the Canadian government, which were reduced by 35 per cent in 2024, and an additional 10 per cent in 2025.
UVic held a townhall meeting focused on the new operating budget on May 20, during which UVic’s Vice-President Academic and Provost Elizabeth Croft attributed UVic’s relative lack of international students — compared to other Canadian institutions — as a factor that has helped UVic avoid the worst consequences of the restrictions.
Prior to the 2024 restrictions, international students made up 21.2 per cent of all full-time post-secondary students in Canada, while at UVic, they made up just 13 per cent of the student population. At UVic, that number has since dropped slightly, to 12 per cent.
Croft stated that the university desires to bring it back up to 13 per cent, but acknowledged that uncertainties around the future of international education in Canada make it difficult to know how attainable that goal is.
Despite these uncertainties, UVic’s ability to create a balanced budget is a positive sign of continued post-COVID recovery. But there are still risks that could threaten this current framework.
According to the university’s Planning and Budget Framework, enrolment management remains at the top of these risks. Student fees are anticipated to account for 32 per cent of UVic’s $535 million budget, so recruiting and retaining students remains a top priority.
The university has allocated an $11.5 million contingency fund in the event that they do not meet enrollment expectations. This contingency is enough to absorb the monetary loss that would be caused by a 25 per cent decrease in international enrolment, or an 11 per cent decrease in domestic enrolment.
Canada’s current, turbulent political relationship with the United States also has the potential to affect the budget.
“The impacts of tariffs and counter tariffs are not yet known and will need to be closely monitored,” reads UVic’s Planning and Budget Framework. “These measures could affect the university’s purchasing power in areas such as facilities construction and purchasing supplies…. Trade uncertainty with the U.S. is likely to lead to further weakness in the Canadian dollar relative to the U.S. dollar. This has a negative impact on the university’s purchasing power particularly with respect to library acquisitions and software licensing.”
In an emailed statement, a UVic spokesperson told the Martlet that the university anticipates enrolment targets to be met or exceeded, and does not foresee a change in circumstances drastic enough to warrant any cuts or restrictions this year.
Regarding library and software acquisitions being singled out as potentially vulnerable, the spokesperson added that each “have modest inflation protection provisions.”
The university will be holding another townhall meeting this fall, which will focus on the budget model initiative — an ongoing review of their budget model that is intended to ultimately provide a new, more effective model for creating and implementing future budgets.
