(Supplied/RDP)

By Ashley Lavallee-Koenig

OPEN LETTER TO MINISTER

Students’ Association for Red Deer Polytechnic joins call to province for increased funding

Feb 18, 2025 | 5:41 PM

Post-secondary students across Alberta have made a collective call to the Government of Alberta to increase base funding, including the Students’ Association of Red Deer Polytechnic (RDP), whose institution is facing a $10 million deficit for the upcoming school year.

On Feb. 11, more than a dozen students’ associations from institutions across the province sent an open letter to Minister of Advanced Education Rajan Sawhney urging the government to restore base funding to 2019 levels, before cuts began.

“We’re really grateful that all the institutions were able to come together to speak on this issue,” said Jacq Patterson, President, Students’ Association of RDP. “We think coming at this with gratitude and kindness is the best way to move forward and we’re excited to see what comes next. We’re here as a team, not just as an institution and a students’ association, but now as a province-wide effort with other students’ associations.”

The letter, titled “Government of Alberta, You Can’t Keep Cutting Class,” says that since 2019, Alberta has dropped from being Canada’s third-most educated province to its sixth and that year, 14,000 students left Alberta to study in other provinces.

Patterson shared that they had not yet received a response from the ministry as of Feb. 18.

RDP students are no strangers to the challenges outlined in the open letter, as the polytechnic is currently projecting a $10 million deficit for the 2025-26 school year and has received a zero per cent base increase, or cuts, from the province for the last seven years, its representatives have said.

As a result, “Red Deer Polytechnic is currently planning for a reduction of approximately 35 to 40 positions total from all employee groups (AUPE, Faculty Association and Exempt Managers),” the institution said, in addition to five program suspensions and reduced upgrading offerings.

“When we don’t have those programs available, we lose the talent that has moved to central Alberta because they have no job,” Patterson commented on the cuts. “They don’t want to stay, so we lose our intellectual talent, which will eventually lead to a brain drain, especially because central Alberta already struggles with that.”

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Read more:

• Red Deer Polytechnic suspending five programs to address $10 million projected deficit
• Red Deer Polytechnic predicts $10 million deficit for 2025-26 budget

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Patterson explained these funding challenges, combined with a tuition cap, have forced institutions to seek out alternative forms of revenue, including international student tuition. Federal changes to international student policies have now made this avenue difficult to pursue, furthering the impact to operational funds.

She added that the changes have reduced the number of RDP’s international student programs that qualify for work permits, as well as what courses qualify, which will dissuade interested students from attending there.

“Furthermore, with RDP, because it’s a polytechnic and not a university, if international students want to take a degree it will not automatically go into a work permit,” Patterson said, “but it will if they go to a university status institution, which we find very elitist.”

Despite the challenges coming down the pipe, Patterson expressed gratitude to RDP for the approach it’s taken to handle the situation.

“We found that the institution has been working really hard to keep the students in mind and we are really proud of them for that,” said Patterson. “They’re making a lot of decisions with purpose in mind and are trying to navigate this and think it through as much as possible. We’ve been very lucky that they haven’t cut programs willy-nilly and have actually done a process, which has led to a little bit of a softer blow for RDP specifically.”

In the face of funding challenges, she said RDP has respected the tuition cap since it was implemented and hasn’t overinflated related fees to compensate.

Outside of the institution, students are also being impacted by the rising cost of living. Patterson said that in the fall of 2024, Alberta Student Aid was so overwhelmed with funding requests that payments weren’t received until as late as October in some cases, well past the deadline to pay tuition fees.

Additionally, RDP’s Emergency Student Food resource has seen an increase in its usage, although the most current data is still being assessed and expected soon.

With the institution’s revenue options seeming to get slimmer, Patterson worries that student support programs will be next to the chopping block.

“We know for a fact that we are in desperate need already for our mental health initiatives; our counselors are always booked full, booked solid. More cuts will mean our students will be more stressed and less people will want to come to post secondary and to get that education because they’ll be afraid to put themselves at risk,” she said.

Patterson hopes to see “less apathy” moving forward as the provincial government responds to these challenges, as well as advocacy to the federal government on helping international students secure work visas that are relevant to Alberta’s economy.

Although the Ministry of Advanced Education hasn’t responded to the letter directly, Minister Sawhney did provide a comment on it to rdnewsNOW.

Sawhney said her “top priority” is listening and responding to Alberta student concerns and that consultation occurred with students and student unions during Budget 2025 discussions.

Last year, the government allocated more than $1.4 billion to loans, grants, bursaries, awards and scholarships, all of which she said can be used to mitigate cost of living challenges.

“We also instituted a two per cent cap on domestic tuition increases, reduced the interest rate on Alberta student loans, extended the payment and interest free grace period for loans, increased eligibility for the Repayment Assistance Plan, rejected exceptional tuition increases (ETIs), and modernized student aid shelter allowances,” she added.

Beyond that, Alberta has distributed $312 million in Targeted Enrolment Expansion and invested $1.5 billion in over 20 capital projects across the province since 2019.

“The Mintz Panel, which was established last December, will provide its recommendations later this year to further assist in ensuring that funding levels are appropriate and used in the most effective way possible to support student success,” Sawhney concluded.

Locally, Patterson hopes to see RDP continue its trend of considering the needs of students in the face of funding challenges.

She said members of the public that share student concerns can reach out to their local MLA or Minister Sawhney, as it’s not just a student issue, it’s an Alberta issue.