Posts
The global economic downturn has coincided with Laurentian University slipping into deficit. To ensure the character and quality of Laurentian is not eroded during this rough patch the former acting President Dr. Robert Bourgeois commissioned and led the drafting and publication of A Plan for Regaining Sustainability at Laurentian University. Its gist was to mitigate Laurentian’s financial woes by running deficits for three years before returning to balanced budgets in order to minimize and soften cuts. The limit deficit financing in this report, however, was still not sufficient, as such, the shortfall was proposed to be accommodated equally by increased revenue (i.e. enrollment and retention) and decreased costs (i.e. budgetary cuts).
Upon approval of this report and the subsequent 2009/10 budget the Board of Governors made clear that the deficit numbers would be not be exceeded. Any negative disparity between budgeted and actual figures would have to be compensated by further cuts. The original cuts were made in the University budget, however, the increased revenue component is uncertain and the goals (note: these are not projections) are ambitious. The magic number of increased student enrollment required to make this plan and the current budget honest is the equivalent of 482 full-time students, which is an 8% increase.
The two most conspicuous phenomena increasing post-secondary student enrollment are Ontario’s double cohort of high school students and the United State’s draft and student deferments during the Vietnam War. The former resulted in a qualitatively evident increase in full-time students at Laurentian (see figure 1, box indicates goal).This began in the fall of 2003 (an increase of 18.6%) and ended in 2007. Unfortunately, another double cohort is not only unlikely but would also leave students grossly unprepared for post-secondary education. The latter has been estimated to have raised post-secondary enrollment by 4-6%[1] (see figure 2). A draft coupled with targeted, enhanced recruitment initiatives could possible achieve this ambitious magic number of 482.
Figure 1. Laurentian University’s Full-Time Students.
[1] Card, D., Lemieux, T. (2000). Going to College to Avoid the Draft: The Unintended Legacy of the Vietnam War. Meetings of the American Economics Association, January 2001.
