Provost’s Update on the 2026-27 Budget
Thursday, March 5, 2026
Dear Brock community,
As I shared in my previous 2026-27 budget planning update, building a sustainable future for Brock has been a difficult task given the financial challenges that we, and many other universities, have been facing across the province.
On Feb. 12, the Ontario government announced a significant investment to support the post-secondary sector’s long-term success and sustainability. Brock, alongside institutions sector-wide, welcomes this much-needed and important investment.
With the budget development cycle for 2026-27 nearing its end, I wanted to share with the community some details on how we got here, what we’re doing and where we’re headed — including what the recent government investment means for the future.
How we got here
The financial sustainability of Brock is predicated on our costs not exceeding our revenues. Similar to personal finances, one cannot spend more money than one earns without increasing debt.
Our costs are largely people — the faculty and staff who support the teaching and research functions of the University. And our revenues are primarily tuition, a provincial operating grant and ancillary services.
Our costs are also inflationary, meaning they continue to go up every year. This includes salary increases, utilities and building maintenance, among others.
In the past, our costs and revenues have generally kept pace through enrolment growth and budget cuts to areas where some flexibility existed. This is illustrated in the 2025-26 budget report (see Page 11, figure 30). However, following the provincial government’s tuition cut in 2019-2020 and the seven-year freeze that followed, our revenues did not increase over this period, creating a growing structural deficit for the University. It has been further compounded in recent years by enrolment decline and demographic shifts.
This situation is not unique to Brock. To manage this structural deficit, Brock has gone through years of mitigation efforts. Examples of what these efforts entailed were shared as a part of the 2025-26 budget planning process.
In total over the past 10 years, Brock has mitigated more than $200 million in operating expenses through across-the-board cuts, reductions in capital expenditures and varying levels of compensation restraint for employee groups.
Areas such as Information Technology Services, University Marketing and Communications, Brock International and recruitment require investment if we’re going to work towards sustainable enrolment.
As these efforts have continued, we’ve had to carefully examine our core operations to work towards fiscal sustainability. The new budget and planning process we launched last year has helped us expand consultation and planning. Moving the process earlier in the year has also given us some much-needed breathing room to carefully weigh options and impact.
For 2026-27, initial deficit estimates projected a $22.3-million budget shortfall (Planning, Priorities and Budget Advisory Committee – October 9, 2025); however, that number grew to approximately $30 million as we identified critical areas of investment such as student scholarships, recruitment and facilities renewal, to name a few. With the recent government investment, our short-term fiscal sustainability has improved considerably.
What we’re doing
One of the efforts underway focuses on reimagining Brock with a potential new degree architecture. Future sustainability for the University is not possible through reductions alone. We will need to reimagine ourselves and grow as an institution. A new degree architecture is one part of that, as we work to align our programs to student interest in customizable, flexible learning opportunities.
Creating pathways and partnerships with other institutions is another area of opportunity, especially with the college sector. For example, 2+2 arrangements allow students to complete a degree by studying for two years in college and two in university. We are seeing these become a significant driver of enrolment at some of our peer institutions. What is key to these is that students who come to us get full credit for their prior studies.
Finally, by creating a robust Spring/Summer term so that the University is fully operational 12 months of the year, will allow students further flexibility as they may spread their study over three terms. This will have a significant revenue impact. I would particularly like to thank those who participated in our Senate Spring Summer open session on Feb. 10, who provided ideas and suggestions about how we might move to a viable trimester term.
As always, any changes to our academic programming at Brock University will be accomplished through the work of Senate. I look forward to these conversations.
Where we’re headed
We must continue to be mindful of the demands on the University budget as any additional cost that cannot be offset with growth in revenue will require decisions to reallocate resources away from other activities. The new funding from the government will require growth in areas they have identified as a priority — which we know includes programs such as nursing, teacher education and STEM-related fields, among others.
At the core of all these decisions will be the principle that resources follow students.
In the coming weeks, we’ll be working through what the government’s new funding model and updated tuition framework mean for Brock. What we know currently is that the future is hopeful.
I am planning to share more updates as the budget develops, leading up to this year’s Community Information Session, which has been scheduled for the afternoon of Thursday, April 9. We’ll share more information about the format soon. For now, please mark April 9 in your calendar.
In addition, we will offer one-hour workshops for those of you who are interested in learning more about the University’s budget process. More information about these workshops, including sign-up details, will also be shared soon.
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Thank you, everyone, for your care and thoughtfulness. I am confident in our community’s ability and willingness to chart an exciting and sustainable path forward for Brock.
Looking forward,
Arja Vainio-Mattila
Provost and Vice-President, Academic
Appointment of Sheila Cote-Meek as Interim Vice-Provost, Indigenous Engagement
Sheila Cote-Meek has been appointed Interim Vice-Provost, Indigenous Engagement effective February 26, 2026.
Dr. Cote-Meek is Anishinaabe from the Teme-Augama Anishnabek. She currently serves as Special Advisor in the Office of the Provost and holds an appointment as Full Professor in Indigenous Educational Studies in the Faculty of Education. Professor Cote-Meek has served as the Director, Indigenous Educational Studies since joining Brock in August 2023.
With over 30 years experience in higher education Dr. Cote-Meek’s academic experience also includes serving as the inaugural Vice-President, Equity, People and Culture at York University and the inaugural Associate Vice-President, Academic and Indigenous at Laurentian.
Sheila holds a PhD from OISE of the University of Toronto, an MBA and BScN from Laurentian University.