After a one day hiatus, we’re back to the topic of scenario planning.  You’ll recall that on Wednesday, I showed some pretty pessimistic projections for what could happen to university financing in Quebec and Ontario.  Today, I have some better news for people in seven of the eight other provinces: your futures aren’t nearly so disastrous.

When scenario-planning at the provincial level, four things matter:

1)      The forecast for nominal GDP.  Over the long-run, government budgets tend to remain pretty stable with respect to the size of the economy.  And within the budget, the share to any given field of expenditure – with the signal exception of health – stays pretty constant, too.  So, a rough rule of thumb for what’s going to happen to government income is: it’s going to stay in-line with projected nominal GDP growth.  For this reason, it’s much better to be a university in a province like Alberta, where average nominal GDP growth over the period 2014-2016 is expected to be about 5.5%, than it is to be Memorial in Newfoundland, where the projected figure is just 2%.  In most provinces, though, the outlook is between 3 and 4%.

2)      Deficits. The only reason growth might not be equal to nominal GDP growth is if there’s a deficit to get rid of.  Here, there’s good news: BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland are essentially deficit-free.  Universities in other provinces are going to find the going somewhat tougher.

3)      The percentage of total income coming from fees.  In all provinces, nominal increases in fee income is outstripping increases in GDP; in other words: fees are becoming more important everywhere.  Obviously, this is better news for provinces that are already relatively fee-dependent than for those that are not; a 5% increase in fee income means a lot more in Nova Scotia (where fees make up almost half of all income) than in Newfoundland (where they make up about 15% of income).  In this sense, the Maritime provinces and BC are in better shape than the rest of the country.

4)      Whether salary mass is rising faster than total income.  If so, you’re in deep trouble.  It’s not true in most provinces; but it’s clearly been the case both in Alberta and Newfoundland over the past few years.

If we simply multiply out expected increases in nominal GDP, and assume that current trends for tuition revenue growth remain stable, we get the following projections for income:

Figure 1: Projected Real Annual Operating Income Increases, Based on Stable Increases in Tuition Revenue and Government Revenue Increases Based on Nominal GDP

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(*indicates a province with a significant budget deficit, meaning institutional income will likely be lower than indicated)

Alberta looks set for a good few years, with real income increases of 4.5% or more, while Saskatchewan and BC look set for annual increases of 3%, or so.  Manitoba and the Maritimes are, in theory, set for increases of 2-3%, but given that all four provinces are carrying deficits the strong likelihood is that their governments will not increase their budgets at the same pace as nominal GDP, and so actual results will be somewhat smaller.  Newfoundland, where projected economic growth is shaky, and the university has little in the way of tuition income to fall back on, looks in deep trouble.

Figure 2 shows what happens if current rates of salary growth are subtracted from growth rates in income.  Provinces with positive numbers can – assuming their income numbers hold up – afford current rates of salary growth, while provinces with negative numbers cannot.  Nova Scotia and New Brunswick appear to have the most sustainable numbers, but recall that both their governments have deficits to eliminate, so in fact their position is likely not nearly as good as this graph makes it seem.  Prince Edward Island and Manitoba are headed for trouble, and Newfoundland’s prospects resemble the Titanic.

Figure 2: Difference Between Annual Projected Percentage Rate of Operating Budget Growth and Current Annual Percentage Rates of Salary Mass Growth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(*indicates a province with a significant budget deficit, meaning institutional income will likely be lower than indicated)

To sum up:

i)        Generally it’s better to be in the west than the east

ii)       Memorial University in Newfoundland is in for one heck of a shock pretty soon.

iii)     Most provinces appear to have relatively stable finances if you assume continued growth in tuition revenue, which implies continued international student numbers.  It’s not at all clear how stable an assumption that is.

We’ll wrap-up this topic on Monday, so stay tuned.