Dalhousie University releases 2025-26 budget, announces $20.6M deficit

The Dalhousie University sign is pictured. (Stephanie Tsicos/CTV News Atlantic)

Dalhousie University released its 2025-26 Operating Budget Report, announcing a $20.6 million deficit, as well as cuts to all faculties and tuition increases for some international students.

In the report, the university says it’s facing a challenging year ahead as a decline in enrolment growth has had a long-term impact on revenue.

The university says it’s taking a multi-year approach and leveraging initiative focused on enrolment growth, increased retention and cost reduction in hopes of achieving a balanced budget by 2027-28.

The 2025-26 Operating Budget Report represents a total of 70 per cent of the university’s financial activity including the operating, endowment, and ancillary funds. The remaining 30 per cent relates to capital, research, and special purpose accounts which are not available to support day-to-day operations, so the university says it is not included in the report.

Cuts to faculties and units’ budgets

According to the report, the university is working to cut annual operating expenditures by $26.7 million over the next three years.

To meet that target, the budget requires all faculties and units to reduce their budgets by one per cent.

While compensation increases were previously accounted for in the overall university budget, the new report states faculties and units will be expected to absorb the compensation increases outlined in the collective agreements for faculty and staff in their own budget.

Total costs for absorbing the compensation increases are expected to amount to around four per cent – or $50 million – over three years. This would mean in the coming year faculties and units need to plan for a five per cent budget reduction. Combined with the cuts to annual operating expenditures, overspending will be reduced by around $75 million by 2027-28, according to the university.

Tuition costs rising for some

The university signed a bilateral agreement with the province on April 24 which targets two points of interest with respect to the university’s operating budget.

One of those being tuition fees for all Nova Scotian undergraduate students be frozen at current rates for the next two years. The university adds it will not increase tuition for other Canadian students pursuing an undergraduate degree.

“The impact of this change on the original budget plan is a reduction in tuition revenues of approximately $2.4 million,” read the report, adding for 2026-27 Canadian students outside Nova Scotia will be put through the annual planning process.

For new or returning international undergrads who are not part of the 2023-24 or 2024-25 tuition guarantee pricing model, they will see an increase of around 6.7 per cent. International graduate students taking part in non-thesis programs will pay 7.2 per cent more, and 9.2 per cent more for thesis-based programs.

The other half of the agreement provides a two per cent increase in the university’s government grant for the next two years, which the university says is consistent with the budget plan released in February.

The report also says the university will be working with faculties to review the capacity of programs to help identify opportunities for growth in terms of enrolment, as well as a focus on student retention.

“This Operating Budget Plan outlines what we need to do, financially, to be responsible stewards of our resources as we aim to return to a balanced operating budget in the next three years,” said Kim Brooks, Dalhousie University’s president and vice-chancellor, in the budget report.

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