Budget 2026 reactions: Small wins, but larger concerns

Post-secondary institutions (PSI) and students have been reacting to the Government of Alberta’s Budget 2026.

The budget projects an overall deficit of $9.4 billion. Finance minister Nate Horner said that PSIs did well, “all things considered.”

Of the $6.5 billion in operating expenses managed by PSIs, the province will pay $2.7 billion. The other 58 per cent, or $3.8 billion, will have to be covered through other sources of revenue, like tuition.

The University of Alberta received a small increase of $13.1 million to its 2025–26 and 2026–27 operating grant. That brings the total operating funding for the U of A to $449 million.

Flanagan says U of A will still go ahead with tuition increases

The Gateway spoke to Bill Flanagan, president and vice-chancellor of the U of A, about the Budget 2026. 

Flanagan described the budget as generally positive for the U of A.

“It’s a modest increase … but it’s welcome nonetheless,” Flanagan said.

The most notable increase was to the operating grant. Flanagan emphasized that it was the first time in his six years as president that he has seen an increase.

“What it really means is we can avoid expenditure reductions that we other would have had to put in place to cover the increased cost,” Flanagan said.

However, he noted the increase only covers a fraction of the increased costs the U of A faces.

He also noted the Targeted Enrolment Expansion (TEE) funding, which this budget allocated $148 million over three years to. 

“We do anticipate growing to 60,000 students in the next decade to accommodate the young demographics in Alberta,” he said.

Despite the increase, the U of A still plans to go ahead with tuition increases.

“We do need to proceed with the tuition increases because of the financial pressures on the university. Inflation and all of the various financial pressures remain in place.”

Not increasing tuition would mean further cuts to the U of A’s programs, Flanagan said.

Flanagan also spoke about the budget’s reduced funding for student loan disbursements and financial aid programs.

Budget 2026 allocates $886.9 million for student loan disbursements. This is down by about 10.4 per cent from Budget 2025.

“In all of our conversations with government, we’re always talking about the importance to make sure that we’re providing all of the assistance we can to students with financial need.”

The Gateway asked Flanagan about the recommendations from the Mintz Panel, which examined post-secondary funding and governance in Alberta.

He said it was too early for the U of A to expect major changes in this year’s budget because the panel only released its report a few months earlier.

Flanagan also said in the long-term, the university is exploring diversifying its revenue sources through auxiliary services, commercialization of research, and university-owned land.

Increase welcome, but staff are still reeling from previous cuts, Kristine Smitka says

Vice-president of the Association of Academic Staff at the U of A (AASUA), Kristine Smitka, said that initially, she was happy to see investment in kindergarten to grade 12 education. However, she was “disappointed to see those investments don’t thread through to post-secondary education.”

“There’s really a missing link here. If we want to prepare the province for the future and really rise to the challenges of tomorrow, we need to have our eyes on post-secondary as well.”

The $13.1 million increase to the U of A’s operating grant is welcome. However, Smitka said AASUA is still reeling from previous cuts. 

“This year is not a bad news budget, but I feel like the budget needs to be understood within these decades long history to understand really what the impacts … might be on the ground for students and for the university.”

Part of that context is that PSIs are covering more of the operating costs because the provincial government is providing less funding.

“We’re looking at decades of disinvestment from post-secondary education, which is really shifting what was predominantly a public resource into a private resource.”

Students in particular are being asked to pay more, Smitka noted. In light of the cuts to student loan disbursements, Smitka’s concerned about what that will mean for her students. 

She said she already encounters a lot of students who are juggling school with multiple jobs to keep up with the cost-of-living and tuition. Sometimes, students have to put their jobs first.

“As an educator, that’s the last thing you want to see. It doesn’t become a reflection of the capabilities of the student, but rather there are all of these systemic disadvantages that then play out in the classroom.”

She’s worried those inequities will get worse if less students are able to access financial aid.

That also puts more work on teaching staff to accommodate students’ circumstances if they have to miss a class or presentation to work.

“We want to see the greatest diversity of students in the classroom as possible, but we also need some help managing the workload that comes with this,” Smitka said.

Affordability still a major issue, Pedro Almeida says

The Gateway spoke with Pedro Almeida, president of the U of A Students’ Union (UASU).

Almeida said that the budget produced mixed reactions.

Similar to Flanagan, Almeida was also happy to see the increase to the U of A’s operating grant. Almeida said that the UASU had spent much of the year advocating for increased funding for universities, including submitting a joint budget proposal with other student associations through the Alberta Students’ Executive Council (ASEC). 

Almeida said he was also happy to see the three-year commitment to the Alberta Youth Employment Incentive. 

However, Almeida said he was concerned about the reduction in student loan disbursements.

He also emphasized that affordability is a major issue for students, and was hoping that the U of A would reconsider the tuition increases, given the increase to the operating grant.

Almeida also stated that there were aspects of the Mintz panel that the UASU had hoped to see in this budget. However, he also said that he understood the large nature of the changes would take time to implement.

Almeida maintains that the new funding changes the financial assumptions in the university’s budget plan, and that the budget should be reassessed before final decisions are made.

“We are short-changing the future,” David Eggen says

David Eggen is the member of the legislative assembly (MLA) for Edmonton-North West and the Alberta New Democratic Party’s (NDP) critic for advanced education.

He said that this budget is essentially a $172 million cut for post-secondary, when taking inflation and population growth into account. Eggen noted that this is the seventh year funding has essentially been been a cut.

“Investment in post-secondary education has exponential returns to our economy, to quality of life for Albertans, and to help diversify the economy,” Eggen said. “All of those things are extremely valuable, and you need to achieve that by investing in post-secondary. And we just don’t see it.”

He said that young people need a place to get trained so they can move ahead in life. 

By ignoring post-secondary education, “we are literally short-changing the future. Our best asset we have is not oil in the ground — it’s the people who live here, especially young people.”

Even in the face of a $9.4 billion deficit, Eggen said post-secondary investments should be high on the government’s priority list. 

“I would include it with our economic plan for the future of this province,” he said. “We need to look past [oil prices] and plan for the future and make sure our post-secondaries are strong.”

He emphasized that Alberta’s PSIs are still strong, but won’t be for long if the government doesn’t invest in them.

Without investments, “they have to increase tuition, they have to increase fees again. They have to make larger class sizes. They cannot build new positions for the growing population of Edmonton and Alberta.”

“We can do better. Of course we can.”