Opinion: Canada’s post-secondary system is hitting a breaking point

With new global attraction strategies, Canada is trying to draw talent from abroad but neglecting the systems that nurture our own youth.

B.C.’s institutions, and their counterparts across the country, are confronting a financial reckoning more than a decade in the making.

What comes next may reshape how Canadians learn, work and access opportunities for decades.

How we got here

The seeds of today’s crisis were planted as far back as 2011, when the federal government signalled a bold new direction. Economic plan 2011 called for a comprehensive International education strategy. This direction was amplified in 2013 when the global markets plan identified international education as one of 22 priority sectors where Canada held a competitive advantage.

When the federal government launched Canada’s international education strategy shortly afterward, it framed education explicitly as an engine of economic growth, global engagement and talent attraction. The strategy was described as a blueprint to “make Canada a world leader in international education” and a pathway to future prosperity, built collaboratively with provinces, institutions, non-government organizations and the private sector.

This policy shift coincided with long-term stagnation in provincial operating grants. As public investment significantly fell behind rising costs, institutions filled the gap by expanding international enrolment and tuition-driven programs. For a decade, this model kept campuses afloat and also made them deeply vulnerable.

A retracting system in 2025

That vulnerability is now fully exposed. Federal caps on study permits and static funding have created what may be described as a retracting product environment. Institutions are cutting programs, freezing hiring, laying off staff and reducing services. B.C.’s “sector-wide sustainability review” that is being led by Don Avison and is due March 15, 2026, will reflect on what universities and colleges have warned for years: the system is structurally unsustainable.

We’re witnessing the limits of running public institutions on private revenue streams and it’s students, faculty and communities who feel the consequences.

The disruption ahead: innovation under pressure

Periods of contraction often generate transformative ideas. In 2026-27, disruptive innovation is likely to reshape Canada’s post-secondary landscape in several profound ways:

• Unbundled, modular learning: Traditional degrees are increasingly giving way to stackable micro-credentials and competency-based pathways. Students will assemble individualized “skills maps,” moving across institutions and work environments with greater fluidity. This approach responds to affordability pressures and the needs of working learners.

• Digital and platform partnerships: Institutions will deepen collaborations with ed-tech firms, global partners and private training providers. These partnerships will support hybrid delivery, shared online learning environments and co-designed curriculum, allowing institutions to expand offerings while containing costs.

• AI-enhanced teaching and student support: Artificial intelligence will transform the learner experience through automated tutoring, feedback systems, adaptive pathways and predictive analytics. The potential is enormous, but institutions will need strong governance frameworks to manage risks around integrity, equity, privacy and transparency, and investment into faculty professional development.

• Industry-integrated education: Employers are becoming co-creators, sometimes co-deliverers, of curriculum. Work-integrated learning, applied research partnerships and employer-designed modules will expand rapidly as labour-force demands intensify.

• Consolidation and shared services: In B.C. especially, institutions may need to share registration systems, merge programs or create regional delivery alliances to reduce duplication and ensure access in rural and remote communities.

• Lifelong learning as the core model: With demographic decline shrinking the traditional student population, institutions will increasingly rely on mid-career upskilling, newcomer credentialing pathways and short-cycle training for workers displaced by technology. Lifelong learning isn’t a side offering, it’s becoming the central business model.

A choice point for Canada

Innovation is inevitable, by design or by crisis. The question is who will lead: government, institutions, industry or forces beyond our control.

Canada can stabilize and reimagine higher education by treating it as a public asset, not a volatile revenue stream. Ten years ago, federal strategy set its sights on attracting global talent. Today, that ambition takes a different form: shutting out smaller public institutions that lack the credentials to chase research grants yet still uphold the mission of serving our youth and communities.

If we truly value talent, we must show equal ambition by investing in our own youth and the public systems that support them. With coherent policy, funding and guardrails, Canada can build a more accessible, resilient, future-ready system. Without them, disruption will deepen inequities and hasten decline.

In 2026-27, the choices we make will determine whether our post-secondary system can recover from its current crisis to become a model of innovation or deepen into failure. The urgency is real, not only for institutions but for our youth, whose future depend on the strength of the system we sustain.

Natasha Mrkic-Subotic is a faculty member and the department chairperson of the school of business at Capilano University.

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