Information Webinar: Student Supports

Supports Under Strain

In late February 2025 Olds College announced it would halt new admissions for the fall term in five programmes, citing an anticipated $5.1 million shortfall in tuition revenue for the 2025-26 budget year. The immediate cause was lower international enrolment after Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada tightened study-permit caps; the deeper one was years of stagnant or reduced provincial operating grants that smaller rural colleges had offset by recruiting full-fee international students.

The affected programmes—Hospitality & Tourism Management (certificate, diploma and post-diploma), Craft Beverage & Brewery Operations, Agriculture Technology Integration, and certain Business Management cohorts—will continue teaching out current students, but new domestic or international applicants are shut out. This is not closure; it is retrenchment. Budget reviews running through March and April 2025 will examine every line item, including the very supports the March 2026 information session exists to explain.

Alberta's wider context magnifies the pressure. The Expert Panel on Post-Secondary Institution Funding and Alberta’s Competitiveness, chaired by economist Jack Mintz, delivered its final report in October 2025 with 11 recommendations: a new formula weighting enrolment and outcomes, tuition flexibility for incoming cohorts while protecting continuing students, and a pivot toward non-repayable grants over loans. The provincial government is reviewing these ahead of 2026-27 budget decisions. Meanwhile federal Budget 2025 signalled still tighter international-permit limits for 2026, extending the revenue shock.

For an applied-science college whose programmes feed Alberta’s agriculture, energy and rural economies, the stakes are concrete. Every retained student who graduates improves completion metrics that could influence future provincial allocations; every dropout compounds the shortfall. Mental-health services, Indigenous student supports and the Students’ Association are not extras—they are retention tools at a moment when larger classes, fewer electives and economic anxiety are already testing resilience. The non-obvious trade-off is that preserving or even expanding these services may be the cheapest way to protect revenue and reputation while the sector awaits clarity on performance funding and institutional autonomy.