Fall update on Concordia’s budget

Dear Concordians,

On October 30, the Board of Governors approved the university’s audited financial statements for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024-25. With the previous year now officially closed, it is a good moment to update our community on where things stand and our plans for addressing Concordia’s ongoing budgetary challenges.

Staying the course with our recovery plan

The FY2024-25 financial statements confirm Concordia has met its deficit target, as mandated by our Board- and government-approved recovery plan (plan de redressement), for the third consecutive year.

We were successful on this front primarily thanks to sacrifices made by our community, prudent fiscal management, and process innovations across our campuses. In parallel, the university realized some new and increased revenues. Our investment portfolios benefitted from favourable market conditions to generate robust returns. We were also able to increase revenues from ancillary services. But, given the uncertainty of the global economy, we can’t count on similar results going forward.

New registrations rise, revenues fall

Now that we have updated enrolment numbers, it is clear the financial picture for FY2025-26 is framed by a paradox: new registrations are up, but the revenue associated with those registrations is falling.

Thanks to the hard work of our faculties and programs, the total number of new registrations grew by 7.1 per cent in comparison with last year. This was almost exclusively driven by growth in new undergraduate and graduate registrations from Quebec and, to a lesser degree, the rest of Canada (ROC).

Despite this positive development, our total registrations in 2025 remain well below 2023 levels. Furthermore, because we experienced two consecutive years of decline in new registrations, we are still struggling with — and unable to make up for — the associated losses of revenue stemming from those smaller cohorts.

The major factors negatively affecting our registrations are the restrictive provincial and federal measures that have precipitated the plummeting of the international student population in Quebec and Canada. At Concordia, applications from international students fell by almost 40 per cent and registrations by nearly 23 per cent this year compared to 2024. And 2024 had already brought a drop in international numbers versus 2023.

Adding to this challenge is the new funding formula Quebec implemented in 2024-25, which clawed back most of the tuition we previously received from international students, reducing our revenues by roughly $6,000 per student, per year. While we are thrilled to see the growth in new Quebec and ROC student registrations, domestic recruitment alone cannot offset the magnitude of the losses we are experiencing due to the combined effect of restrictive immigration policies and the change to the funding formula.

The situation is not unique to Concordia; it is being felt across the Quebec network. But the challenge is especially acute for Concordia, as a recent report by the global ratings agency Moody’s pointed out. According to their analysis, Quebec is “the most restrictive province in Canada for international students” and that the policy changes introduced by government, “disproportionally impact the two largest anglophone universities in the province, McGill University and Concordia University, by reducing their price competitiveness and lowering revenue growth.”

New and augmented cost-saving measures

As you can anticipate and are likely experiencing, we have no choice but to continue the cost-reduction measures already in place. Unfortunately, because of the continuing decline in our revenues, we need to make further compressions during the remainder of this fiscal year to meet the deficit target of $31.1 million for FY2025-26 agreed to by our Board and in conformity with the plan de redressement.

Therefore, in addition to the restrictions we have placed on hiring and the Voluntary Retirement Program (VRP) for staff, the university will be introducing several new cost-saving measures for FY2026-27. Initial steps in the academic sector include:

• A Voluntary Retirement Program for faculty
• Cancelling the annual call for limited-term appointments
• Deferring new approved sabbatical applications by one year

These are extraordinarily difficult measures to take, and we do not implement them lightly. We know they directly affect the personal and professional aspirations of some faculty members. They will also have consequences for how departments deliver programs across the university. To date, we have done everything possible to limit cuts to teaching and research. But the gravity of our deficit situation is such that we now cannot avoid taking additional measures to preserve our future sustainability and autonomy.

In addition, we are considering multiple new and expanded actions in the non-academic sector, some of which will unavoidably have consequences for teaching and research. These include:

• Reducing the number of casual employees
• Limiting, suspending or reducing operating hours for some services
• Optimizing the use of existing spaces
• Disposing of surplus and high-maintenance real estate
• Reviewing IT structures, resources and software licenses
• Leveraging AI to automate repetitive, high-volume tasks
• Introducing defined contribution pension plans for new employees

The situation we face is serious. We will all be affected directly and indirectly. We will all have to make choices in the immediate term that we would prefer not to make. As an example, Concordia’s senior leadership team, including myself, have agreed to freeze our salaries and forego any increases once again this fiscal year.

Prioritizing your input

In the past, one of the ways we have communicated with the community about our financial situation is through town halls and budget conversations led by the chief financial officer and provost. However, in our experience, those conversations didn’t reach as wide an audience as we would have hoped.

Therefore, in the coming weeks, we are taking a different approach to engage our community on this topic. Faye Diamantoudi, our interim provost and vice-president, Academic, will visit all departments with the faculty deans to share budget perspectives, including with respect to potential future revenue generation opportunities, but also to hear directly from faculty and staff. At the same time, I, together with CFO Denis Cossette, will meet all non-academic units to share information, solicit feedback and ask for advice on our budget situation. We are taking this approach because we want to reach as many members of our community as possible. Our budget reality is complex and challenging. It affects all of us, and we need your input.

In the meantime, we have created a wide-ranging Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) webpage, which is accessible to faculty and staff via Carrefour. Concordians can continue to submit questions for responses in the FAQs through budget.conversations@concordia.ca.

We have to play the cards we’re dealt

I think we can all agree that, for the most part, the budget situation in which Concordia finds itself is not of our own making. Had the government not changed the funding formula for international students and if we had the same number — not an increase, just the same number — of international students now as we had in 2023, Concordia would be running a modest surplus this year.

But that is not our reality. Instead, our cumulative registration and the associated revenues have worsened over the past three years. Our situation is enormously frustrating, but at this point it doesn’t matter whether the challenges we face are unfair. To ensure the future sustainability of the university, we must focus on limiting our deficit exposure.

I recognize we have all made sacrifices, and I am grateful to all of you for that. The commitment of our community has been remarkable in enabling us to meet our deficit targets while continuing to do our utmost to deliver excellence in education and research. I am extremely proud of what we have accomplished and how the university has consistently risen to meet our daunting challenges.

But I am under no illusions, and neither should you be. So far, we have carried out the most obvious economies, making the easier of difficult choices. Inevitably, we have reached the point where harder decisions and more forthright actions lie ahead.

Thank you for all you have committed to supporting the university in this moment of crisis. It’s hardly the way any of us hoped to celebrate our 50th anniversary. The journey ahead is not going to be easy. But it’s a journey we must make, especially if we want the next chapter of Concordia’s history to be even grander and more ambitious than what we have accomplished to date.

Graham Carr
President and Vice-Chancellor