Brock University’s administration has been nothing short of shameful in the way that they’ve handled budgetary issues amidst Premier Doug Ford’s underfunding. The actions of Brock’s administration have negatively affected the student experience and brought the merits of Brock University’s education into question.
It is no secret that the Ford government has been underfunding university education for the past decade. Ontario has amongst the lowest levels of per capita funding for university students in the country.
This of course would necessitate some form of cuts at the university level, but what Brock chose to do is reprehensible.
Brock’s administration chose to begin cutting frontline staff, including administrative assistants, academic coordinators and academic advisors, all of whom provide services that are essential to students and help make the university more than a diploma mill.
The choice to begin cuts with frontline staff is even more egregious when one looks at the publicly available data on the growth of Brock’s administrative team.
From 2012 to 2026, Brock hired nine extra administrative staff members including two new Vice-Presidents of Research; an Associate of Vice-President of People and Culture; Vice-Provost and AVP of Academic and Deputy Provost; a Vice President of External; AVP of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion; and two Vice-Presidents of Administration.
This growth is in comparison to relatively stagnant student growth, with 18,688 students enrolled in 2012 versus 18,912 students enrolled in 2026. When adjusted for inflation, students were paying 130.34 for administration in 2012, versus 198.73 in 2026.
This represents an administrative operating cost of $2,435,762.44 in 2012 versus $3,758,353.53 currently.
It is unclear why Brock needed to expand its administrative staff by such a significant amount, especially considering what these roles actually do for students in their day-to-day lives.
Yet, cuts are coming at the frontline where students are most affected. As a student, I am under threat of losing my academic advisor. Brock should know that my academic advisor, like that of many other Brock students, has played a clear and invaluable role in my academic experience at this university.
My academic advisor was one of the first people who I got to know at this institution, and it’s madness that Brock’s administration seems to think that students won’t notice the degredation of their university experience, shifting from an experience focused on personal growth, education and networking, to a diploma mill that downloads as many services as possible onto the student.
Given publicly available data and the fact that Brock University chose to rely on an unreleased report from the highly paid outside consulting firm, KPMG, to justify their decision simply does not add up.
If the university cared about their reputation amongst students and their overall image, they would’ve done the right thing: consolidating and laying off the grossly bloated VP administrative suite.
Instead, Brock chose to pass the buck, asking students to give up even more of their limited services.
The cherry on top is that the Ontario government has taken to gutting OSAP. The $6.4 billion funding announcement that Brock will surely put to good use was funded by the removal of 700 million a year from OSAP and flipping the grant and loan caps.
Though Brock has money now, they have not signaled a walk back of these cuts, leaving students musing over the mockery that the administration has made of the school and its students.