The University of Lethbridge Faculty Association would like to express its profound disappointment in the UCP government’s continuing failure to support post-secondary education.
Post-Secondary Education is a crucial factor in our province’s post-pandemic economic recovery. The University of Lethbridge is the 2nd largest employer in Lethbridge and Lethbridge College is the 5th largest. With 750 Post-Secondary workers already laid off across the Province, additional cuts mean fewer customers for our city’s businesses and services and less money circulating in the Lethbridge economy.
By forcing our colleges and universities to charge more for fewer services, we make it difficult to attract new students to the Lethbridge area, and we end up encouraging our own children to go elsewhere if they want to receive the kind of quality education they used to be able to get right here, in Southern Alberta. By attempting to tie future funding to metrics and measures that have failed time-and-time-again in other countries and provinces, moreover, the UCP government will only ensure that its short-sighted approach continues to damage the quality of Alberta’s colleges and universities for years to come.
In the 1960s, the people of Lethbridge marched in the streets to demand that the provincial government create a new university in Lethbridge, to serve the needs of our community. We knew then, as we know now, that the future of Lethbridge and the surrounding counties depends on access to high quality post-secondary education.
It is time to put an end to these reckless and ideologically driven attacks on one of the most important drivers of economic diversification and growth in our province.