Nous Group is an Australian Consulting Firm that positions itself as guiding organizations “from strategy and design through to transformational change”.¹ The concept of transformational change is a terminology that appears in the language of universities that have engaged Nous. The firm has worked in Australia, Canada and the UK. They advise universities to cut staff and programs, compromising their core mission, by tracking dubious “benchmarks” for performance evaluation with a narrow purpose of budget efficiency.²

Canada is fertile ground for Nous Group, as universities have increasingly relied on international student enrollments to offset declining government funding. The universities set high – and steadily rising – tuition fees for international students to remain financially stable. However, in 2024, the federal Liberal government imposed a cap on the number of international students, with limits determined jointly by the provincial and federal governments.³ Universities in provinces governed by Conservatives were especially susceptible, as the provincial governments favoured reducing higher education funding while enforcing tuition freezes to project an image of being “for the people”.^4,5,6,7 Yet, these financial crises were purely manufactured, as universities continued to post surpluses, invest in new infrastructure, and expand their already bloated executive ranks.

Nous strategies involve leveraging Cubane Consulting’s UniForum platform to drive “efficiencies” and “effectiveness” in university services. Nous and Cubane merged to form Nous Cubane in 2021.⁸ Through UniForum, they collect data on individual and unit-level activity and cost, alongside service satisfaction and effectiveness surveys, to identify areas deemed inefficient. Based on these findings, Nous “sells” their transformational change model to university leadership, presenting it as a solution to financial “crisis”. In practice this approach frequently results in deep cuts to services labeled inefficient – effectively starving the poor.^9,10

Nous at Dalhousie University

Dalhousie University embarked on a UniForum exercise in 2023, where staff and faculty first learned about UniForum.⁹ Similar to other universities, there is significant secrecy in the use of Nous’ consultancy services. Although there is no public admission of their use of Nous’ services outside of UniForum, their actions follow a similar course to the universities that have contracted Nous.¹⁰ Dalhousie launched a campaign for transformational change in April 2024.¹¹

Further proof of their use of Nous/Cubane services was revealed in a recent FOIPOP request, which indicated that between 2022-May 2025 Dalhousie spent $1.47 million on Nous/Cubane with additional costs that could not be disclosed because “at least one third-party has requested a review of our decision regarding all of the remaining records which are responsive to [the] request. Because of the pending review Dalhousie is unable to provide any access to the remaining records at this time.” This may mean that Dalhousie has spent many more millions on Nous/Cubane consultancy.¹²

The senior administration at Dalhousie University has been warning of financial troubles since 2020, initially citing COVID-related impacts and rising inflation as reasons for predicted deficits and the need to reduce faculty salary costs. In reality, the university’s operating budget posted surpluses year after year, totaling $512 million from 2014 to 2025.¹³

The 2025-2026 fiscal year brought a sharp decline in international student enrolment due to federal government policy changes, compounded by provincial tuition freezes and housing holdbacks. The administration projected a $17 million operating deficit. However, a closer analysis revealed significant spending shifts: an expanding capital budget for new buildings – including funds for a new ice rink including some donor contributions – and a dramatic increase in the Strategic Fund allocation within the operating budget, which jumped from $2-$5 million in previous years to an outrageous $15 million annually for three years.¹⁴ Dalhousie University also redirected $14.5 million in investment revenues to the capital fund and withdrew $3 million out of operational reserves.¹⁵ All of this points to the manufacturing of a financial crisis to justify deep cuts across the university at the expense of students and the academic mission.

The manufactured financial crisis allowed the university to implement a hiring freeze. Most remarkably, the senior administration enforced a historic month-long lockout of its faculty from August 20th to September 18th, where Dalhousie University became the first U15 university to lockout its faculty, and the first organization in Canadian labour history to lockout its staff while they were voting on the latest offer.^16,17,18 The lockout generated $10 million in additional revenue to Dalhousie, but sparked significant justifiable outrage from students, faculty and the community that included a petition for Dalhousie president, Kim Brooks, to resign and a failed attempt to get a reduction in tuition fees.^19,20,21

Dalhousie University embarked on restructuring the university armed with the notion that the University is in financial dire straits. This is being done through layoff and program closures. Since the lockout, the Faculty of Engineering laid off 8 staff despite an already thin staff complement with no input from faculty and students.^22,23 Similar layoffs have been seen in other units as well. They have also embarked on suspension of academic programs including Russian studies²⁴ and Internetworking in Engineering.²⁵

Most troubling is the Nova Scotia government’s mandated program reviews.^26,27 These program reviews circumvent typical Senate approvals citing that they are not related to the academic mission but rather financial decisions,²⁵ which moves away from collegial governance as has been seen at other universities. These provincially mandated reviews aim to close programs with low labour market demand thus transitioning a research intensive university to a trade school model. Other Nous infiltrated universities have documented similar approaches.²⁸

In response to these troubling decisions at Dalhousie University, a faculty led organization was created on September 22, 2025 called Coalition for Collegial Governance, CoCoGov, that aims to expose these harmful decisions and move the university back to Collegial Governance.²⁹

Summary and Conclusion

Canadian policies both at the federal and provincial level have made Canadian universities susceptible to foreign vulture consultancies. This is leading to a decline of academic prowess of our universities, discontent among faculty and students, and stretched and stressed staff. The template typically follows this structure:

1. Manufacture a financial crisis
2. Invest heavily in Capital budgets thus starving the operating budget
3. Reduce faculty numbers through hiring freezes and attrition
4. Reduce staff numbers through layoffs and program mergers
5. Reduce the total number of programs by circumventing collegial governance mechanism of Senate approval

References

Footnotes

1. Nous Group. “Why Nous. Our promise: a bigger idea of success”. ↩

2. Joseph Brean. “How to run a university in Canada? Outsource it to this management consulting firm: Nous Group’s strategies for getting out if the red has been adopted by many major schools. Critics call it the corporatization of higher education”. National Post. Aug 28, 2025. ↩

3. Jessica Wong. “International student visas for Canada plummet: Federal government introduced cap on international student visas in 2024.” CBC News. Sep 4, 2025. ↩

4. Michael Groman. “New university funding deals include tuition freeze for Nava Scotia students”. CBC News. Apr 23, 2025. ↩

5. Kristin Rushowy. “Ontario to revamp college and university funding as early as next spring – and lifting tuition freeze may be on table”. Toronto Star. Jul 18, 2025. ↩

6. Ontario Government. “Ontario extends freeze on college and university tuition: Province’s action provides students and families with ongoing financial relief”. Ontario Newsroom. Mar 23, 2022. ↩

7. Mrinali Anchan. “Alberta caps tuition hikes for post-secondary students starting in 2024-25: U of A president says limiting tuition increases could jeopardize institution finances”. CBC News. Feb 16, 2023. ↩

8. Nous Group. Nous Group acquires Cubane Consulting to create leading global higher education services business. Apr 29, 2021. ↩

9. Dalhousie University. “Uniforum”. ↩ ↩²

10. Ren Thomas. There is a Nous in Dal’s House. ↩ ↩²

11. Dalhousie University, Dalhousie launches historic $750 million Bringing Worlds Together campaign for transformational change. April 3, 2024. ↩

12. Dalhousie Access & Privacy. Dalhousie University FOIPOP Request # FOIPOP-2025-595 /OIPC Review File # 25-00570 – Third-Party Review Update. Nov 20, 2025. ↩

13. Dalhousie University. Annual Financial Report. ↩

14. Liam Mchugh-Russell. On Dalhousie’s Finances. ↩

15. Liam Mchugh-Russell. Is Dalhousie diverting investment income to capital spending?. ↩

16. Frances Willick. Dalhousie University issues lockout notice to faculty union CBC News Nova Scotia. Aug 18, 2025. ↩

17. Lindsay Armstrong. Dalhousie professors locked out: Conciliation meeting Monday with university, union. Sep 5, 2025. ↩

18. Rachel Morgan. Quebec professors union stand in solidarity with faculty locked out at Dalhousie. Sep 1, 2025. ↩

19. Claire Kelly. Petition for Dalhousie president’s resignation gains over 1000 signatures. The Dalhousie Gazette. Oct 2, 2025. ↩

20. Jonas May. Dal professors worry about a condensed fall semester. The Dalhousie Gazette. Oct 2, 2025. ↩

21. Hannah Schneider. Dalhousie students to pay full-price tuition, despite three weeks of class lost. The Dalhousie Gazette.Oct 2, 2025. ↩

22. Open Letter – FoE Layoffs. ↩

23. Claire Kelly. “Dalhousie engineering staff escorted off campus amid layoff” The Dalhousie Gazette. Oct 30, 2025. ↩

24. Jackie Shirokov. Suspension of Dal Russian studies ‘cynical’, says faculty. The Signal. Mar 14, 2025. ↩

25. Dalhousie University. Senate Minutes, 2025. ↩ ↩²

26. NS Government and Dalhousie Bilateral Agreement 2025. Schedule H ↩

27. Dalhousie University. Academic program review – Schedule H: Dalhousie’s reporting requirement through the 2025-27 bilateral agreement. Oct 8, 2025. ↩

28. Verhoeven, D., & Eltham, B. (2024). “’Nousferatu’: Are corporate consultants extracting the lifeblood from universities?”. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies, 46(2), 327-349. ↩

29. Coalition for Collegial Governance. ↩