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Katja Fennel & Talan Iscan

A close look at Schedule H: Provincially mandated annual program reviews

Summary

The feasibility and purpose of the provincially mandated program reviews of Nova Scotia’s institutions of higher education are questionable. In this post, we’re summarizing relevant details of the mandated reviews at Dalhousie, raise questions and concerns about their feasibility, and provide background indicating that the Province seems to be on a hard-line course aiming to strong-arm university administrations into slashing programming in the name of efficiency and market demand. We may have arrived at a watershed moment for Nova Scotia’s higher education system. Now is not the time to tune out.

What does Schedule H of the Dalhousie agreement say?

On April 24, 2025 Dalhousie President Kim Brooks, Dalhousie Board Chair Cheryl Fraser, and Nova Scotia Minister of Advanced Education, the Honourable Brandon Maguire, signed an agreement that sets out the terms and conditions by which the Province provides funding to Dalhousie University’s operational expenditure and capital costs (available here).

The total amount of funding that the Province will pay to Dalhousie is

  • $208,000,000 in fiscal year 2025/26
  • $212,000,000 in fiscal year 2026/27

provided Dalhousie is in compliance with all obligations set out in the agreement.

The agreement contains 12 Schedules (A-L), the first of which lays out payment terms. The remaining 11 describe obligations and specify holdbacks (i.e. fractions of the above totals the Province will not pay until the specific obligations are met). Each schedule is deserving of a closer look. This post focuses specifically on Schedule H “Academic Program Review” which has a holdback of $6,230,000 attached to it.

The stated purpose is that “Academic programming will be reviewed and evaluated for the purpose of modernizing, revitalizing, and rationalizing the programs of the University.” The underlying premise seems to be that, across the board, Dalhousie’s programs are outdated, languishing, or bloated–a stunning assessment that is not supported by fact.

Under the agreement, Dalhousie is obligated to ”comprehensively” review and evaluate its academic programs with results due to the Province by October 15, 2026. An academic program is defined as “a program of study that provides a student with the academic credential of certificate, diploma, or degree upon successful completion, and any course making up that program of study.” Needless to say, there are hundreds of academic programs and probably over a thousand courses at Dalhousie.

For each program the Province asks to know the number of applications, admissions, attrition, deferrals, enrollment, and graduations. They want to know the program costs, the human resources and faculty that make up the program, and request a labour market analysis, among other information. Furthermore, according to Schedule H, Dalhousie is to make recommendations on which programs to: i. modernize, ii. revitalize, and iii. rationalize (which we read as cut). On the chopping block are programs with “low labour market need, low utilization and high costs.”

Thoughts and questions

Everyone who has been involved in academic program reviews, which are mandated by the Maritime Provinces Higher Education Commission (MPHEC) to occur every 7 years for each program, knows that pulling together reliable numbers for applications, admissions, attrition, deferrals, enrollment, and graduations is a challenge. Doing so accurately for all programs at once over the next few months does hardly seem feasible.

Furthermore, the feasibility of reliably assessing a program’s costs and market need is questionable. There is no established method to determine the cost of a program. The agreement indicates that MPHEC will develop “a standardized approach to program costing” yet the notion of costing a program seems deeply flawed as classes are cross-listed in different units, students combine electives from different units and faculties to fulfill their degree requirements, and each research opportunity that is made available to undergraduate and graduate students outside of regular courses is unique and cannot be quantified via standardized metrics. The latter are among the most valuable opportunities a research-intensive university like Dalhousie can provide to its students and essential to training future leaders.

The concept of market need is perhaps even more problematic. The implied focus on preparing students for perceived labour market shortages today ignores the fact that it is inherently difficult to anticipate real shortages of tomorrow. No university, and for that matter no government agency, can reliably predict how economic conditions will turn out within six months, not to mention within two to three years. Aiming to educate students for narrowly defined tasks that may not be needed in a few years risks squandering human skills and the potential of future generations. In addition, the concept of “low market need” is in itself unclear and without nuance. Suppose, for example, that there is a low market need for professional historians and a high market need for fast food restaurant workers. Does this mean that a university should categorically deny the value of educating students in history?

Leaving feasibility aside, we have to wonder about the purpose of this exercise. Is this a thinly veiled attempt to cut programs? The notion that the value of a university program should be measured by its costs and immediate commercial needs is antithetical to the purpose of universities and does not serve the long-term needs of our students. A university is not, and should never be, a business expected to operate for profit and address a narrowly defined market need.1 Universities provide services to society at large. First and foremost, they are educating future generations to face societal challenges ahead. They also serve other purposes including cutting-edge research vital for sound policy and economic development in the Province and beyond. Moreover, there is no “market” for engaged and informed citizens. Should higher education jettison such goals? Minimizing a university’s role to address a perceived labour market shortage today seems short sighted and fundamentally wrong. It appears that we are presented with ideas and lingo that have not been filtered through critical thinking and sound judgment.

We also wonder, is the Dalhousie administration concerned about the approach chosen by the provincial government and its implications? Are they embracing the approach or are they pushing back in some way? Are they complicit by choosing a path of low to no resistance? We have no indication, but note that Kate Ashley (lawyer, professor, and Vice-Provost at Acadia University) and Wayne MacKay (lawyer, law professor, former President of Mount Allison University) expressed their views and doubts about the approach here.

Where is this coming from?

We have it on good authority that our provincial government has hired the American consulting firm Huron to advise them in their approach to restructuring higher education. Huron bills itself as an advisor on education & research who helps “align[s] people, processes, and best-in-class technology with your mission to break down multi-layered challenges into actionable solutions” (see here).

An in-depth piece on Huron’s practices, track record, and involvement in Nova Scotia’s higher education sector is currently in the works. Here we share some publicly available information:

“Huron’s role in higher education restructuring has attracted criticism. The company advocates for [..] a model for how universities should operate, in the form of staff and faculty layoffs, program closures, salary reductions, and hiring freezes.2 Peter Stokes, Managing Director of Huron’s Higher Education Practice, has argued that higher education institutions should align their curriculums with corporate needs.3 Huron’s austerity-based recommendations led to major layoffs and the termination of many non-STEM programs at the University of Wisconsin in 2017, the University of New Hampshire in 2019, and the New School in 2022. 4,5”

“In 2023, faculty at West Virginia University stated that Huron had provided “ill-informed consulting and faulty data” which contributed to the institution’s major budget shortfall, debt crisis, and program cuts.6 ”

This revealing article suggests that, outside of STEM fields, Huron’s aim is program elimination. Beyond Huron’s troubling track record in higher education, they have come under intense scrutiny for their financial practices.

“In 2009, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced an investigation in Huron for a series of major accounting errors dating over several years.7 Six related shareholder class-action lawsuits were also filed against the company. On July 31, 2009, Huron announced that the company would restate its financial statements for 2006, 2007, 2008, and first quarter 2009.8 The chairman of the board and CEO Gary Holdren, CFO Gary Burge, and Chief Accounting Officer Wayne Lipski all resigned.9 In 2010, Huron reached a settlement in its shareholder lawsuits in return for a payment of $38 million.10”

“On July 19, 2012, Huron announced it had reached a final settlement with the SEC resolving the previously disclosed SEC investigation into the Company’s August 2009 restatement of its financial statements for the years ended 2006, 2007 and 2008 and the first quarter of 2009. The Company agreed to the settlement without admitting or denying the SEC’s findings, but also agreed to pay a $1 million civil fine.11”

What next?

Save the date for our Town Hall to discuss the Province’s review of Nova Scotia’s higher education programs and its impacts on Dalhousie and higher education in Nova Scotia on February 23, 2026.

Acknowledgments

Input from CoCoGov members received while writing this segment is gratefully acknowledged.

References

Footnotes

  1. We note that, while there are many reasons why for-profit universities have not delivered and most failed, one reason is that narrowly defined notions of expenses and revenues are inappropriate when it comes to investment in long-term learning and adaptability to changing economic conditions. ↩

  2. https://www.thenation.com/article/society/new-school-huron/ ↩

  3. https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2013/10/04/job-skills-increasing-focus-many-colleges-essay ↩

  4. https://www.thenation.com/article/society/new-school-huron/ ↩

  5. https://www.thenewschoolaaup.org/actions/huron-fact-sheet ↩

  6. https://www.highereddive.com/news/wvu-gordon-gee-no-confidence/692933/ ↩

  7. https://www.chicagotribune.com/2009/08/12/sec-investigating-huron-over-accounting-errors/ ↩

  8. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/genzyme-synaptics-may-see-evening-session-action-2009-07-31 ↩

  9. https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE56U77920090731/ ↩

  10. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sec-huronconsulting-settlement-idUSBRE86I1L420120719/ ↩

  11. https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2012-2012-142htm#.U6ysH5RdVTY] ↩