New education funding outlined in the 2025/26 budget continues to fall behind the Alberta government’s own estimate of inflation and population growth, with the exception of subsidies for private schools and early childhood education centres.

Alberta Finance Minister Nate Horner briefs reporters at the announcement of the 2025 provincial budget. From the Alberta Government Flickr

The K-12 education operating budget is increasing about $400 million this year to reach $9.9 billion, which Finance Minister Nate Horner boasts is the “highest-ever budget for education” in Alberta. 

But on the eve of the budget, Alberta Teachers’ Association president Jason Schilling said that only an $11.35-billion K-12 operational budget could guarantee “manageable class sizes, supports for complex needs for our students who require them, and resources that help students learn.”

“Teachers and school administrators are struggling to fill in the cracks. If we do not see a substantial investment in public education, these cracks will only grow larger,” Schilling warned. 

“We have reached our threshold of doing more with less.”

The $9.9-billion budget represents a 4.5 per cent increase to operational K-12 education funding, compared to 7.3 per cent inflation and population growth. 

Meanwhile, the operational budget includes a 10.3 per cent increase to funding for accredited private schools and child-care facilities, which is pegged at $461 million this year, a $43-million increase from the year before.

By 2027/28, the K-12 operational budget is projected to increase to $10.7 billion, representing a 13.2 per cent increase over three years, compared to a projected cumulative 16.2 per cent inflation and population growth. The overall education budget will remain more than three per cent behind.

But by 2027/28, private school funding is projected to grow to $544 million, representing a 30.1 per cent increase over three years—almost double the rate of inflation and population growth.

The capital plan includes $139 million in new K-12 educational infrastructure spending, consisting largely of $66 million in funding specifically for charter and specialized collegiate schools, both of which are publicly funded schools that can turn away students, and $50 million to build more modular, or portable, classrooms for everyone else.

Last year, Edmonton Public School Board infrastructure managing director Christopher Wright cautioned that enrollment was growing “by the equivalent of one modular classroom every day.”

Revised per-student funding formula

The government is changing the K-12 education funding formula that was introduced in 2020, which created a weighted average enrollment over three years to determine how much funding school boards would receive per student. 

This formula was criticized by the ATA, and public and separate school boards for penalizing large urban school divisions with fast-growing enrollment to benefit rural districts with stagnant or declining enrollment. 

Now the government is basing funding on a weighted average of two years. Thirty per cent will be based on this year’s enrollment and 70 per cent will be based on next year’s projected enrollment.

The government’s fiscal plan says this will result in increased funding of $55 million for 2025/26, and then $188 million over the next two years.

While income and corporate tax revenues have each decreased by $600 million, the government says its other tax revenues have increased by $600 million, two-thirds of which consist of increased education property tax, which was frozen last year. 

The education tax, which is collected by municipalities on behalf of the province, is expected to rake in a total of $3.1 billion this year and will be increased by an additional $500 million over the next two years, representing one-third of the ministry’s operating costs.

School board fees, owing to increased enrollment, are set to increase by $8 million to $233 million this year and reach $245 million by 2027/28. 

Post-secondary education funding coming increasingly from tuition

The post-secondary operating budget is $6 billion, about $400 million more than was budgeted last year but on par with what was spent. 

The province had set a goal to have 58 per cent of post-secondary education funding come from the institutions themselves by 2026/27, but they’ve reached that target a year ahead of schedule.

Of the $6 billion, the province funded $2.5 billion, or 42 per cent, and the post-secondary institutions funded the remaining $3.5 billion, representing 58 per cent, with more than half of that figure coming from tuition. 

The post-secondary operating budget is projected to remain roughly frozen through 2027/28. 

The provincial government is increasing funding for student aid, which consists of individual scholarships, grants and awards, by $20 million to $377 million, according to the fiscal plan, and funding for student loans by $50 million to $990 million, according to the ministry-specific business plan.

In its business plan included with the budget, the ministry describes the number of students dependent on loans and grants to be an indicator of its “commitment to enhancing affordability of post-secondary education.” 

From 2019/2020 to 2023/24, according to the business plan’s figures, the number of students dependent on loans has increased by 40 per cent from 87,700 to 123,200. During the same period, the number of students receiving grants increased by 15 per cent from 18,400 to 21,200. 

The business plan notes that the number of post-secondary graduates who are satisfied with the quality of their post-secondary education has decreased from 92 per cent in 2016 to 88 per cent in 2024.

On the capital side, the post-secondary budget is allocating $167 in increased funding, which mostly consists of $100 million to renovate the University of Alberta Biological Science Building, increasing its capacity by 3,200 spaces, as well as $30 million for SAIT’s new Taylor Family Campus Centre. 

Government seeks to ‘close the gap’ on IAI funding

Alberta is the only province with Independent Academic Institutions (IAIs)—publicly funded but privately operated post-secondary institutions, which receive operational but not capital funding, and don’t require ministry approval for their mandate letters. 

There are six IAIs in Alberta—Ambrose University, Burman University, Concordia University of Edmonton, the King’s University, MaKami College and St. Mary’s University.

MaKami is the most recent addition to the IAI list, which occurred through a March 2023 order in council when it was still a for-profit vocational school. 

The college registered as a non-profit in August 2024 and operates an Applied Politics and Public Affairs diploma program run by former UCP staffer Erika Barootes, who also works as the school’s director of external relations and spokesperson. 

The budget increases funding specifically for “Alberta’s six publicly funded” IAIs, which includes MaKami, by $9 million, and projects a cumulative $17-million increase in 2026/27 and 2027/28, which the province’s fiscal plan says is intended to “close the gap” between funding for IAIs and other post-secondary institutions. 

In May 2023, Ministry of Advanced Education spokesperson Sam Blackett, who now works directly for the premier, told this reporter that MaKami “will not receive provincial grant funding nor are they being considered for grant funding.”