Does it make sense to build a new university campus when student numbers are in decline?

Probably not.

That's why Premier Doug Ford was right to cancel plans to open university campuses in Milton, Brampton and Markham.

His government said the $307-million project had to be ditched because the province is facing a $15-billion deficit.

That move was pronounced "deeply disappointing" by Wilfrid Laurier University, which had worked for years to build a proposed campus in Milton.

The Milton project had finally received provincial approval last April by the previous Liberal government, which was in the final weeks of its mandate. Laurier had been planning to accept the first round of students next September.

In a response to the cancellation, Laurier said it would keep the dream of post-secondary education alive in that location, midway along the so-called Toronto-Waterloo Innovation Corridor, and a perfect place to contribute to the "tremendous economic potential associated with this partnership."

But if the numbers can't support the plan, the narrative doesn't mean much.

And the numbers do not look good.

The Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario warned last year of "looming challenges" for colleges and universities as the number of 18- to 20-year-olds is expected to fall.

"The projected number of university entrants ... in the province will drop from about 559,000 in 2015 to 507,000 in 2021, a reduction of 9%. It will not recover to 2015 levels until the year 2033," the report said.

These institutions live and die by student enrolment. If it falls, so does crucial revenue from tuition fees and government subsidies.

"In a situation in which the system is characterized by a lack of students, creating entirely new campuses takes students away from existing campuses at a time when they are scrambling to find students they need to fill the spaces they already have available," Leo Groarke, president of Trent University, wrote this week in a Toronto newspaper.

"If the Ontario government wants to keep the province's current institutions healthy, it needs to make them a priority, not spend limited resources on brand-new projects," he said.

Before he was president of Trent, Groarke was principal of Laurier's Brantford campus.

He saw first-hand how cities benefit from a university campus. They stimulate the economy and attract research and business opportunities.

"But cities that want new campuses for these reasons should pay for them," he wrote.

"They should not expect a provincial government that is trying to wrestle with its deficit to pay for them at a time when there is no pressing need to establish them," he wrote.

Groarke is right.

There are deep inequalities in education in this country. Statistics Canada data from the 2016 census shows that 28.5 per cent of adult Canadians have a bachelor's degree or higher. But only 5.4 per cent of Indigenous people living on reserves do.

If Ontario has extra money for education, it belongs there.

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Not in the wealthiest part of southern Ontario, where a university is just a short drive away from almost anywhere.

ldamato@therecord.com

Twitter: @DamatoRecord