In the past four months, Nipissing University in North Bay has cut 54 positions. First came the elimination of 16 administrative positions. That was followed by the announcement that contracts for 22 professors would not be renewed. Then, in early March, 16 support staff jobs were chopped.

Faced with a decline in demand for teacher education, Nipissing late last year announced it is ending its bachelor of education/bachelor of arts partnership with Laurier in Brantford.

The staff reductions at Nipissing are tied to an $11.8-million deficit, partly blamed on a cut in provincial government funding. The university has about 5,000 students.

Two other universities — the University of Guelph and Trent University in Peterborough — are looking to cut costs and boost revenues to deal with falling enrolment and large pension deficits, the same issues blamed for Laurier's problems.

Guelph expects about 350 fewer students in September, a 1.6-per-cent drop from last fall. The reduction is blamed on demographics: There are simply fewer university-aged people in most parts of Ontario.

"It is a system-wide challenge — universities and colleges everywhere are facing the same situation," said Serge Desmarais, Guelph's interim provost and vice-president academic.

The University of Guelph's pension plan deficit requires $23 million in extra payments each year.

"Pension and other post-employment costs continue to consume a major portion of our operating budgets," Desmarais said.

Laurier's pension deficit requires it to put in $9 million in special payments each year.

About 85 per cent of public sector employees have a pension plan and most have the most desirable kind — defined benefit plans that pay a set monthly amount. Most private sector workers do not have a private pension plan. Many of those who do have one are enrolled in defined contribution plans where the monthly benefit is not set in advance.

At the University of Guelph, departments are required to find savings or new revenues totalling $10 million to help balance the budget.

Desmarais said "no major layoffs" are planned, but "there may be reductions in positions in specific areas as programs and services are adjusted to meet budget targets."

He didn't rule out program or course cuts.

"Programs and courses are under constant review — both additions and deletions."

The University of Guelph has about 21,000 full-time equivalent students.

Trent University is looking to cut $5 million to $7 million from its budget. The university is offering early retirement incentives. No layoffs are planned.

University president Leo Groarke said the biggest issue facing Trent is pensions.

"We are every year spending $7 million to manage our pension liability. And that's basically the size of the cut we're looking at making to the university. So if we did not have a pension deficit, we wouldn't be asking people to cut budgets this year."

Groarke said Trent has a choice to make: either eliminate the defined benefit pension plan or boost employee contributions.

"It's certainly the second option that I favour. It's great to have good pensions for people, but we do have to figure out how to pay for them, and right now it's not working."

Trent offered early retirement incentives to staff and faculty.

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"In addition to that, we have asked budget managers to budget for between a five- to seven-per-cent cut to their budgets," Groarke said. "So there will be some cost cutting."

At the same time, Trent is trying to boost revenue by attracting more students.

"We're being aggressive on the recruitment front," Groarke said.

Helping things out is Trent's campus in Oshawa, the one place in Ontario where there's growth in the population attending university.

"We have a campus that's essentially in the middle of that."

Groarke said applications to Oshawa are up 14 per cent this year. The campus has 800 students.

Enrolment in Peterborough has been dipping, primarily due to Queen's University pulling out of a concurrent education program, he said.

The Peterborough campus has about 7,000 students. It has more of an arts focus than the Oshawa campus.

"It's arts that's suffering the most. I think to some extent (there is a) short-sighted emphasis on career programming. That's what the market wants these days," said Groarke.

Laurier president Max Blouw earlier said a drop in demand for arts programs is one of the reasons enrolment at Laurier is falling.

Groarke, who worked at Laurier for almost 30 years, doubts universities will get more money from the provincial government.

"My general perspective would be the government has a deficit that it has to deal with. I don't think it's realistic to think in this climate that the government will have extra funding available. I hope there won't be cuts and I certainly hope there won't be deep cuts."

He couldn't rule out program cuts at Trent.

"There will be some very tough decisions that will have to be made."