ONTARIO CONFEDERATION OF UNIVERSITY FACULTY ASSOCIATIONS
Ontario's universities are being run on gig work—and students are paying the price

Walk into any first-year university classroom in Ontario today and the warning signs of a system at the brink are hard to miss.

The class is overflowing, packed with hundreds of students competing for attention. One-on-one time is scarce, not because faculty don't care, but because many are stretched impossibly thin, juggling heavy teaching loads with little support. The instructor at the front of the room committed and passionate may not know if they'll still have a job next term. The course, or even the program, could disappear altogether.

This is what the experience of navigating a university education in Ontario has become. It's a picture of a system at its breaking point.

Across the province, more than half of undergraduate courses are now taught by contract faculty: highly trained instructors hired on short-term, often precarious contracts, with little job security, access to employer benefits or institutional support. Contract faculty are typically vastly underpaid, putting in countless hours of unpaid labour to support their students with everything from advising and mentorship to reference letters. They often receive no research support and few opportunities to contribute to the broader academic life of their universities.

Their growing presence on campuses represents the quiet "gigification" of university teaching.

On March 11, the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) is holding a Social Media Day of Action to shine a light on this stark reality and call for fair, stable working conditions for contract faculty. But this is more than just a labour issue. It affects students, families, communities and the future of Ontario's economy. 

Despite paying among the highest tuition fees in Canada, Ontario students are learning in a system where faculty, particularly contract faculty, are being asked to do more with less. In 2023-24, Ontario averaged 30.9 students per faculty member, well above the national average of 25.3, underscoring the pressure on those delivering university education and the impact this strain can have on the overall student experience.

How did we get here?

The problem is not that our universities lowered their standards or failed to adapt. The root cause is a stark and well-documented fact: Ontario funds its universities less than any other province in Canada.

According to the most recent comprehensive data, Ontario public funding per domestic full-time university student is nearly  $7,000 below the national average, a structural shortfall that has accumulated over more than a decade. OCUFA estimates that Ontario would need to increase per-student funding by 13.5% per year for five years, or $3 billion, just to reach the national average.

After years of inaction, the provincial government has finally begun to respond. It recently announced a $6.4-billion funding package, to be shared amongst the colleges and universities across four years. While this is a step in the right direction, it's not enough to reverse years of underinvestment or lift Ontario out of last place nationally. To move a bit further out of last place, and shoot for the national average, the government would need to invest $3 billion annually in total funding.

No university system can absorb a funding gap of this magnitude without consequences.

When public funding fails to keep pace with enrolment growth and inflation, universities face difficult trade-offs. Permanent faculty positions go unfilled and class sizes balloon in the name of improving "efficiencies." Student services are stretched thin. And teaching increasingly shifts to short-term contracts, because contract labour is one of the few costs universities can adjust quickly in an unstable funding environment.

The result is a system that relies on precarious labour to provide what should be core public services.

Contract faculty are not the problem. On the contrary, they are skilled educators and researchers who care deeply about their students and their profession. But precarious work makes it harder to provide consistent mentorship, to be available outside class hours or to invest in long-term curriculum development. Many contract instructors piece together jobs across multiple campuses, often without paid time for student advising or access to adequate workspace.

Students also sense this instability, even if they don't always know its cause.

They feel it when courses fill up too quickly. When feedback is delayed. When instructors are juggling impossible workloads. When it becomes harder to build relationships with faculty who may not be on campus next term.

These are not abstract concerns. They shape the quality of education students receive and the value of the degrees they earn.

And that should worry all Ontarians.

A university education remains one of the strongest public investments a province can make. University graduates earn more over their lifetimes, experience lower unemployment and contribute more to the tax base. According to Statistics Canada, Ontarians aged 35 to 44 with a university degree earn nearly 70 per cent more, on average, than high school graduates and more than 40 per cent more than college graduates.

Universities are also major employers and engines of research and innovation across Ontario. They contribute $96 billion to the provincial economy almost 12 per cent of Ontario's total GDP and employ over 126,000 workers across the province, more than the entire Canadian auto sector.

Yet Ontario continues to ask its universities to deliver these benefits while funding them at the lowest level in the country.

OCUFA's Social Media Day of Action is a call to course correct. Fixing a strained system requires stable, predictable public funding that allows universities to hire permanent faculty, reduce class sizes, support students and plan for the future.

Ontario's universities are being forced to operate under conditions that no public system should endure. Minor tweaks, like the government's inadequate funding announcement, will not fix a structural problem. And a system built on precarious work cannot deliver the education that Ontario students deserve, and our provincial economy needs to thrive.

More funding is urgently needed. And when it comes, universities must direct it where it matters most: strengthening their academic mission and improving the educational experience for students and faculty. Converting contract faculty positions into permanent roles would do exactly that bringing stability to classrooms, giving students consistent support and allowing faculty to fully contribute to the research, innovation and discovery that improve the lives of all Ontarians.

The choice is political, and the stakes are clear: Ontario can let classrooms remain overcrowded and contract work continue, or it can properly fund the universities that educate its students, support its communities and drive its economy.