University of Prince Edward Island is a top-rated five-star charity with a high results reporting grade and overhead spending within Ci's reasonable range. The charity is financially transparent and has funding reserves that can cover less than a year of program costs.

Founded in 1969, University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI) is a public university in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. UPEI was created through the combination of Price Wales College and St. Dunstan’s University. The university has ten faculties that offer a variety of programs to both undergraduate and graduate students. It has 30 buildings and 376 student residence spaces which combine for a total of 1,308,828 square feet. UPEI’s main charitable programs are Education and Research, for which it does not provide a spending breakdown.

In F2021, University of Prince Edward Island had 5,419 students enrolled, including 4,907 undergraduate students and 512 graduate students. The charity reports that it had 5,036 full-time students and 383 part-time students. UPEI had 1,591 international students. It reports that 49% of international students were from Asia, 28% from Africa, 18% from North America (excluding Canada), 3% from South America and 2% from Europe.

University of Prince Edward Island has nine research institutes and centres and is home to eight research chairs, including three Canada Research chairs, one Canada Excellence Research chair, and one UNESCO Chair.

In F2021, University of Prince Edward Island received $6.8m in donations. The charity received $76.6m in government funding (42% of total revenue) and $50.8m in student fees (28% of total revenue) during the year. In F2021, UPEI earned $17.8m in investment income (10% of total revenue), representing a 15% annual return. Its average annual investment return from F2019 to F2021 is around 7%. The average annual investment return of the S&P 500 from 2019 to 2021 is around 24%.

Administrative costs are 5% of total revenues (excluding investment income). Fundraising costs are 15% of donations. This results in total overhead spending of 20%. For every dollar donated to the charity, 80 cents go to the cause. This is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

University of Prince Edward Island has $129.6m in net funding reserves ($155.7m in liquid assets less $26.1m in interest-bearing debts). The university’s liquid assets also include $42.7m in donor-endowed funds. UPEI’s net funding reserves, excluding donor-endowed funds, can cover program costs for around nine months.

­­This charity report is an update that has been sent to University of Prince Edward Island for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on August 11th, 2022 by Arjun Kapur.