An opposition party released a leaked internal e-mail from the University of Alberta Wednesday, outlining massive cuts some faculties could face in the coming years.

The e-mail, addressed to colleagues from Fern Snart, Dean of the Faculty of Education at the U of A, outlines how officials at the university are preparing for changes to funding in the future.

It said President Indira Samarasekera indicated the university would see a planned near 1.5% budget reduction in 2013-14 – but the deans were being asked to plan for much larger cuts in the coming years.

According to the e-mail, each dean was asked to submit plans by the end of March that would involve a reduction of up to 20 percent for 2014-16 period – including a plan for “resource generation that will ‘earn back’ 10 percent”.

In the e-mail, Snart said the “task requires a new way of thinking, and planning”.

U of A officials told CTV News said they were expecting a 2 percent boost in the budget, but actually faced a 7 percent cut each year – meaning the university will have to reduce its budget by $65 million.

NDP Advanced Education critic Rachel Notley said she was shocked to hear about the cuts and their effect.

“It’s going to fundamentally undermine the credibility of our university system, across the country,” Notley said.

The critic had said in a press release Wednesday that “World-class teaching and research simply won’t happen in a context where professors are forced to run bake sales, rather than focusing on their work.”

Meanwhile, the U of A’s acting Provost, Martin Ferguson-Pell, said the cuts will result in staff cuts.

“We will certainly be talking about staff cuts,” Ferguson-Pell said. “What I can’t say is where those staff cuts would be.”

The president of the U of A student’s union said he’s concerned about program cuts, and professor to student ratios.

“We’re really scared we’re not going to have 400 student classes, we’re going to have 600 student classes,” President Colten Yamagishi said.

The Progressive Conservative government said Alberta colleges and universities still receive more per-capita funding, than post-secondary schools in other provinces.

In addition to staff cuts, the U of A will also be making changes to travel funding and administration expenses – but those measures are only expected to save a few million dollars.

In the meantime, they’re looking forward to future budgets and surpluses.

“What we would be expecting is, as things start to improve, that we’ll be first in line to have things put back together again,” Ferguson-Pell said.

U of A administration said changes to their budget will take about a year to figure out, and the changes would probably be implemented next year.

With files from Bill Fortier