In what one education analyst is calling an “utter, needless fiasco,” and with colleges and universities still assessing the impact, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced a series of further cuts to international students last month.
There will be a further 10-per-cent cut on international student study permits for 2025.
That’s in addition to the 35-per-cent cut for 2024 already announced earlier this year as the government sought to clamp down on the explosive growth of international students in Canada, which has caused issues that include pressures on housing.
International students have been seen as a ready source of cash in the post-secondary sector, as they are charged higher tuition fees than domestic students.
The study permit intake cap will also now include master’s and doctoral students, who were exempted earlier.
The government is also making changes to the work permit system, including aligning post-graduation work permits with “immigration goals and labour market needs.”
Graduates will now be eligible for permits for up to three years “if they graduate from a field of study linked to occupations in long-term shortage,” said a government press release.
Sudbury.com reached out to the city’s three post-secondary institutions for their reaction to the latest cuts. We were granted an interview with Alison De Luisa, Cambrian’s vice-president of human resources, student services and international.
Both Laurentian University and Collège Boréal declined comment, saying it was too early to discuss the announcement, as they were awaiting further details.
It’s “very early to tell” the impact of further cuts to international students announced by the federal government last month, said De Luisa.
She said the college, as well as the provincial body Colleges Ontario, are still looking at what all of this will mean.
The desired occupations still eligible for post-graduation work permits are in the areas of agriculture, health care, STEM, trades and transportation.
“So we don't have a clear picture yet of what that means for us and that 10 per cent reduction,” De Luisa said. “It’s still early.”
Since this article's original publication, Laurentian University president Lynn Wells did comment on the situation in a written report to be presented to the university's senate Oct. 15.
"In the Laurentian context, the most significant change is the new requirement for graduate students to be subject to the cap process," said Wells, in her report. "We are doing the analyses to determine the possible impacts on our graduate program enrolments going forward. There should be minimal impact in the current fiscal year."
Alex Usher, a higher education consultant, didn’t hold back on his opinions in a Sept. 23 entry on his blog, which he entitled “Marc Miller Strikes Again.”
“It’s just such an utter, needless fiasco,” he said. “And for everyone who has spent the last few decades talking about how great it would be if the feds were more involved in post-secondary education…how are you liking it so far?”
He said colleges are “absolutely about to get hammered. Take away the work permit route to permanent residence and it’s not clear what the appeal of college education in Canada is. My guess would be that you will see numbers collapse by 80 per cent or so. In Ontario, where international student fee income makes up slightly more than 50 per cent of total institutional revenue, that would mean a drop in total income of over 40 per cent (about $3.5 billion).”
Usher also gave his take on what will happen with universities, which will now have to deal with the inclusion of graduate students in the cap.
“The inclusion of graduate students in the cap and the 10-per-cent reduction in the cap is bad — particularly for graduate student recruitment — but the imminent massive exodus of international students from the college sector should free up a whole whack of spots for universities,” he said.
“However, this won’t happen automatically: each province has to re-allocate spots. It requires them to do something based on what is going to happen but has not yet happened. In other words, it requires governments to exercise judgment.”
He said his fear in Ontario is that the government will keep the current distributions of approvals, and the vast number of visa spots will go to colleges, and be left unfilled.
In a Sept. 27 letter addressed to Miller, Colleges Ontario president Marketa Evans expressed the group’s “strong objection” to ending automatic work permits.
“We appreciate the policy objective of improving alignment of programs of study with labour market needs,” said Evans. “However, the policy implementation in fact jeopardizes Ontario’s ability to meet pressing labour market needs.”
Gabriel Miller, the CEO of Universities Canada, said in a Sept. 25 editorial published in the Hill Times that the federal government’s haphazard moves over the last year to cut the number of international student permits threaten this vital part of the Canadian economy.
“International students enrich classrooms and help fund Canadian education,” he wrote. “Recent policy changes are damaging our ability to attract the talent we need for the future, pushing universities deeper into deficit and hurting Canada’s ability to compete.”
Given the cuts to international students that have already taken place, we asked Sudbury’s three post-secondary institutions for a look at their current enrolment figures. It looks like they’re faring well, at least for now.
Last winter, Cambrian College’s international student population in Sudbury had actually eclipsed its domestic students, but this trend has now reversed.
Public colleges in Ontario were able to maintain but not increase their current international enrolment levels this school year under the new rules.
This fall, there has been a 10-per-cent increase in Cambrian domestic students (which stand at 3,516), while international student enrolment is down one per cent (2,631).
Cambrian’s enrolment at its Sudbury campus is up five per cent overall.
“The increase in domestic is due to the incredible achievement and the hard work of everyone at the college to really increase our marketing and increase our focus for domestic students to come to Cambrian,” said college vice-president De Luisa.
However, Cambrian College is winding down its operations at its Hanson campus, its private college partner in the GTA offering programming for international students, with enrolment there down four per cent this fall, now sitting at 5,790.
Career colleges no longer receive international student permits under the new federal rules.
Boréal said its international student population across the province has actually increased from 755 in the fall of 2023 to 1,017 as of this fall. Its domestic student population is also up slightly, from 1,169 students to 1,296 now.
Since this article's initial publication, updated preliminary enrolment fall figures for Laurentian University were provided in documentation for the university's Oct. 15 senate meeting and Oct. 18 board of governors meeting.
Laurentian has a current full-time equivalent (FTE) estimated student count of 6,301. There is year-over-year stability with Laurentian's enrolment, with a -0.2 per cent fluctuation. Domestic enrolment is behind three per cent year-over-year, while international enrolment is ahead 12 per cent year-over-year. The university's international student population had increased 154 per cent last year.
Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com’s assistant editor. She also covers education and the arts scene.