What the cap on international students means for Doug Ford's government
CBC
Premier Doug Ford's government faces a sharp reduction in what has been a lucrative source of funding for Ontario's colleges and universities now that Ottawa plans to slash the number of international students allowed into Canada.
With the province's own expert panel revealing the perilous financial situation of Ontario's colleges and universities just two months ago and post-secondary officials now saying the cut in international students visas will make things worse, the Ford government has some tough decisions to make.
Ontario's post-secondary sector has become increasingly reliant on the high tuition fees paid by foreign students and has recruited them in staggering numbers.
Federal data shows about 240,000 permits granted to international students for post-secondary education in Ontario in each of the last two years. Those numbers are to be cut in half, the federal Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Marc Miller said this week.
Deciding how to divvy up that far slimmer allocation of international students among Ontario's universities and colleges will be up to the provincial government.
Ontario's dependence on revenue from international students first ramped up under Liberal premier Kathleen Wynne and has accelerated greatly under Ford. Since the PCs came to power in 2018, federal figures show the number of study permits issued to international students for Ontario has doubled.
Over the same timeframe, Ontario colleges and universities have seen their combined annual revenues from provincial grants and domestic tuition fees drop by 31 per cent when adjusted for inflation, according to research by Higher Education Strategy Associates, a consulting firm.
Alex Usher, the firm's president, says the provincial government explicitly encouraged the rapid growth in international students.
"The way I look at it is that Ontario wants world class institutions, both universities and colleges, it's just not willing to pay for them," Usher said in an interview with CBC News.
He says revenue from international students "has been the easy way to make ends meet."
The province's expert panel also flagged this trend in its report, released in November.
"Many colleges and universities have passed the point where they could survive financially with only domestic students. They are financially sustainable only because of international students," said the report.
At Ontario's universities, international students accounted for about one-sixth of total enrolment in undergraduate programs in 2021-22, the most recent year for which data are available. In addition to those 69,000 international undergraduates, there were another 23,000 foreign students in graduate programs, such as masters and doctoral degrees.
Ontario's colleges are even more acutely dependent on international students' tuition fees:
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