Feds to blame for costly drop in international students: Brandon University president

Chelsea Kemp · CBC News

· Posted: Apr 03, 2025 6:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

International applications for first-time students person plummeted astir 60 per cent astatine Brandon University, and its president is blaming national policies capping the fig of students allowed to survey successful Canada.

David Docherty says the fig of planetary freshmen admitted to the university plunged to 54 in 2024 from 195 successful 2023.

"The connection is retired successful the planetary assemblage for students … that Canada is nary longer arsenic welcoming arsenic it was," Docherty said. "That's wherefore we're seeing the melodramatic decrease."

International enrolment is expected to diminution adjacent much successful the autumn semester aft applications for first-time students fell to 1,238 successful 2024 from 2,831 successful 2023, a plunge of 56 per cent.

International students wage astir 3½ times much than home students, and their declining enrolment is straining the fund and hurting students, Docherty says.

While the national authorities can't archer the assemblage whom they tin accept, they tin bounds the fig of planetary students allowed successful Canada. That means planetary enrolment is being deed connected aggregate fronts, Docherty says.

A determination from Canada's migration curate placed choky caps limiting pupil permits to 437,000 successful 2025 and 2026, down from 485,000 permits successful 2024, which was already a 47 per cent alteration compared with 2023.

At the aforesaid clip prospective students present person to amusement they person entree to $20,635 successful the slope alternatively of $10,000. 

Stability needed

Janine Campbell, international pupil typical connected the university's governance team, says she already noticess the difference: she says here's little diverseness and taste vibrancy connected her field of 3,200.

The third-year pupil says imaginable scholars are opting to survey successful different countries due to the fact that Canada nary longer seems similar a welcoming place.

"It wouldn't beryllium your archetypal choice," said Campbell, who hails from Jamaica. "They're not capable to either spend it, oregon they don't privation to spell done the longer process of getting a survey permit. It's conscionable benignant of bittersweet to see."

Campbell has a person backmost location who couldn't spend to leap done the hoops to survey successful Brandon.

In the past planetary students usually comprised about 15 per cent of the field population.

However, the assemblage saw the fig of planetary students enrolled fall to 447 successful 2024 from 527 successful 2023  

The university is not unsocial successful facing impacts from dwindling planetary pupil number, Docherty says. That's wherefore they're moving with Universities Canada to propulsion the national authorities to let much students to survey successful the country.

Docherty says the assemblage is being punished for issues successful different parts of the country, including southwestern Ontario, that person seen a surge successful the planetary pupil population.

He wants to spot Manitoba post-secondary schools granted most-favoured instauration presumption truthful the state arsenic a full gets greater entree to planetary students.