Why Western wants to create a new and controversial entry pathway for international students

Andrew Lupton · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 16, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 11 minutes ago

To the encephalon spot at Western University, it's a concern with the imaginable to boost planetary pupil enrollment, a severely needed gross root astatine a clip of rising costs and stagnant authorities support.

However, to its opponents, it's an ill-advised determination down a slippery slope toward privatization with the imaginable to undermine the world integrity of 1 of Canada's largest universities. 

At contented is simply a projected concern betwixt Western and Navitas, an Australian company, to make a caller privately-run planetary college under the Western banner that volition connection a abstracted first-year introduction pathway for immoderate planetary students. 

The concern has already received archetypal support by Western's Senate, though it came in a choky 48-39 vote. It volition adjacent spell to the Board of Governors for last approval. 

When asked to beryllium interviewed for this story, Western University officials said Provost Florentine Strzelczyk won't beryllium disposable until aft adjacent week. Emails to Navitas for remark were not returned.

However, immoderate broad-stroke details of the woody and arguments successful its favour are spelled retired successful a papers Strzelczyk submitted to the Senate. 

The projected caller entity, called Western International College (WIC), would enlistee planetary first-year undergraduate students who "would not typically suffice for nonstop admittance to Western, astir often due to the fact that they are missing prerequisites not disposable successful their location country." The assemblage would besides person a watercourse for planetary master's grade students.

The schoolhouse would run arsenic a abstracted assemblage astatine a determination that's not yet been determined, though the erstwhile Brescia University-College campus is 1 imaginable option. The university would person afloat oversight implicit world unit appointments and world enactment astatine WIC, and hiring astatine the planetary assemblage volition comply with Western's existing labour agreements. 

WIC students would wage the aforesaid tuition arsenic different planetary students and would lone spell connected to the 2nd twelvemonth of regular assemblage study if they conscionable "all specified requirements." 

Student tuition would beryllium paid to WIC, with a information going to Western arsenic a royalty. The projected statement says Navitas would screen each costs for WIC, including unit and infrastructure. Revenue projections done the caller enrollment portal are estimated astatine $73.5 cardinal by 2032-35.

'Privatization model' critics contend

The projected woody raises a fig of reddish flags for Johanna Weststar, president of Western's module association. 

"It's concerning due to the fact that it is simply a exemplary of privatization," she said in an interrogation connected CBC's London Morning. "Navitas runs a thin institution due to the fact that they privation to maximize profits, so that complicates things erstwhile you bring that into a nationalist assemblage system. It syphons wealth retired of that strategy to backstage shareholders." 

Weststar is besides acrophobic the concern could undermine world integrity. She believes WIC instructors volition consciousness other unit to determination students connected to their 2nd year, careless of their world performance. 

"It volition enactment a batch of unit connected the module members who thatch those courses to advancement those students," she said. "When instructors' show is mostly based connected pupil satisfaction, that's a batch of pressure." 

If the woody is approved, Western volition articulation different Canadian universities that person partnered with Navitas including Toronto Metropolitan University, Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the University of Manitoba (UM) and Simon Fraser University (SFU). 

In a connection to CBC News, Western said betwixt 2021-22 and 2023-24, SFU's planetary assemblage had an mean enrollment of astir 960 students and UM's had an mean enrollment of 1,100. Western's projections calls for 2,345 undergraduate students to beryllium enrolled by the 2033-34 world year.

Western had considered a concern with Navitas successful 2020 but passed. In its Senate submission this time, the university said this woody is antithetic due to the fact that it gives Western much oversight implicit WIC operations.

International students eyed to capable backing gaps

According to their Senate submission, Western has fallen down different ample Canadian universities successful caller years erstwhile it comes to planetary recruitment and present needs to marque up for mislaid time. The fig of planetary students astatine Western has declined by 780 since the 2021 schoolhouse year, which amounts to a $40 cardinal gross drop. 

In its Senate submission, Western said its efforts to measurement up in-house planetary pupil recruitment — including a $5.5 cardinal boost successful recruitment spending — person "proven to beryllium insufficient to adjacent the gap."

Western has a stated extremity of 20 per cent planetary enrollment, but is presently sitting astatine conscionable 7.5 per cent, little than fractional the mean of different ample Canadian universities.

Western's Senate submission says a woody with Navitas volition pat into an existing pipeline for planetary pupil recruitment with reduced hazard and upfront costs to the university. 

What isn't spelled retired is however this volition enactment erstwhile the national authorities has capped planetary student permits. 

The caller assemblage mightiness assistance Western pat into further provincial attestation letters. The letters, often referred to arsenic PALs, are a request for planetary students applying for a survey permit. Each state and schoolhouse gets an allocation from the national government. 

Western's submission to the Senate says planetary colleges successful Ontario that are partnered with universities "received accrued allocations to enactment the enrollment growth."

"Like different Ontario universities that spouse with Navitas, Western would place its projected request for PALs to the provincial government, including the incremental requirements for the projected partnership."

Western besides said that "in a imaginable partnership, Western would proceed to enactment wrong the PAL system." 

Maïca Murphy is simply a probe manager with Higher Education Strategy Associates, a advisor radical focused connected post-secondary education.

She said that since astir 2009, tuition fees paid by planetary students person fundamentally covered each the increases to assemblage budgets astatine a clip erstwhile home enrollment has risen and authorities contributions flat-lined. 

"They person fundamentally been subsidizing a batch of the assemblage system," she said. 

Murphy said partnerships similar the Navitas woody are charismatic to cash-strapped universities due to the fact that they connection expertise successful planetary pupil recruitment with debased upfront costs. 

"It's a low-risk alternate gross watercourse for institutions," she said. 

London West MPP and NDP acquisition professional Peggy Sattler has urged Western not to spouse with Navitas, saying that "privatization has nary spot successful Ontario's post-secondary system."

However, she said the main culprit is underfunding by the state of post-secondary education, a concern she said has created incentives for universities to question retired backstage partnerships that rise revenue.

"What Navitas does is privatize a first-year assemblage programme successful the involvement of the shareholders of the for-profit corporation," she said. "This is not what we should beryllium doing with post-secondary education."