Conestoga College will need to cut international student intake by more than half this September - Action News
Home WebMail Sunday, November 10, 2024, 09:45 PM | Calgary | 0.4°C | Regions Advertise Login | Our platform is in maintenance mode. Some URLs may not be available. |
Kitchener-Waterloo

Conestoga College will need to cut international student intake by more than half this September

Conestoga College says it has received its allocation for international students for 2024, which will see the college cut their intake by more than 50 per cent this fall.

College says it will assess enrolment and operational impacts as a result of intake cuts

Photo of conestoga college sign
The Ontario government revealed how it would divvy up a shrinking number of international students among the province's colleges and universities. Conestoga College will see the biggest declines in international student study permit. (Cameron Mahler/CBC)

Conestoga College will need to cut their international student intake this September by more than half of their current enrolment.

In a statement on its website Thursday morning, the college saysofficialswillassess the enrolment and operational impacts as a result of the news and communicate moredetails to students and staff when they can.

The province announced on Wednesdayits plans forhow it woulddeal with the federal government'scuts to international student numbers announced by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Marc Millerin January.

Roughly 100,000fewer international students will getting permits to study in Ontario this year under the federal government's cap.

The province's2024 budgetalso revealed that Ontario's colleges will lose out on $3.1billion in revenue over the next two years as a result of the drop in international student enrolment.

Conestoga College granted morethan 30,000 study permits to international students last year. The province saidthe biggest declines in study permitswill be seen at Conestoga College.

In an interview with CBC Kitchener-Waterloo in February, Conestoga president John Tibbits defended theschool's intake of international students.

"Now, we're the focus because we're large and we're large because we serve 1.2 million people," Tibbits said in the interview.

Tibbits said at the time that the number ofinternational students makes up more than half the student population at the college andmany of those students are studying acrosscampuses inKitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph, Brantford, Milton, StratfordandIngersoll.

The college's statement on its website said the school has been a "predominant source of skilled workers in the eight cities we serve."

With files from Mike Crawley