UPEI says it will need more provincial cash if enrolment drops due to foreign student cap - Action News
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PEI

UPEI says it will need more provincial cash if enrolment drops due to foreign student cap

UPEI officials are warning MLAs that the university may need more provincial funding if the federal governments cap on new international students leads to lower enrolment at the Charlottetown campus.

Interim president says 10% drop in international students could leave UPEI short $3M

Students walking toward brick building.
UPEI officials are worried the province may be limited in the number of provincial attestation letters it can provide to international students, leaving many applicants having to study in another province instead. (Aaron Adetuyi/CBC)

UPEI officials are warning Island politicians that the university may need more provincial funding if the federal government's cap on new international students leads to lower enrolment.

Speaking to a legislative committee Friday,interim president Greg Keefeoutlined concerns about a dip in applications from students from outside Canada.

Keefe said post-secondary institutions in P.E.I. are worried the province may be limited in the number of attestations it can provide to international students. Obtaining aprovincialattestation letter, a necessity the federal government introduced last month, is effectively the first step in a foreign student getting a permit to study in Canada.

"It's typical that students apply to a number of universities when they're looking for opportunities," Keefe said.

If the P.E.I. government doesn't have enough attestations to grant, he said, "then we won't actually achieve the visa targets that we've actually been allocated."

Greg Keefe, the interim president of UPEI.
UPEI's interim president Greg Keefe wanted MLAs to know that the university may have to ask for more funding if the federal government's cap on new international students leads to lower enrolment. (Steve Bruce/CBC)

Keefe argues that if P.E.I. is limited in the number of attestation letters it can provide to potential students, the province will be disproportionately affected since there is only one university on the Island. In most other provinces, students have multiple universities to choose from.

Over $100 million comes into the provincial economy as a result of having international students at UPEI and Holland College. Interim UPEI president Greg Keefe

The worry for the Island's post-secondary institutions stems from Ottawa's decision to approve just360,000 undergraduate study permits this year, a 35 per cent reduction from 2023, in an effort to help ease the nationwide housing crisis.

UPEI has as many as 3,000 international students applying on a yearly basis, with only a small fractionactually accepted.

While international students make up 37 per cent of the student body at UPEI, they contribute half of the university's total tuition revenuebecause they payhigher fees than students with Canadian citizenship.

Keefe estimates that a 10 per cent drop in the number of international students taking a full four-year undergraduate degree wouldresult in a $3 million budget shortfall for UPEI.

"I thought it was important that [MLAs] be made aware of the potential implications for the province," he said. "Our estimates would be that over $100 million comes into the provincial economy as a result of having international students at UPEI and Holland College in particular."

With files from Laura Meader