Fewer students are coming from abroad to study at Canadian universities this fall, and Universities Canada is warning that the numbers have dropped below the cap the federal government set on international student visas this year.
The immigration minister announced a cap in January as a way to quell the rapid increase in the number of international students, citing pressure on housing, health care and other services.
The new policy limits the number of student visa applications the government would accept into processing, and that was expected to result in a 35 percent drop in the number of students in 2024 compared to last year.
“The drop just within universities will be well beyond that,” said Gabriel Miller, president of Universities Canada.
“This is a hit, a national hit to university budgets that we haven’t seen in modern memory.”
The cap created uncertainty for prospective students, and the Immigration Department’s pause in visa processing while the government implemented the changes may have led those students to look elsewhere, he said.
“The most important piece of feedback we’ve heard is just real uncertainty and confusion about what kind of opportunities there are going to be to come and study in Canada, and what the rules would be,” he said.
Miller said the full impact won’t be clear until schools see how many students turn up in September.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and the minister was not available for an interview.
The temporary cap announced in January is expected to last two years, and is intended to give the federal and provincial governments time to ensure international student programs are sustainable and have integrity.
The government also introduced new limits on work permits for students, their spouses, and postgraduates.
There have been several reports that outline cases of fraud and bad actors taking advantage of students from abroad, in some cases offering a dubious education in return for their higher tuition.
In January, Immigration Minister Marc Miller admitted that even though they had put a lot of thought into it, the cap was a “blunt” measure by the federal government.
“This is something we need to rein in,” he said at the time.
In the first half of this year, 244,895 new study permits came into effect, according to data released by the Immigration Department.
That’s a 2.6 percent increase in the number of new student visas compared to the first half of 2023. The number of study permits issued from July 2024 onward is not yet available.
