Tuition Time Bomb: How Canada’s Reliance on International Students Backfired

Canada, September 5: As Canadian colleges and universities prepare to reopen this September, a storm is quietly unfolding and for many faculty, staff, and students, the fall semester comes not with fresh starts, but pink slips.

Entire programs are being cancelled. Campuses are shrinking. Instructors are losing their jobs.

And the root cause? Canada’s over-reliance on international students – many of them from South Asia to prop up its post-secondary institutions. When the federal government decided to turn off the tap, the entire system began to unravel.

A Sudden Policy Shift – And a Sector in Shock

It began in January 2024, when the Canadian government introduced a cap on new international study permits. By 2025, the cap was tightened further, and a provincial attestation letter (PAL/TAL) became mandatory for most applicants — even graduate students.

According to the Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada  (IRCC), these measures have led to a 40% drop in international student intake, with the national permit cap for 2025 set at 437,000 — a 10% decrease from 2024. Permits are now allocated to each province, putting a hard stop to the unregulated growth of previous years.

It’s a move that may be policy-sound — but it’s come at a massive cost.

The Hidden Cost of Chasing Tuition Dollars

Over the years, I’ve written extensively about how unscrupulous immigration consultants have cheated South Asian students — issuing fake admission letters, securing visas for non-existent institutions, and leaving students stranded in a foreign land with worthless degrees.

Some of these young people lost thousands of dollars. Some lost years of their lives. Tragically, a few lost their lives entirely — unable to cope with the shame and pressure of having wasted their families’ life savings.

But this story — the one we’re living now — is different. This time, the students, staff, and faculty at legitimate institutions are paying the price for a broken funding model.

The Numbers Don’t Lie – And They’re Grim

Let me give you a sense of scale:

In Ontario, where international students made up roughly a third of college revenue:

• International enrolment dropped by 48% across 23 of 24 public colleges between September 2023 and September 2024.
• Over 600 programs were cancelled or suspended by spring 2025.
• More than 8,000 positions have been lost, with unions estimating the real number closer to 10,000.

In British Columbia, the picture is equally dire. The province received just 53,589 study permit allocations for 2025 — a sharp decline from the 175,000 international students it hosted in 2022. Public colleges and teaching universities that once thrived on these enrolments are now scrambling for survival.

At Langara College, international student numbers dropped by 2,400 — nearly 20% of the entire student body. The institution issued 69 position reduction notices, but internal sources suggest over 300 faculty and staff could ultimately be affected.

“As a result of 2,400 less students, we need fewer courses,” said Langara President Dr. Paula Burns.

“We need to look at expenses across all areas.”

Even larger universities like Simon Fraser and the University of Victoria — which once relied less on international undergrads — are now seeing ripple effects in their graduate programs.

The Silence Is Deafening

What’s perhaps most frustrating is the lack of a clear plan from institutions.

At Langara, faculty union president Pauline Greaves summed it up:

“We had no response. We have not received a plan. I think it is incredibly disrespectful that faculty don’t know if they’ll have jobs after Christmas.”

She went on to question priorities, noting that while faculty are being let go, administrative ranks remain untouched:

“There are over 170 administrators. Are any of them being laid off?”

It’s a fair question.

Local Students Aren’t Immune Either

This isn’t just about international students. Domestic students are now caught in the crossfire too — facing fewer program choices, larger class sizes, and longer completion times as course rotations shrink.

And the communities surrounding these colleges? They’re feeling it too. When campuses close or shrink, it’s not just jobs that disappear — it’s student housing demand, local business traffic, even public transit usage. The economic ripple effect is very real.

A House of Cards

Let’s be clear: this isn’t just the fault of sudden federal policy.

What we’re seeing is the collapse of a house of cards — a system that grew addicted to international tuition while government funding stayed stagnant. Institutions built out programs and facilities for temporary growth, not sustainable futures.

And when the pipeline slowed, everything else collapsed.

So, Where Do We Go From Here?

If there’s one lesson in this, it’s this:

Education cannot be sustained on quick fixes and unstable revenue streams.

Canada’s post-secondary sector needs a serious reset — not just emergency measures.

We need:

• A resilient funding model backed by predictable government support.
• Ethical, transparent international recruitment.
• Better support systems for both international and domestic students.
• And most of all, leadership willing to acknowledge the cracks and rebuild – not just manage decline.

Until then, we’ll remain trapped in a cycle of boom and bust – with faculty, students, and families paying the steepest price.