Fanshawe College prepares for 2025 school year with thousands fewer international students
CBC News | Posted: October 31, 2024 3:33 PM | Last Updated: October 31
The province is also hiring an outside consultant to review the college's operations
The president at Fanshawe College is projecting the school will have approximately 5,000 fewer international students next semester with implications for the institutions's bottom line.
Peter Devlin said the drop in first year enrolment will continue into the spring semester impacting the number of classes that will be offered in each program.
"What I can share with reasonable confidence today is that we are projecting a 47 per cent reduction in international Level 1 student enrolment for the January intake and a 39 per cent reduction for the May intake," Devlin wrote in an internal staff email obtained by CBC News.
The college's international student population has grown substantially in recent years, with around 11,700 permits issued in 2023 and in 2024, the third-highest number among Canadian post-secondary institutions. In 2018, the school had just over 4,000 international students enrolled.
The federal government has put a cap on international student enrolment amid concerns that the high numbers are contributing to housing shortages and high rents. The new target for 2025 and 2026 will be 437,000 permits spread across the country.
The province has also ordered certain "priority programs," like early childhood education and health and human services, to have minimum international student headcounts, while some one-year business management programs will see a two-year pause on international enrolment.
"Fanshawe is conducting a thorough review of our current program offerings and comparing them against the criteria set by the federal and provincial governments," Devlin wrote. He said the task is to identify which programs quality for post-graduate work permits.
Devlin said an outside consulting firm, StrategyCorp, has been hired to conduct an independent review of Fanshawe College's operations to identify savings.
"This review is being funded by the provincial government and there will be a stakeholder consultations and engagement opportunities. I expect that the review will be finished by March 2025," Devlin wrote.
He told staff, that despite it being an uncertain time, he was confident the college would continue to have longterm success.