Ontario public colleges depend on foreign students' money. Should they?
The line is blurry for Ontario's public colleges that increasingly rely on foreign tuition
When the true number of international students attending Ontario's publicly-funded colleges was revealed this week thanks to a CBC News investigation, it laid bare for the first time the public scope of a problem politicians blamed on private schools Immigration Minister Marc Miller likened to "the diploma equivalent of puppy mills."
It turned out those so-called "puppy mills" were, for the most part, Ontario public colleges.
The CBC News investigation showed the vast majority of international students were being issued study permits to attend provincially-funded Ontario community colleges, with some schools recruiting enough foreign students to rival the populations of small Ontario cities.
For example, Fanshawe College in London, Ont., drew the third largest number of international students in the country by volume last year with 11,700 — equivalent to the population of Uxbridge, Ont.
Dependence on foreign money a threat to colleges
The dependence on revenue from these students is something Ontario's Auditor General identified as a risk to the long-term survival of Ontario's public colleges three years ago. Hit hard by provincial budget cuts and a tuition freeze that's kept domestic student fees the same since 2019, finding new revenue is more crucial than ever.
Back in 2021, 68 per cent of the revenue for Ontario's public colleges came from foreign students, a total of $ 1.7 billion. Today, that number is far higher.
For the students who come from aboard, such as Anne-Marie Jill Gupit who came from the Philippines to enrol in hospitality and tourism management at Fanshawe College's downtown campus, she sees her education as a conduit for permanent residence in Canada.
"We want to stay," she said. "I think the life here in Canada is different than in the Philippines. Because we came from a third world country. So you work hard there and you get less."
Here, it just seems like a "fairer system," she said.
"Fairer" depends on how you look at it. Unlike Canadian students who pay about $8,000 in tuition, Gupit pays about $37,000, on top of the $48,000 a year in living expenses for her, her husband and their daughter.
To her, it's worth it. It's a shot at a better life in a country that promises a brighter future for her family. But if Ontario's publicly-funded colleges are a de facto gateway for international students to gain permanent residency in Canada, should they be charging people premium for it?
Fine line of fairness
Some argue there's a fine line between education and exploitation.
"There's complaints here and there," Stephin Sathay, Fanshawe College's student union president a former international student himself, told CBC Radio One's Afternoon Drive in an interview earlier this week.
He said when international students come to him with complaints, most of it has to do with Fanshawe College's London South campus, a blocky-looking office building at the heart of the city's southern commercial district that once belonged to the privately-run Westervelt College.
"That campus is almost 100 per cent international," he said. "It's just a building with classrooms and it's not what they expected."
"There's no domestic students, right? There's a few in a program, but everyone else is just there as international students, and they feel segregated in that campus sometimes," he said, noting most choose Fanshawe because of all the facilities it boasts at its main campus, only to find out they're a 20-minute drive away.
"They feel segregated in that campus sometimes and they're like, 'this is not fair.'"
Students help reduce labour shortage and raise productivity
Ontario's colleges say they're filling a need. The students help reduce labour shortages and increase Canada's diminishing productivity.
"It's actually quite urgent," said Jeff Wright, the school's vice-president of strategy told Afternoon Drive.
He noted the London region has tens of thousands of jobs that go unfilled each year because of an ongoing labour shortage that Fanshawe hopes to fill with its graduates.
While Fanshawe might be filling a need, it also doesn't deny how much money students from abroad bring in.
Total revenue at Fanshawe increased by $64 million during the 2022-23 academic year, the school's 2022-23 annual report said, and was "primarily driven by the planned increase in international enrolments."
"Absolutely," said Wright. "I think there's no question in our case."
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