Unknowns hang over P.E.I. post-secondary schoolsafter federal cap onstudent permits

More than a week after the federal government's decision to cut the number of student permits it issues, college and university officials on P.E.I. say they have a lot of questions but not many answers.

"What do we do now?" said Sandy MacDonald, president of Holland College. "We've already accepted students for next year. How will they be affected?"

MacDonald said many of the international students who make up about 30 per cent of the college's population are disappointed by the new federal policy.

"I think there are some students who feel like they're being blamed," he said, adding that some students are wondering: "Is Canada the place I want to come and study in the future?"

In its announcement last week, the federal government said it will approve about 360,000 undergraduate student permits for 2024 a 35 per cent cut from last year.

According to Immigration Minister Marc Miller, the cap is intended to cut down on the "hundreds" of schools operating in Canada that accept large numbers of international students on allegedly underresourced campuses.

MacDonald said the federal government should take "strong action" against those sorts of schools, but the cap is making some prospective students second-guess Canada.

"I think we have to be careful on the international stage as we're trying to address the situation."

Miller described the schools being targeted as"the diploma equivalent of puppy mills."

While international students contribute "significantly" to Holland college's bottomline, MacDonald said fewer of them could mean more than just a drop in revenue.

It's still very much a work in progress.- Sandy MacDonald

Hypothetically, if the percentage of international students fell by 15 per cent, he said, " it would mean significantly fewer programs for sure."

He said his biggest question at this point is how student permits will be divided among post-secondary schools on the Island and how many Holland College will get.

Ottawa said each province and territory will be allotted a portion of the total, distributed according to population.

"It's still very much a work in progress," said MacDonald.

Students left scrambling

Obed Oluwakoya is theinternational student representative for the student union at UPEI and works at the school's international student office. He said calls have flooded in since the announcement.

"Is this going to affect my application? Am I going to have a chance to come in? Are they going to cut down on the number of people coming in? Am I going to be one of the people who's going to get cut?" Oluwakoya recited.

"We've definitely been seeing some uncertainty."

He said some of the reasons for the cap, like clampingdown on poorly run schools, make sense.

"But I don't know how much I like a one-size-fits-all solution."

He said schools and students should be consulted in these sorts of decisions.

UPEIworking out details

"There's still a lot of things we're not quite sure about now," said Jerry Wang, director of recruitment, first-year advising and the international student office.

He's spent the last week working with colleagues at the school and at other universities, trying to figure out what's going on, he said.

One significant point of uncertainty is the new requirement that every student permit application submitted after Jan. 22 to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) must also include an attestation letter from a province or territory.

Ottawa is demanding that all provinces and territories establish a process to issue those letters to students by March 31.

Wang and MacDonald both said their schools will continue communication with the provinceregarding the letters, but not much is known yet.

In a statement, the province said it's currently working on "the administration of attestation letters to eligible study permit applicants" but hasn't had confirmation of its share of the number of student permits.

Wang said the uncertainty is causing anxiety among prospective students.

"We hope things can be moving along faster."

Impacts outside the classroom

"Our campus looks very, very different today than it did ten years ago," said MacDonald.

Local students and those from off-Island learn a lot from their international counterparts.

"That dynamic really creates a wonderful culture at the college."

A cap would be a "significant loss for the community," he said, and would also mean a significant loss of part-time workers for local businesses.

Daniel Ohaegbu is the executive director of the Atlantic Student Development Alliance, a non-profit that connects international students and graduates with employers.

He said the cap seems intended to improve the supply of housing in Canada.

A news release announcing the changes last week noted that an increase in international students puts pressure on housing.

Speaking to reporters the same day, Housing Minister Sean Fraser said he expected some of that pressure could be alleviated from communities that take in large numbers of students.

Ohaegbu said it appears international students are being used as "scapegoats" forpolicy failures that led to the housing crisis.

"International students are bringing in an immense contribution into Canada and into the economy. So to see them thrown under the bus is unfair," he said.