ManitobaA Manitoba college is expecting near-record enrolment for the second year in a row, but it won’t be enough for the post-secondary institution to offset financial losses from a drop in international student enrolment.Like other colleges, RRC feeling the burn from federal policy changes limiting international enrolmentCBC News · Posted: Aug 25, 2025 4:43 PM EDT | Last Updated: 31 minutes agoRed River College Polytech recorded its highest enrolment ever last year, with 23,400 students registered. The school expects at least that many students again this year, if not more, though the financial sting lingers on from a federal cap on international students. (Gary Solilak/CBC)A Manitoba college is expecting near-record enrolment for the second year in a row, but it won’t be enough for the post-secondary institution to offset financial losses from a drop in international student enrolment.Red River College Polytech welcomed back a rush of students to its Winnipeg campuses on Monday as fall semester gets underway.Despite an eight per cent growth in enrolment year over year, RRC Polytech president and CEO Fred Meier says the college’s books still aren’t what they once were due to fewer international students.”It might be an offset in the amount of students that we’re seeing in total, but it certainly is not an offset in the amount of tuition,” Meier told Information Radio guest host Cory Funk on Monday.”International students pay a higher level of tuition and we will have a financial impact with less students.”Manitoba’s universities and colleges were already feeling the hit around this time last year, after the federal Liberal government moved to restrict the number of international students were allowed to study in Canada.Ottawa imposed the limits in early 2024 in an attempt to stop small private colleges from exploiting international arrivals and to relieve strain on Canada’s housing market. That first year saw the federal government target a 35 per cent cut to international undergraduate study permits.”The pandemic hit institutions hard across the country but not as hard as IRCC did back in 2024 and that cap on international students unfortunately came about really abruptly and really strictly,” said Ken Steele, president of Education Inc.”The whole sequence of a dozen different announcements that the federal government has made has created a global climate where Canada has fallen from the No. 1 destination to No. 4 in a lot of the surveys. It’s far less appealing.”Steele said there’s anywhere from a third to half fewer applications from international students these days, and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada is approving fewer of those applications.”So, we’re seeing a kind of knock-on effect from that,” he said.Steele said the worst hit have been Ontario colleges. He said Canadian universities have generally been more sheltered from the issue partly because their programs run for longer periods of time.He added that colleges were also very dependent on India as a source country for international students, which “seems to be the country where the approval rate from IRCC has dropped the most sharply, and the post-graduate work permits that were cut for those colleges.””It’s difficult now coming to Canada and staying here,” said Nishant Malhotra, a first-year Indian student at RRC Polytech in Winnipeg.”People are getting to realize how actually difficult it is.… Students in India, they are looking at it more practically now.”RRC recorded its highest number ever last year in enrolment at 23,400 students registered, said Meier. The school expects at least that many students again this year, if not more, though the financial sting lingers on from the federal policy changes.The lion’s share of RRC’s growth has come from gains in domestic enrolment. Meier attributes that in part to the addition or expansion of offerings such as a new production program in the entertainment and media arts institute.’It’s difficult now coming to Canada and staying here,” Nishant Malhotra, a first-year student at RRC Polytech in Winnipeg, said Monday. ‘Students in India, they are looking at it more practically now.’ (Travis Golby/CBC)Manitoba’s growing film industry drove the creation of that program, said Meier, and RRC looks to labour market forces in other sectors as it considers where to add or expand programming and research.But the federal change to the post-graduate work permit system, which offers Canadian work experience after graduating, has also contributed to a slump in enrolment from international students.”Everyone in the post-secondary sector across the country was anticipating this,” said Meier.”We still have a lot of interest in our programs. We know the amount of applicants and those that are being screened by the federal government for entry into Canada was going to be reduced.”Schools brace for fallElsewhere in the province, the University of Manitoba’s budget 2025-26 proposal warned the uncertainty over international student enrolment will remain the most significant risk for the school’s finances, expecting a 7.5 per cent decline this fall.A University of Winnipeg spokesperson told CBC News there won’t be any additional program cuts from what the school announced earlier this year.Brandon University expects international enrolment to drop 18.4 per cent in its budget proposal. The school said in an email an increase in domestic enrolments won’t be enough to make up for the lost revenue, and that it’s looking at savings that will have “minimal effect on services.”Assiniboine College said it’s been budgeting for a decline in international enrolment, but it won’t comment on how that drop will impact its finances this fall since it’s still waiting for definite numbers.St. Boniface University said it expects a return to pre-pandemic registration levels, but that it’s not as reliant on international students, partly due to its language mandate.With files from Mike Arsenault, Arturo Chang and Information Radio
RRC Polytech expects near-record enrolment. It won’t offset tuition losses from drop in int’l students
