More than tuition: Cash cows to Scapegoats

Ridhima Dixit

READING TIME: 2 MINUTES

Cash cows to Scapegoats is a feature series that explores the mental, social, cultural, and
economic capital involved when immigrating to Canada as an international student. Diving
beyond expensive tuition, the series spotlights the various social, cultural, economic, and
environmental costs attached to immigrating as an international student. The series focuses on a broad set of topics ranging from housing to hospitality (or the lack of) due to an alarming
increase in the anti-immigration sentiment in Canada.

Some mornings are colder than others. This particular morning, Introduced earlier last year, the IRCC announced a need for regulating immigration due to a variety of reasons ranging from fraudulent immigration consultants acting as third party actors to unregulated growth.
Subsequently, over the past few years observers note the burden of the housing crisis has unfairly been placed on the shoulders of international students. A group that continues to be
discriminated against in the housing market due to a lack of credit history, bias alongside the
overall lack of affordable housing. Due to ongoing conversations about the pressure on the
housing market, a sudden cap on international students indicates blame. I held my coffee mug a little tighter as I tried to make sense of what was to come when a group was single-handedly
blamed for a multifaceted structural issue, the ongoing housing crisis.

While reasonable to some, the cap is set to cost Atlantic Canada an estimated $165 Million.

BBC/Website

Why is that?

Traditionally there are two main revenue streams most universities rely upon: government
funding and tuition. With a steadfast decline in government funding of public education in the
early 1990s as neoliberal economic policies broadened around the world, tuition accelerated. As the reliance on student loans grew amongst domestic students, the disparity between domestic tuition and international tuition which is almost twice as much was used to strike an equilibrium, and offset some more costs.

Within a week of announcing the slashes on study permits issued, Ontario’s Senaca Polytechnic College announced the subsequent shutting down of one of its campuses as of Fall 2024. Similarly, Queen’s University recently made the decision to no longer fund Masters students from Fall 2025. In each case universities have cited the decline of international students as one of the major reasons behind the cuts.

What is next?

While the storm ahead makes itself known, what should stand clear to us all is that these changes impact all of us.

Labor costs are amongst the largest expenses universities have - what is next? mass layoffs? On the other hand the international student experience continues to be scrutinized by the
bureaucracy. In this series, I will be focusing on some of the challenges that present themselves.

SHARE

InstagramShare