Why the federal cap on international students has hit Alberta — even though it still has room

Back in 2020, the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology launched a five-year plan that centred largely around boosting its ranks of international students.

"Our roots are in Calgary, our ambition is global: to bring more of the world to SAIT," the document reads.

By that measure, the plan has been an overwhelming success. The 2023-24 school year saw a record number of international students attend SAIT, far outstripping even what the polytechnic institute had expected.

The influx of international students — whose tuition is often double, triple or even quadruple that of Canadian students taking the same courses — brought with it a major revenue boost. International tuition at SAIT totalled $132 million for the year, marking an 81 per cent increase from the year before. (Domestic tuition was up as well, but by a relatively modest 12 per cent, to $78 million.)

And while SAIT has seen the largest increase in international students, it's far from alone in this trend.

There were nearly 30,000 more international students enrolled at Alberta post-secondary institutions in 2023-24 than there were a decade prior, according to provincial data. Community colleges and polytechnic institutions account for nearly three-quarters of that increase. (SAIT, alone, accounts for 20 per cent.)

In early January 2024, however, things started to change.

That's when the federal government announced a two-year cap on international study permits.

The move was described as targeting "bad actors," particularly in Ontario, where the provincial minister responsible for colleges and universities expressed concern that some institutions were "taking advantage" of international students "with false promises of guaranteed employment, residency and Canadian citizenship." It also came amid concern over the effect international students were having on the housing market.

These concerns were particularly acute in Ontario, which had nearly 10 times as many international study-permit holders as Alberta at the end of 2023, and in British Columbia, which had more than triple Alberta's numbers.

Given the way the new federal rules allocated study permits to each province, however, Alberta was actually allowed to admit more international students in 2024 than it had in 2023, while the number of newly issued permits in Ontario and B.C. was curtailed. The allocation for Alberta was boosted again for 2025.

In other words, while Ontario and B.C. are bumping up against the federal cap, Alberta still has room. Yet while it could welcome more international students than ever before, the number of new study permits that took effect in 2024 actually declined by about 10 per cent compared with the previous year.

Leaders of Alberta post-secondary institutions say they've seen even bigger declines in study-permit applications in 2025, as they believe the new federal rules have discouraged many would-be international students from even applying.

And, they say, the implications for institutions that have come to rely on these students could be significant. 

'No longer welcoming'

Pablo Ortiz, dean of students at Alberta University of the Arts, says international applications at his institution are down 26 per cent since the federal cap was announced, and actual admissions of international students are down 30 per cent.

The university has not hit its cap and could admit more students — if it could find them — but he says the new federal rules have had a chilling effect on prospective applicants in other countries, who have interpreted them as a sea change in the way Canada views foreign students.

"Basically, what we're saying [as a country] is that we're no longer welcoming of international students," he said. "That's the message that everybody, at least, is reading abroad."

As a smaller institution, AUArts could be significantly affected by the loss of international students, according to Ortiz.

"Some programs that relied heavily on international student enrolment might see reduced offerings or even discontinuation," he said.

Calgary's Bow Valley College is much larger, with an international student body that measures in the thousands. But it, too, has been affected.

Under the federal rules, it was allowed to provide roughly 2,400 provincial attestation letters last year, which are required documents for most study-permit applicants, confirming they have been assigned a place to study at a particular school. But Bow Valley wasn't able to meet that threshold, said Kara Sayers, dean of enrolment management and registrar, falling about 10 per cent short.

"And we enrolled far fewer students than that at the end of the day, because you lose them at other points in time along the process," she said.

The loss of tuition revenue can have far-reaching implications, she added.

"When you're looking at the financial sustainability or viability of a program, and you don't have that international tuition to offset it, I think there are vulnerabilities that come in," she said.

"And it isn't necessarily just programs that have a lot of international students, but all of this gets intertwined for an institution."

'Competitive environment'

At The King's University, a small Christian institution in Edmonton, international applications are down 34 per cent.

President Melanie Humphreys says it's a "competitive environment" in terms of global recruitment, and prospective students are looking elsewhere after the federal government introduced the cap, along with additional paperwork and rule changes that make coming to Canada more challenging.

"If Australia or the U.K. or some other country replies sooner in terms of guaranteeing them of a visa, then that's where they go and that's where the talent goes," she said.

Humphreys, who also serves as chair of the Alberta Post-Secondary Network, described the federal cap and associated changes as a "sledgehammer" policy that was largely aimed at a handful of Ontario institutions that were seen to be taking advantage of the study-permit system but is catching Alberta colleges and universities in its wake.

"From the very beginning, Alberta actually has been a responsible player," she said.

The two-year cap on study permits expires at the end of this year and she'd like to see "a far more surgical approach" from the federal government in 2026.

Gabriel Miller, president and CEO of Universities Canada, had a similar view.

"What we saw was a series of rapid-fire, blunt policy decisions by the previous federal government that sent a message to the world that Canada wasn't as interested in being a premier destination for the most talented people in the world," he said.

"And the rest of the world got that message. And so we've seen a drop in the number of people applying to come here. And we've seen a drop in enrolments."

'There's education and there's edu-business'

At SAIT, which has seen the largest growth in international students over the past decade in Alberta, teaching staff are now bracing for a decline.

They're also anticipating job losses — particularly among those who aren't members of the full-time, permanent faculty.

"We were notified that there was potentially some layoffs," said Blair Howes, president of the SAIT Academic Faculty Association.

He said the union hasn't yet received official notice of specific layoffs from SAIT but it's expected some positions will be discontinued.

"They have indicated that some of the casual positions and temporary salary ones were likely not to be renewed for the upcoming, next semester."

SAIT president David Ross declined to be interviewed for this story.

The Calgary-based institution recently informed teaching staff that its photojournalism major would be discontinued in September due to reduced international enrolment.

Overall, however, Howes said there's not as much "doom and gloom" among SAIT faculty as perhaps there is at some Ontario institutions, where international student enrolment has seen much more drastic declines.

He credited SAIT for handling its expansion of international student enrolment "fairly well," especially compared with how some other institutions in the country have approached it.

"I do think that for some of the smaller organizations and institutions, it was pretty much a greed-motivated cash cow, for lack of better words," he said.

At the same time, he also believes many institutions, including SAIT, have been forced to look for additional revenue streams due to years of government funding cuts, and boosting international student enrolment has provided an enticing solution.

"There's education and there's edu-business, and the two sort of meld together," Howes said.

"I would say that, in some cases, that was a forced initiative. I mean, if you're not going to fund post-secondary the way you funded it 10 years ago, but here's the opportunity: you can make up your shortfall by increasing foreign tuition."

The question facing Alberta post-secondary institutions now: What to do if that opportunity goes away?