A drop in student enrolment at the University of Victoria and a number of other post-secondary institutions is being attributed in part to delays in federal processing of international study permits.
UVic, home to over 22,000 students, said in a statement that numbers were “trending lower than forecasted.”
Ongoing impacts from COVID-19 and inflation are also cited as reasons for the decrease.
UVic president Kevin Hall said in a letter to staff that the situation was “causing some concern about our tuition revenue.”
The university said it is taking steps to minimize the impact, including hiring in only critical or high-priority positions in the short term and looking for areas to reduce other expenses.
UVic Students’ Society spokesperson Izzy Adachi said she hasn’t heard anything about domestic students being affected, “but I do know that they were concerned that international students were coming in far fewer numbers.”
No specific figures were available, but UVic has reported a slight decline in both domestic and international students.
Adachi said she has heard that some university staff are concerned about cutbacks.
She said the students’ society has been telling the university that fee jumps for international students are too steep. Lack of housing for international students and others is also an issue, Adachi said.
“It’s hard to find housing if you’re local, and then moving across the world is certainly not going to be an easy thing,” she said. “So I think it’s a combination of the housing crisis and the fact that tuition prices are just so high.”
For 2022-23, UVic’s domestic tuition fee for most arts and sciences programs is $6,045. For international students, the fee is $27,836.
The students’ society is monitoring what is happening and trying “to hold the university accountable when we can,” Adachi said.
A 2021 Statistics Canada report said that international students accounted for all growth in post-secondary enrolments in 2018-19.
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