Cash cows to scapegoats

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 anti-immigration sentiment in Canada.

Some mornings are colder than others. This particular morning, earlier last year, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (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 and 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 the multifaceted structural issue that is the ongoing housing crisis.

While reasonable to some, the cap is set to cost Atlantic Canada an estimated $165 million. 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 Seneca 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 Master’s students starting in the fall of 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.

Labour costs are amongst the largest expenses universities have, so 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.

Ridhima Dixit is an international student studying political science at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John. She is doing a UNB Arts 4000 placement with the Madhu Verma Migrant Justice Centre.

This story was first published by The Baron on January 17, 2025.