The federal and provincial governments have been underfunding universities for decades. Recently, universities were able to start recruiting foreign students to make up for the shortfall, but it looks like that money tap will be turned down. It doesn't look like there's a plan to make up for it.
At the same time, the feds want to
recruit more than 1,000 top international researchers to Canada, with the budget injecting up to $1.7-billion into a suite of recruitment measures.
That'll be tough if universities see their income crater.
They’re hurting because they got addicted to international student funding and grew to ridiculous size, then that funding dried up and they don’t want to shrink back down to normal size.
It’s like a person being fed all-you-can-eat fried chicken and milkshakes, gaining 300 lbs, then being put on a healthy diet and complaining they’re hungry all the time.
Isn't growing universities a good thing? It seems to me that giving everyone access to a university education would be highly beneficial to the people.
Universities have grown way beyond what they need to for the domestic student population. This is growth squarely aimed at international students who pay 5-10x what domestic students pay in tuition. Cut off the tap of international students and you end up with huge unused capacity and budget shortfalls.
Okay but larger enrollments help everyone. Attracting legitimate international students to our Universities tends to result in better educations for our citizens and better research for our society. There's no necessary downside.