“Lot of variables at play” on international student regulations changes, says CNC’s VP of Student Affairs

Earlier this week, The College of New Caledonia announced it is anticipating an operating deficit in the 2025-2026 fiscal year following a decline in international enrolment.

The decline follows federal changes to regulations for international students to study in Canada.

“Our numbers have reduced significantly, we still have a class coming in in January as well, so it’s sort of a rolling enrolment, we go term-by-term, but our numbers, our applications are down quite significantly,” said Shelley Carter-Rose, Vice-President of Student Affairs, and Interim Vice-President of Academics.

Carter-Rose said with less students, they’ll offer less courses and programs, and that means they’ll have less staff.

“We’re working through our data and our numbers and our projections on enrolment. There’s a lot of variables at play, but at the end of the day, there will be impact on people’s employment,” she explained.

“We’re very mindful and concerned about that, and we’re trying to do it as transparently as possible, and as well, we’re really being mindful in terms of how we communicate. That’s been a priority of the leadership group in terms of being open, transparent and communicate and answer questions for employees who are concerned.”

Carter-Rose said the college has been working to balance enrolment, as they need to reduce international and increase domestic.

“The changes this time, in October with the government, there’s a real key difference, they’ve reduced the numbers for the country in terms of allowing international students to come, they’ve reduced it by ten per cent, but what they also did, they said programs have to be aligned with a CIP, and a CIP is a classification of instructional programming,” she explained.

“We have CIP for our programs that we submit to the provincial government, but the federal government created a list of CIPs, and if your program is not on the CIP list, then the students who would enroll in that program after November 1st, and who would graduate in a couple of years, they’re not eligible for a post-graduate work permit, and that is a major difference. We have a number of programs that we knew were very heavy subscribed by international students, and if that program is not on the CIP list, we’ve had to make that hard decision to say we cannot intake students into that program if they applied after November 1st, because they would not be eligible for a post-graduate work permit.”

She added that many international students are coming to get the work-permits as well as permanent residency.

Carter-Rose said Canada’s reputation has been harmed by these changes.

“Students and agents who manage and work with students do not see Canada at this time as being open or being a viable option, so they’re looking at other countries for their studies,” she said.

“We have seen that decline, for September of this year, we were fine with our international enrolment because of our enrolment management work in January of this year, we were full for September. So the new changes that came out in mid-to-late-January didn’t effect us for September, but what we did see in September is our international applications have dropped and what we’re seeing for January, they’ve dropped over 50 per cent, so that’s telling us the student demand, the student interest has changed.”

Carter-Rose added these changes gives them the opportunity to review their programs, and make them more attractive to domestic students.