by Syed Sakibul Mowla
Colleges across Ontario have announced significant program cuts. Centennial College suspended 49 fulltime programs recently. Sheridan College has suspended 40 programs and Mohawk College in Hamilton suspended 16 programs. Algonquin College is facing a $32 million revenue loss due to a drop in international students.
Seneca Polytechnic is not immune to the financial crisis hitting post secondary institutions according to President David Agnew. Last November Seneca announced it was temporarily closing its Markham campus.
“We will do everything we humanly can to insulate our students from the effects of this, but as you can see, it’s a challenging time.”
“So we’re still in the current fiscal year is 24-25. And it ends on March 31st 2025. And our budget prediction is that we were headed towards a modest surplus in our budget but we think we’re now going to be in deficit because of the drop in international students.” said Agnew.
In January 2024, the federal government cut the number of study permits for international students by 35%. Then in September, it announced another ten per cent cut for 2025 and 2026.
“Next year will be worse, because that’s when the full effect hits us because so many international students are here for two years so that when they reached the end of their program then the big big drop.” said Agnew.
Domestic Enrollment is up
Domestic enrollment is actually up this semester. But that doesn’t ease the financial pressure.
“We actually lose money teaching domestic students. So the role of international students, in addition to enhancing our campuses, making classrooms more diverse, in cases becoming permanent residents and citizens and adding to our labour force, all those kinds of good things, in addition to that they’re also helping cross subsidize those programs.”
Agnew says, “We have to have government come to the table and talk about the future of the system. Because the course that it is on right now is what’s playing out in the media, we’re seeing campus disclosing, we’re seeing programs suspended, we’re seeing employees being laid off. We have to build a sustainable, strong postsecondary system, and it’s being it’s being undermined by the current environment. ”
Agnew has been holding Town Halls to explain the harsh reality to faculty and students. The Polytechnic is offering exit packages for Seneca professors, incentives to retire or leave Seneca and the magnitude of the shift in the environment will be glaring to say the least according to President Agnew.
“There’s not a lot of long runway because people are, I’ll be very open with you, people like us, we’re going through our surpluses right now, we have some money at least. We’re postponing capital projects. We’re doing as much as we can to save money, but at some point the well goes dry.”
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