Feds give N.B. reprieve from stringency of international students cap

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OTTAWA • The federal government has given New Brunswick a reprieve from the stringency of its international student cap for the school year ahead.

It’s a move Higgs government Labour Minister Greg Turner says may now maintain the number of international students the province enrolled this past year, instead of inflicting a dramatic cut that was widely denounced.

It even provides the possibility for numbers to grow.

In a rare glowing statement on the Trudeau government, Turner added he’s “grateful” to federal Minister Marc Miller for “listening to our concerns,” while thanking the federal government’s “openness to supporting New Brunswick with its unique challenges to recruiting students abroad.”

The federal government announced in January it was slashing by 35 per cent the number of undergraduate study permits it hands out across the country.

The cut was a response to concerns that newcomers were adding to the national housing crisis.

New Brunswick had been allotted 5,580 spots, which the Higgs government then allocated to post-secondary institutions.

It was a number that meant that nearly every post-secondary institution in the province – public and private – had at least a chance to match and even exceed the number of international students it welcomed during the current school year.

But most of the institutions were pessimistic, instead anticipating a sudden drop in enrolment.

That’s because Ottawa was also capping the number of acceptance letters that New Brunswick institutions could issue at 9,300, based on an assumption that 60 per cent of the students offered a spot will accept and move here.

It was a formula that the Higgs government and New Brunswick schools have vigorously fought behind the scenes over the last two months.

Officials have argued that only about 30 to 40 per cent of the international students offered a spot at a New Brunswick post-secondary school actually accept and make the decision to study in the province.

That’s only slightly above 20 per cent for the province’s francophone schools.

The fear was that the new cap meant New Brunswick was about to see its international student population plummet by potentially thousands.

That’s as the province has banked heavily on newcomers filling thousands of vacant jobs across the province in attempts to counteract a rapidly aging population.

It’s a concern that has now been heard in a finalized international student cap for 2024.

The new figures provided by Ottawa show that the maximum number of international post-secondary students New Brunswick can receive for the school year beginning in September hasn’t changed.

That number is now 5,567, actually slightly down from the 5,580 undergraduates that the feds originally forecasted.

Still, it’s a number above the 4,912 new international undergrads that were welcomed by New Brunswick in the current school year.

But what’s now dramatically changed is the number of offers the province’s schools will now be able to make to reach that capped figure.

The feds say New Brunswick institutions can now issue a total of 14,651 acceptance letters, up from that original figure of 9,300.

It means that the acceptance rate will need to be just 38 per cent for the province to reach the student cap, instead of 60 per cent.

In a statement, Miller’s office acknowledged that “the top­-ups will help provinces with lower approval rates reach their expected number of approved study permits in 2024.”

The Higgs government is applauding the move.

“Our government has been very vocal about the importance of maintaining the number of international students our institutions are enrolling,” Labour Minister Turner said in a statement. “This great news would not have been possible without the hard work of departmental staff and their collaboration with their federal counterparts.

“They went above and beyond to ensure the needs of our institutions were clearly heard in Ottawa.”

He added: “We are grateful to Minister Mark Miller and the federal government for listening to our concerns and their openness to supporting New Brunswick with its unique challenges to recruiting students abroad.”

Letters distributed

The Higgs government has since distributed the 14,651 acceptance letters to the province’s institutions.

It was done so in attempts to keep international student populations stable, according to the Higgs government, while taking into consideration past acceptance rates.

The New Brunswick Community College now has 4,390 acceptance letters to hand out to prospective international students.

That’s up an extra 1,595.

It means NBCC needs a 39.7 per cent conversion rate to keep same level of students.

According to the school, their rate last year was 35 per cent.

Meanwhile, the Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick now has an extra 942 more, for a total of 2,798.

And l’Université de Moncton has 3,369 letters to hand out, up 1,193, while the University of New Brunswick has 2,051, up 749 from Ottawa’s original cap.

UdeM converts at a 23 per cent rate, according to the school, but will now need a 30.5 per cent conversion rate to keep same level of students.

Spokesperson Paul Ward said in an interview that UdeM is now cautiously optimistic.

“It’s going to help us with our conversion rate, it’s going to help us reach (the maximum number of students allowed) easier,” Ward said.

Just one year

The feds had said they wanted a 35 per cent reduction in the number of international students.

In a first year, at least, that reduction will be 28 per cent, according to the federal government’s final figures. It equates to 552,000 study permit applications to yield approximately 292,000 approved study permits.

In acknowledging that the final numbers allow for some provinces to receive more international students than in the past year, the feds say that growth is capped at 10 per cent.

But for those getting fewer, the feds say they “adjusted their allocation to lessen the negative impact in the first year and support broader regional immigration goals.”

That could change as early as next year, depending on the actual number of students each province brings in beginning in September.

“These results will help me make decisions on allocations for 2025,” Miller said in a statement.

The final figures show that Quebec, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Prince Edward Island also got top up to the number of offer letters they can send out.

New Brunswick Community College
1,744 international 2023-24 undergrads
4,390 acceptance letters, up an extra 1,595
39.7 per cent conversion rate to keep same level of students

Universite de Moncton
1,027 international 2023-24 undergrads
3,369 acceptance letters, up an extra 1,193
30.5 per cent conversion rate to keep same level of students

College Communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick
776 international 2023-24 undergrads
2,798 acceptance letters, up an extra 942
27.7 per cent conversion rate to keep same level of students

University of New Brunswick
661 international 2023-24 undergrads
2,051 acceptance letters, up an extra 749
32.2 per cent conversion rate to keep same level of students

Mount Allison University
147 international 2023-24 undergrads
402 acceptance letters, up an extra 115
36.6 per cent conversion rate to keep same level of students

Oulton College
113 international 2023-24 undergrads
326 acceptance letters, up an extra 119
34.7 per cent conversion rate to keep same level of students

St. Thomas University
117 international 2023-24 undergrads
314 acceptance letters, up an extra 115
37.3 per cent conversion rate to keep same level of students

Eastern College Inc.
65 international 2023-24 undergrads
301 acceptance letters, up an extra 109
21.6 per cent conversion rate to keep same level of students

Moncton Flight College
130 international 2023-24 undergrads
351 acceptance letters, up an extra 201
37 per cent conversion rate to keep same level of students

McKenzie Language and Learning Center
62 international 2023-24 undergrads
48 acceptance letters, up an extra 18
129.2 per cent conversion rate to keep same level of students

New Brunswick Indigenous Career College
10 international 2023-24 undergrads
29 acceptance letters, up an extra six
34.5 per cent conversion rate to keep same level of students

Atlantic College of Applied Health Sciences
2 international 2023-24 undergrads
26 acceptance letters, up an extra three
7.7 per cent conversion rate to keep same level of students

New Brunswick College of Craft and Design
25 international 2023-24 undergrads
65 acceptance letters, up an extra 44
38.5 per cent conversion rate to keep same level of students

Crandall University
9 international 2023-24 undergrads
51 acceptance letters, up an extra 35
17.6 per cent conversion rate to keep same level of students

Atlantic Business College Inc.
13 international 2023-24 undergrads
22 acceptance letters, up an extra nine
59.1 per cent conversion rate to keep same level of students

Kingswood University
5 international 2023-24 undergrads
27 acceptance letters, up an extra 20
18.5 per cent conversion rate to keep same level of students

LaFrance School of Hair Design
3 international 2023-24 undergrads
11 acceptance letters, up an extra four
27.3 per cent conversion rate to keep same level of students

McKenzie College
2 international 2023-24 undergrads
11 acceptance letters, up an extra four
18.2 per cent conversion rate to keep same level of students

Maritime College of Forest Technology
1 international 2023-24 undergrad
11 acceptance letters, up an extra four
9.1 per cent conversion rate to keep same level of students

Northeast Christian College
0 international 2023-24 undergrads
11 acceptance letters, up an extra four

New Brunswick Bible Institute
0 international 2023-24 undergrads
27 acceptance letters, up an extra 20

East Coast Trades College
0 international 2023-24 undergrads
10 acceptance letters, up 10