It seemed like a door had opened.
Providence University College and Theological Seminary in Manitoba started an associate’s degree program that could be marketed to international students. To president Kenton Anderson’s delight, the two-year degree attracted a significant number of applicants eager to study in Canada. Several hundred students enrolled.
For the private evangelical school, that generated significant revenue and helped further fulfill the mission of spreading the gospel around the world.
Providence made plans to grow the program—could they attract 500 international students? 600? 700?—and bought an apartment building in nearby Winnipeg to provide increased student housing.
Then, a single government decision closed that door.
Canada’s federal government announced new restrictions on undergraduate international students in January 2024. When the rules take effect this fall, the total number will be reduced by about 35 percent.
Providence was anticipating several hundred new international students. Now, when the semester starts the first week of September, the school will only greet about 20.
“It’s many millions of dollars of revenue just gone,” Anderson told CT. “And, of course, as a private tuition-funded Christian school, it’s not like we have a lot of that money lying around.”
According to the Canadian government, there are several reasons to reduce the number of international students at Canadian colleges and universities. Officials said they were concerned that lax admissions were diminishing the quality of the country’s education.
“We want to ensure that international students are successful and to tackle the issues that make students vulnerable and hurt the integrity of the International Student Program,” Julie Lafortune, a spokeswoman for the department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, told CT in an email.
The government was also concerned about the strain that the influx of internationals puts on the already stressed housing market. Many cities across Canada have seen housing costs skyrocket in recent years. Experts estimate 5.8 million new homes would have to be built by 2030 to bring prices back down to affordable levels.
“While international students are not responsible for the challenges that communities are facing in housing, health care, and other services, the growth in the number of international students is unsustainable and has added significant demand for services that all Canadians must be able to access,” Lafortune said.
The new rule sets limits on international students for each province. The provinces will then determine the allocation of that limited number of students—how many will go to one school, how many to another.
In Manitoba, the government decided to prioritize permits for international students attending public universities. Providence was allowed just a small amount.
Anderson said the combined decisions of the federal and provincial governments were enough to threaten the existence of the evangelical university. But Providence isn’t alone, he said. Many institutions of higher education are going to suffer.
“That was a very popular move politically for them to make, but it was a bit of a blunt instrument,” he said. “It just kind of like hit everybody.”
Kingswood University in New Brunswick will notice the hit.
In its 80-year history, the Methodist-affiliated school has come to rely on the flow of enrollments from abroad. Sometimes as much as 40 percent of the student body has been international. The majority have come from the United States, but many have come from further away as well, reflecting Kingswood’s Methodist ties and its missions-minded identity.
“It’s impossible for us to do what we were chosen and funded to do because of this new rule,” president Stephen Lennox told CT.
In the rural community of Sussex, where the university is located, housing is not a major problem, according to Lennox. He understands the government concerns about education quality and housing stock, but neither issue actually applies to Kingswood. So the rule doesn’t solve anything but does seriously hurt the school.
Christian Higher Education Canada sent a letter to Marc Miller, minister of immigration, refugees, and citizenship, asking him to reconsider. Lennox, who is on the board, is one of the leaders at 22 Christian schools in Canada who signed the appeal.
“Our schools provide theological education, preparing individuals to fill positions as pastors and other religious professionals,” it said. “Limiting the number of international students restricts us in our mission to help alleviate the pastoral leadership deficit in churches around the world.”
One major issue that will impact Kingswood is the change to the process of admitting US students. Americans who want to study at evangelical schools in Canada will find it’s a bit more difficult than it was before.
“They’ve always been allowed to enter by a door that’s a little easier to pass through than a typical international student. Now they all have to come through the same door,” Lennox said. “A student two hours away in Calais, Maine, has to go through the same process that someone coming from Swaziland has to go through. And to me, that just doesn’t seem to make any sense.”
Some evangelical schools in Canada have seen problems with housing. The government concern about people having places to live is relevant to their context. But they were already figuring out solutions.
“Finding housing in Moncton can be a challenge,” said Darrell Nevers, marketing and communications manager at Crandall University, a school associated with the Canadian Baptists of Atlantic Canada. “However, our student network is strong; most students can find suitable housing before arrival or soon afterwards. We also work with community partners to help students find safe and affordable housing.”
Crandall, which is also in New Brunswick, typically recruits between 400 and 450 international students each year to the Moncton campus—just under 50 percent of overall enrollment. The largest numbers of students come from India, Nigeria, Columbia, Ghana, and Bangladesh. The majority are enrolled in graduate programs, however, which are exempt from the new restrictions for now.
That reduces the impact but doesn’t entirely eliminate it. Crandall is welcoming only 8–12 international undergraduate students this fall but 140 additional students are enrolled in graduate programs.
“While we are certainly concerned that these changes will impact our undergraduate student enrollment, we believe that our provincial government has been incredibly fair in how they have allocated numbers to New Brunswick schools,” Nevers said.
Faced with the new restrictions, some universities have chosen to pivot.
“We feel like the Lord has definitely closed a door for this season. We hope that it opens again, either with a change of government or just because they see there is a better way. But we also feel like, ‘Hey, the Lord wants us to exist. What other options are out there for us?’” said Lennox at Kingswood.
Currently, the school has plans to offer a one-year master’s in leadership starting in January 2025. Those students will be exempt from the new restriction, and Kingswood hopes to recruit enough of them to offset the losses in undergraduate enrollment. Since it’s a one-year program instead of a four-year program, however, they will have to recruit at a faster rate.
Providence has also taken steps to expand its graduate offerings. Anderson said it was incredibly difficult for faculty and staff to get a new program in place as quickly as they needed to, but it was essential to the future of the institution.
“It was just one of those things where you do or die, so to speak,” the president said. “We’re doing a lot of things to strengthen our work and our sustainability as an institution and what we offer to the kingdom of God, to the church, to our communities.”
New graduate programs will bring about 300 international students to Providence this fall. That alleviates immediate financial concerns, but school officials have a new awareness of how easily that could change. Recruiting more international students no longer seems like a key piece of a solid plan for sustainability.
“The international work was good in that it was helping buy time, essentially,” Anderson said. “Now, we’re going to have to dig a little deeper.”
Support Our Work
Subscribe to CT for less than $4.25/month
