EXCLUSIVE: Alberta advanced education minister warns international student cap may affect domestic tuition

CALGARY — Back in 2024, the feds put a cap on international student study permits — and since then, the international student population has impacted post-secondary revenue.To put it in numbers, permits dropped from one million in January 2024 to 725,000 by September 2025.In an update in November, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) claimed it expected to lower this permit level even further in 2026 — to 408,000 — with 155,000 being new permits.In response to this permit decline, Alberta's Advanced Education Minister, Myles McDougall, told the Western Standard's Will Vaseur in early December, Canadian students may have to offset the revenue losses due to the reduction of international study permits.."The international students drive a lot of that tuition to the schools, for their funding, and as they kind of go away, the risk is that Alberta students and Canadian students having to offset that cost and pay more in tuition," McDougall stated."There will be an impact.""I mean, it ranges amongst institutions, some more than others, and some provinces, more than others.""In Alberta, it hasn't. The reduction in international students has been significant, but not to say as big as Ontario and BC.""However, yes, the institutions are going to need to find a way to find alternative revenue sources."."To a large degree, the institutions themselves are going to have to find means to accommodate that reduction in revenue," McDougall concluded.To see how institutions are trying to accommodate the revenue loss, the Western Standard reached out to institutions across Alberta — here are their responses:The permits allocated for Alberta in 2026 are over 32,271.Calgary's Bow Valley College (BVC) says the reduction in international study permits has been felt at their school, and has led to "the cancellation of some programs at BVC, as well as the staffing reductions which were widely reported last year."They also state their operations budget was impacted. However, some institutions in the province say they are not feeling the pressure..According to MacEwan University in Edmonton, since its international students make up less than 5% of their student population, "the institution has not considered international students a strategy for revenue generation."MacEwan has approximately 800 international students.The Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) in Edmonton says the cap has had an impact on their school and according to unofficial numbers, "NAIT has seen about a 25% decrease in international student enrolment in 2025-26, compared to the 2024-25 academic year."Mount Royal University (MRU) in Calgary says its international students comprise 3.5% of its student population and have adjusted its 3-year budget accordingly, suggesting it is impacted by the cap.MRU did not specify how much money this loss of revenue was, or if it has had an impact on its budget..The Southern Institute of Technology (SAIT) in Calgary says it has also been impacted by the cap on international students."Last fall, SAIT welcomed approximately 573 new international students, more in line with pre-pandemic levels," SAIT stated.As for institutions across Western Canada, the Western Standard reached out to some of them as well...In the fall term, international student enrolment went down 18% compared to a year earlier at the University of Saskatchewan (UofS).Publicly available stats show in the 2024 to 2025 year, international students accounted for 12% of the student population.."This decrease was not surprising given that it is this group of International undergraduate students that have been most significantly impacted by the intake caps and the new proof of finance requirements implemented by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) in 2024," UofS told the Western Standard.They say the forecasted financial loss from the international study permit cap, is estimated at $10 million.Further West, the University of British Columbia (UBC) says due to the new reduction in permits for 2026, they are still unaware of how this will impact their institution."Through diligent fiscal planning, UBC has presented a balanced budget for 25/26.".“At this time, there are no university-wide plans to implement systemic cuts, but decreases in international students are impacting some parts of the university more significantly than others,” UBC stated.UBC did not provide information on the amount of money that was lost due to the reduction of permits.They said they do not have plans to implement systematic cuts.However, to reduce the impact of the reduction in revenue, they are implementing hiring pauses, and a voluntary retirement program for their employees — and 139 employees across faculties have accepted the retirement option..According to 2025-2026 school year stats, UBC currently has over 70,000 students, with a total of 3,948 international students.Compared to a year earlier, there was an 8% decrease in international students.The University of Manitoba's (UofM) President and Vice-Chancellor, Michael Benarroch, says the cap has reduced international student enrollment by 19% over the last year, from 1,303 in the fall of 2024 to 1,056 in the fall of 2025.However, Benarroch says there's been an upside, "We were pleased to see a 5.4% rise in new domestic student enrolment, to 5,501 compared to 5,221 in Fall Term 2024, but this can only partially offset the loss of international students, as they pay nearly four times what domestic students pay."."At this time, we are not expecting to make any program cuts," Benarroch added.

EXCLUSIVE: Alberta advanced education minister warns international student cap may affect domestic tuition

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