Ontario colleges suspend programs amid international student cap

Humber College is one of several Ontario colleges suspending programs in the fall due to low student enrolment. (HUMBER COLLEGE)

Humber College has suspended its one-year graduate certificate program in journalism, citing low enrolment numbers due to the international student cap announced by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada earlier this year.

The cap was announced on Jan. 22, 2024 and will reduce the number of study permits approved by the government by 35 per cent.

The program suspension will go into effect this fall, and while current students will be able to graduate, new students will not be able to enrol for the next academic year.

Almost 30 students were enrolled in the program this year.

The visa cap has caused various colleges and universities to suspend their programs while they develop a strategy for how to make up for the loss of international students.

A statement issued by Humber’s faculty of media and creative arts (FMCA) said it anticipated its suspended journalism program would be reinstated in the fall of 2025.

The goal in the next year is to completely redesign the program to meet market demands in changing industries to entice more students to enrol, according to Nicola Winstanley, the associate dean of journalists & writers at Humber FMCA.

Winstanley said that international student restrictions drove admissions down below the enrolment targets for the journalism graduate certificate program.

“Because of the restrictions around international student permits, applications to the grad cert were significantly lower this year than they have been previously, and we were not able to meet an enrolment target that would allow us to run the program,” Winstanley said.

“I believe that the changes we will make this year will make the program more attractive to both domestic and international students,” she said.

Humber’s television writing and producing program, also a part of the FMCA, faced similar problems, and will be suspended in the fall.

Humber isn’t the only college that blamed the international student cap for program suspensions.

Mohawk College in Hamilton is planning to suspend two of its programs in the fall, Pre-Technology and Power Engineering Techniques, said the college’s senior communications advisor of public affairs, Bill Steinburg.

“This means that the programs are still running at the college but the specific intake in the fall will not run,” Steinburg said.

Mohawk’s chief operating officer Paul Armstrong announced that Mohawk and triOS College of Business, Technology and Healthcare will suspend student intake for affected programs at its Mississauga campus due to limits to study permits brought on by the international student cap.

“The ability for students at the Mississauga campus to obtain study permits is key to our partnership with triOS. For this reason, together with triOS, we have made the difficult decision to suspend the fall intake at the Mississauga campus,” Armstrong wrote in an emailed statement.

Cambrian College in Sudbury also recently published its program list updating certain programs as “currently unavailable for international students,” and Peterborough’s Fleming College released a statement in April announcing suspension of almost 30 programs come the fall term.

Brent Jolly, president of the Canadian Association of Journalists and IJF board chair, said that there is still something to gain by studying journalism academically, even in times of low student enrolment.

“It is my sense that more and more parents are encouraging their children to pursue more lucrative career options,” Jolly said.

“What is often disregarded by parents, I believe, is that they fail to understand that journalism schools don’t just prepare children with specific skills related to working in a newsroom or in an associated career. In fact, journalism schools teach students the kind of critical thinking and communication skills that are needed to succeed in any sector of today (and tomorrow’s) economy,” he said.

Note: Liv Chug is a current student in Humber College’s Journalism Ontario graduate certificate program.