Cap on international students has formula that may keep N.B. from reaching its 5,580 quota

After the federal government put a 360,000 cap on the number of international students who can study in Canada next year, it now says New Brunswick will be allowed 5,580 of them.

But as the province works out how to divide those students among its universities and colleges, it has another challenge.

Along with capping the number of study permits, the federal government is also capping how many acceptance letters schools can send out.

The number is based on a national average of how likely students are to commit to a school after being accepted, known as a "conversion rate" among university admissions officers.

Ottawa is using a national average of 60 per cent conversion, which means New Brunswick schools will be allowed to send a total of 9,300 acceptance letters in order to attract 5,580 students.

But New Brunswick schools say the math doesn't quite add up.

"The real big problem is that New Brunswick's conversion rate is nowhere near 60 per cent," said Pierre Zundel, president of Collège communautaire du Nouveau-Brunswick.

Zundel said his school has a conversion rate of 36 per cent, and others in New Brunswick are around the same.

If schools are limited on how many acceptance letters they can send, the province likely won't reach the allotted 5,580 international students, he said.

"If we were actually to get that number of students, we would need to have 15,000 letters, not 9,300," Zundel said.

"The issue is New Brunswick does not convert as many student offers into students actually coming than the national average and so we're really disadvantaged here."

In January, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Marc Miller announced Canada would only issue 360,000 undergraduate study permits, a 35 per cent reduction, next fall.

Permits are being distributed to provinces based on population, and each province will decide how to allocate them among their schools.

An emailed statement from Greg Turner, New Brunswick's minister of post-secondary education, said that the province "is working to establish an internal system" on distributing the 5,580 study permits.

"We are working to have this in place as soon as possible, keeping in mind a federal deadline of March 31, 2024," Turner said.

STU admissions officer questions policy

At St. Thomas University, with students from over 40 countries, vice-president of enrolment Ryan Sullivan echoes Zundel's concerns about the government's limit on acceptance letters, which are also known as attestation letters.

"The math suggests that at least for this year, we will see a reduction," Sullivan said.

January's announcement was made amid concerns about the impact growing numbers of international students are having on the housing market. 

"We have capacity," Sullivan said of St. Thomas, adding that international students contribute to the economy and are helping address a labour shortage in the Maritimes.

"We have rooms in our residences, we have medical clinics on the campus, we have support services from the point of contact all the way through graduation, the pre-arrival support to when the students are here."

Additionally, Sullivan said the letters of attestation can only be sent out once, and cannot be reused if schools do not get enough confirmations from prospective students.

"Once those are used once, they're done."

Sullivan said he's already hearing from international students applying right now that they're concerned.

"Especially think about the student who has gone through that process of narrowing it into these institutions that they want to apply to, and now all of a sudden they're hearing that Canada may not want me," Sullivan said.

STU has been reaching out to accepted international students and telling them to wait on applying for a study permit so the school can find out more information, Sullivan said.

Zundel said Ottawa's justification for an international student cap is because of pressures on housing and inadequate support for them once they arrive.

"So, if we're going to try and manage that, then it's the people who actually come that matter — not the number of offers you make," he said.

Zundel said francophone schools like CCNB, which has 48 per cent international students, often recruit from African countries, a region whose students often have low conversion rates.

That's why a cap on attestation letters matters is a big issue for his school, he said.

"That approach discriminates against New Brunswick and particularly against francophone institutions in New Brunswick."