By: Jonah Lazar, Staff Writer
Studying in BC is more inaccessible than ever before, especially if you’re an international student. In 2024, federal limitations on study permits led to a 66% drop in permit approvals for international students. In 2023, 456,690 international student permits were granted federally; this number shrunk to just 50,370 for the first nine months of 2025. Post-secondary institutions should never have relied so much on the funding that comes from international students to begin with.
Public funding for post-secondary education in BC has dropped 41% since 2000, and doesn’t look to be rising anytime soon — despite BC launching a review of post-secondary institutions’ stability, post-secondary education minister Jessie Sunner ruled out the possibility of increased funding. This double-whammy of the international student cap and cutback of public funding has led to nearly 200 programs being cut or suspended from BC’s post-secondary institutions, and over 1,300 staff layoffs, with many institutions in the Vancouver area among the most affected. Langara and SFU alone have been victim to over a quarter of these layoffs. At SFU, all interpretation programs, the football team, and SFU’s participation in the NCAA, have been cut, and could lead to the loss of other teams.
In addition to programs being cut, universities are raising costs on students. At SFU, the fall 2026 meal plan will be $278 more than it was in the spring, climbing to an eye-watering $3,727 per term; residence fees are changing too, increasing around 4%–10% depending on the building.
At SFU, domestic tuition fees for 30 credits over two terms is about $7,500 and for international students, it’s almost $37,500, with an extra $14,370 if these students are living in residence. International students are often paying five times as much as domestic students and that makes them a very profitable client for the university.
Funding for post-secondary institutions shouldn’t be reliant on milking international students for as much money as possible.
There is nearly an 89% reduction in international student permit approvals from 2023 to the first nine months of 2025. Further, there is a volatility in the international student market that shows that it should never have been relied upon in the first place. Regrettably, post-secondary institutions have been left with few alternatives over the past few decades, in the wake of reduced public support.
While the international student cap has made many post-secondary institutions sound the financially-viable alarm, all this cap really has done is highlight the systemic lack of public funding made available to these institutions by the federal government over the years. SFU students have long raised the issue of affordability and international student exploitation. The federal government’s overzealous cutting of student visas has made everything worse. This lack of funding has led to post-secondary institutions seeking out new ways to raise revenue; with nowhere else to turn, this shortfall is being filled by firing staff and raising costs on students.
