“The decline in applications and study permit approvals in 2024 put us below the cap set by IRCC. Early figures from the first quarter of 2025 indicate that these trends are worsening” CBIE president, Larissa Bezo, told The PIE News.
Recent media coverage has shone a light on Canada’s fast-shrinking international student population, highlighting a 48% year-on-year reduction in the number of study permits issued in 2024, far surpassing the policy goal of the federal caps implemented in January 2024.
At the time, the caps intended to cut the number of study permits issued in 2024 by 35% of 2023 levels, amounting to approximately 360,000 new study permits.
The true figure of 263,610 is nearly 100,000 fewer study permits than intended, according to government data obtained by CBIE in February 2025. Though data can vary slightly between sources depending on when it was pulled by IRCC.
The reduction meant there were approximately 997,820 international students in Canada at the end of last year, marking a 4% decline from the previous year’s record high of 1,040,000.
“IRCC’s data confirms what we’ve been saying for a long time: the study permit cap has gone too far, too fast – shutting out students and destabilising Canada’s Official Languages education sector,” Languages Canada executive director, Gonzalo Peralta, told The PIE.
Peralta said immigration policies had “sidelined” language education, which saw a 15% drop in student numbers last year. He is calling on the government to recognise the languages sector as “strategic infrastructure – essential to Canada’s success in a new era shaped by global mobility, bilingualism and inclusive economic growth”.
Sector leaders have long been arguing that policymakers underestimated the impact of the caps, with ApplyBoard analysis at the start of 2025 forecasting study permit approvals to fall by 45% in 2024 – only 3% off the true figures.
Meanwhile, attendees of CBIE’s November 2024 conference will remember the then immigration minister Marc Miller strongly refute Bezo’s suggestion that the that the caps had been an “overcorrection”, firmly standing by the federal restrictions on international students.
IRCC’s data confirms what we’ve been saying for a long time: the study permit cap has gone too far, too fast
Gonzalo Peralta, Languages Canada
IRCC official figures showed the study permit approval rate fall from 60% in 2023 to 48% in 2024, with Canadian educators increasingly raising concerns about the trend, which they hope will be addressed in the federal audit of international education, currently underway.
“We’ve been very surprised by a dramatic fall in the visa success rate in the past year, because if anything, you’d expect the applicant pool to have become stronger,” said Chris Busch, assistant vice-president of enrolment management at the University of Windsor, speaking to The PIE about the audit.
“To me, that suggests there may be some things happening in the shadows,” he said.
Looking ahead, early data for 2025 reveals a worsening picture, with the January 2025 approval rate for Indian students falling to 28% as compared to 81% the previous year.
Out of Canada’s top nine source countries, only Bangladesh saw a rise in its approval rating from 18% in 2024 to 22% in 2025, with Algeria and Ghana seeing the lowest levels at 6% and 5% respectively.
What’s more, falling application rates reveal severely declining interest in Canada as a study destination – something stakeholders have been witnessing since the caps and further policy tumult relating to master’s students, dependents and changes to the postgraduate work stream, among others.
Bewildered by the rate of policy changes, the number of international students applying to Canada fell by 35% from 2023 to 2024, with all the major source countries seeing drastically lower interest in January 2025.
“We cannot continue to administer a drip campaign style measures to manage significant policy realignment,” said Vinitha Gengatharan, senior international officer at Simon Fraser University.
“While the cap is a necessary reset and it is right to restore the integrity in the international student program, it should not be a retreat.
“Students deserve predictable and fair pathways, and governments, institutions and businesses require multi-year policy frameworks for effective planning,” continued Gengatharan.
Calls for stability and greater measures to protect Canada’s long-term global talent needs are rising across the sector, as institutions, communities and employers bear the brunt of the policy changes.
“The financial impacts of this abrupt drop in international students are, for many institutions, staggering,” said Bezo, highlighting the “significant hiring freezes, job losses, program and campus closures” at all types of institutions across the country.
According to research by higher education consultant, Ken Steele, the financial impact of the caps surpassed CAD $3 billion this month, based on analysis of lost revenue, budget cuts and deficits across Canadian institutions. As of May, more than 5,000 jobs had been lost because of the policy.
Beyond college campuses, “the rapid and dramatic decline in international students jeopardises Canada’s ability to build new strategic alliances in a shifting geopolitical reality,” said Bezo, highlighting the important role that international students play in becoming Canadian advocates around the world.
Elsewhere, while international student numbers have come down, Gengatharan highlighted that overall temporary resident levels currently sit at just over 7%: “exceeding the preferred threshold of under 5%”.
The financial impacts of this abrupt drop in international students are, for many institutions, staggering
Larissa Bezo, CBIE
Entering office in April 2025, Prime Minister Mark Carney pledged to reduce Canada’s temporary resident volumes to 5% of the overall population by the end of 2027, a goal that his successor had planned to achieve by the end of 2026.
And yet, the 5% target is not likely to be met until 2029 or later, primarily since no other cohort of temporary residents has seen a sustained decline, argued Parisa Mahboubi, senior policy analyst at Toronto-based thinktank C.D. Howe Institute, writing in the Globe And Mail.
While decimating budgets across Canadian higher education, the cap “has not led to a meaningful overall reduction in temporary resident numbers,” wrote Mahboubi. “Instead, many individuals are staying longer, switching to work permits after study, or entering through adjacent pathways,” she continued.
Advocating for more support for sectors that benefit most from temporary residents, Mahboubi’s arguments echo calls from across higher education for a shift in focus towards attracting quality students that align with long-term national objectives and consider regional variations.
