Scott Stinson: Spending scandal at Conestoga College is a reminder of Canada’s shameful international student boom

Many colleges were gorging themselves on the international student boom a few years ago, but Conestoga was the biggest eater at the feast. Photo by Brian Thompson /Brian Thompson/The Expositor

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For years, the stories of the overseas sacrifices that were made to fuel Ontario’s international student boom have been told. 

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Families in poor countries that sold their few worldly possessions, sometimes the actual farm, to pay the steep college tuition costs for foreign students in the land of milk and honey. Often, they found the education and opportunity were not at all what they expected.

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But now comes the perhaps inevitable other end of that story, with news this week that the Doug Ford government is placing Conestoga College, in the province’s southwest, under administration after an audit found what it called “numerous egregious financial decisions.”

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The allegations of misspending are comically ridiculous. There was a 55 per cent salary increase for John Tibbits, a former president, and a severance package for the same fellow that totalled 83 times his monthly salary. (The Waterloo campus of the college is now named for Tibbits. Perhaps they should have considered a triumphal arch?) The government also pointed to a $23,000 trip to Italy for three — three! — senior staff and a $1,300 staff meal of which more than half was spent on alcohol.

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While many of Ontario’s colleges were gorging themselves on the fat tuition expenses they brought in during the spiking international student enrolment a few years ago, Conestoga was the biggest eater at the feast.

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It increased foreign enrolment by almost 150 per cent from 2021 to 2023, nearly tripling its total revenue over a three-year period. You can see why the purse strings might have been a little loose.

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But it wasn’t alone. Dozens of Ontario colleges had huge jumps in international students and, crucially, almost none of them built any kind of housing for the new arrivals. These were community colleges, after all. The whole idea was that housing students wasn’t their thing since they normally lived locally in the first place.

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The boom has, of course, since gone bust. The federal Liberals belatedly capped international student visas two years ago, realizing far too late that the growth allowed during COVID-era labour shortages had exacerbated the housing crisis, increased rents, and tightened the post-pandemic labour market, particularly for young people. (The foreign students were often victims themselves, finding out only after arrival that housing was scarce and costs were high.)

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Dozens of Ontario colleges had huge jumps in international students and, crucially, almost none of them built any kind of housing for the new arrivals. Photo by Prostock-Studio /Getty Images/iStockphoto

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Incoming foreign student enrolment has since nosedived, especially since Ottawa made it harder to get a post-degree work permit for those who study in Canada, and colleges like Conestoga have had to cut courses and slash staff as revenues have plummeted.

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The situation at Conestoga, from sloshing around in money to being put under administration, only underscores how bizarre it was that this situation was allowed to persist as long as it did.