Two Sudbury post-secondary institutions have not been negatively affected by the federal government’s decision to reduce study permits for international students.

More than a year ago, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) announced that study permits would be reduced by 10 percent in 2024.

Cambrian College communications manager Dan Lessard said enrollment numbers were up overall this year.

“We grew about 5 percent, to about 6,100 full-time and part-time students,” he said.

“Of this total, approximately 3,500 are domestic students and approximately 2,600 are international students.”

Lessard said domestic registrations increased by 10 percent, while international registrations decreased by 1 percent.

He attributes the change to the college’s recruiting efforts and a variety of new programs, including applied psychology and a course focused on AI.

“Colleges are changing the mix of programs that they offer because they’re trying to meet the needs of the market, and they’re meeting the needs of the market, and they’re also meeting the different needs of students,” he said. said.

He added that Cambrian is seeing an increase in the number of “non-direct” students, otherwise known as mature students.

“Students are no longer coming out of high school. They are professionals,” Lessard said.

“These are people who have been to school before, and now they’re going for the second or third time. So what colleges are doing is trying to meet that demand and that need for a workforce. ‘artwork.”

More international students at LU

Meanwhile, at Laurentian University, the school welcomed 350 more international students than expected, said Malcom Campbell, the university’s dean and vice-president academic.

“We have exceeded the number of international students we had anticipated at Laurentian University,” Campbell said.

“We passed a few hundred, which is an impressive number.”

The university’s total enrollment is 6,500 and Campbell said domestic students make up the vast majority of that number, but there has been a slight decrease this year.

Overall, Campbell said Laurentian has not been greatly impacted by the restrictions.

“There has been an impact on some universities, and I would say even more dramatically on colleges here in Canada, but Laurentian has not felt that impact,” he said.

“We’re largely within the numbers that we’ve been assigned. So we haven’t over-enrolled international students. We have a good number of international students who contribute to that global perspective.”

Recently, immigration authorities announced an additional 10 percent reduction in study permits for international students for 2025, but Campbell and Lessard said it was too early to determine the local impact.