Friday July 11, 2025
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday July 11, 2025
Also published in The Toronto Star.
Colleges on the Brink: How Ontario’s Tuition Gamble Crumbled
The news of mass layoffs, cancelled programs, and campus closures across Ontario’s colleges is deeply unsettling — not just for those directly affected, but for anyone who believes in the value of accessible, community-rooted post-secondary education.
Nearly 10,000 staff across the province’s public colleges have lost their jobs. Over 600 programs have been suspended or cancelled. Four campuses are closing. The reason is well known by now: a dramatic collapse in international student enrolment, triggered by last year’s federal cap on study permits.
News: Ontario colleges face massive layoffs after ‘alarming’ enrolment decline
That cap was introduced to help address housing and health care pressures. But it also exposed a fragile financial model — one that colleges and successive governments had come to rely on. International tuition had quietly grown to cover roughly a third of college revenues. When it disappeared, the system cracked.
In online comment boards, frustration is palpable. Some argue colleges forgot their purpose, turning into immigration gateways instead of community institutions. Others say bloated administrations and low admission standards let things spiral. There’s no shortage of blame — some of it fair, some of it misdirected.
Let’s be clear: international students are not the problem. They pursued education here in good faith, often at great cost, and contributed enormously to our communities, classrooms, and economy. The issue lies in how government policy and college strategy built a system dependent on their presence — without safeguards for a sudden change.
For years, Ontario colleges were stuck between two immovable forces: frozen domestic tuition and the lowest per-student public funding in the country. Instead of addressing that imbalance, provincial policy left colleges to “solve” the problem through revenue from abroad. This wasn’t a sustainable strategy — it was a deferral of responsibility.
Auditor generals, faculty, and student advocates warned about this years ago. Now, with federal caps in place and no backstop from Queen’s Park, the collapse is here. And the people paying the price are instructors, support staff, students, and communities — especially those in smaller towns that rely on colleges as local anchors.
What’s needed now isn’t scapegoating or finger-pointing. It’s leadership. That includes:
* Provincial reinvestment in core funding, not just targeted STEM spending or one-time bailouts
* Transparency and accountability from college administrations about how cuts are being made
* A broader public conversation about what our college system is for — and who it serves
This moment could be a turning point — a reset toward a more focused, mission-driven, and financially resilient model of post-secondary education. Or it could become another case study in political deflection and institutional retreat.
We should choose the first path. That will take honesty, investment, and coordination between all levels of government. But above all, it will take a renewed commitment to the idea that college education is a public good — not a business model, and not a stopgap for broken policies elsewhere.
The system is in crisis. But the response doesn’t have to be.