Sault College president weighs in on debate over international students

The federal government is hinting it might restrict the number of international students in certain provinces — such as Ontario, British Columbia and Nova Scotia — because it feels those provinces take in more international students than their housing situation can accommodate.

Locally, Sault College has approximately 2,300 students enrolled, approximately 1,000 of those being international students.

Algoma University's Sault Ste. Marie campus currently has over 800 international degree-program students.

“Enrolment is stable but we know that there is some concern on the horizon around what the federal Minister [Immigration Minister Marc Miller] is saying in regard to immigration and international students and our capacity to support international students in Ontario and across Canada,” said David Orazietti, Sault College president in his monthly report to the college’s board of governors at its meeting Thursday.

The increase in the number of international students in Canada in recent years is thought by some to be one of the reasons for housing shortages and rent hikes across the country.

As reported earlier by The Trillium, a Village Media website that covers provincial politics at Queen’s Park, some of the country's top economists say Ontario needs to reduce the number of international students it takes in if it wants to tackle inflation and rental rates.

Orazietti told SooToday before Thursday’s board meeting that Sault College is taking steps to provide housing for its students, both international and domestic.

“We certainly believe that from our perspective we have been very responsive to both international and domestic students. We want to be doing our part to help address that issue which is why we are undertaking the development of a new residence on campus which has not happened in 31 years.”

In September, the college’s board of governors unanimously approved a resolution to allow college leadership to plan a new student residence building for its campus on Northern Avenue.

Sault College has an existing 157-bed residence in Ray Lawson Hall, which will be modernized and kept in operation in addition to a new residence building.

It is projected there will be 200 new beds in the new building.

“We know that we need to do our part in terms of supporting housing for our students. We’re committed to making investment in that area subject to a plan we will bring to the board and the board will be asked to approve that,” Orazietti said.

“We are being very mindful of our ability to ensure that our community is able to accommodate the students when it comes to apartments and housing and also to make investments here on campus to help support housing.”

“A consultant has been retained for a new residence building,” said Mark Caruso, Sault College facilities management director in a report to the board Thursday, adding the new residence project is still in its infancy stage.

“We’re assessing the existing structure for the viability of adding future floors. If it is cost effective to add floors to the existing residence then that’s what we’ll look at,” Caruso added.

International students are needed at Sault College, Orazietti told SooToday.

“In 2013 we had about 2,500 students on our campus in Sault Ste. Marie. Nearly every one of them was a domestic student. Today we have about 2,400 students on campus but today a thousand of those students are international. If that wasn’t the case Sault College would have far fewer employees and it would be much more challenging to operate this institution and serve local community employers and community needs.”

International students bring economic spinoff benefits to the Sault, Orazietti said.

“The tuition that is related to international students coming to Sault Ste. Marie is being spent in the economy. These thousand international students that are here are spending money at local businesses, purchasing food at grocery stores and buying other things in the community. They’re also providing employment for employers in many of the service industry jobs that are available in our community and they have become a very important part of Sault College as they have in other institutions.”

Fees for an international student at Sault College amount to approximately $15,000 annually, Orazietti said.

The Sault College president said the institution is not taking in more international students than it can for the sake of raking in revenue.

“We could, through recruiting strategies and our recruiters around the world, bring more international students to our community but we are not confident doing that would allow us to properly serve those students, so until we make investments in more amenities on campus including and specifically residence capacity we’re not comfortable doing that.”

“We have to do that through responsible growth,” Orazietti said.

“Algoma University has three campuses - Brampton, Sault Ste. Marie and Timmins. All students, across all of our campuses, have access to a rich network of supports to ensure their academic success and a safe and healthy life, including off-campus housing supports in Sault Ste. Marie and Brampton and on-campus housing in Sault Ste. Marie,” wrote Roberta Horst, Algoma University marketing and communications manager in an email to SooToday.