The education sector in Canada is unraveling faster than anyone anticipated. George Brown College in Toronto just filed paperwork to lay off 51 people. That number might sound modest, but it signals something much larger happening across the country.
Provincial labor law requires employers to file what’s called a Form 1 when they plan to cut 50 or more workers within a four-week window. George Brown submitted theirs on March 4. The tally includes 22 hourly employees and 29 salaried staff members.
Enrollment numbers tell the real story. Full-time students at George Brown dropped from 22,000 in winter 2025 to just 15,889 now. That’s a 29% collapse in one year. The St. James campus, known for hospitality and culinary programs, is running at barely half capacity compared to last year. Several programs there were suspended last fall.
A college spokesperson called the layoffs a “last resort” after exhausting other cost-saving options. They mentioned reviewing program delivery, workload distribution, and operational needs before making cuts. But the explanation feels hollow when you look at what’s driving these decisions.
Ontario recently pledged $6.4 billion to prop up colleges and universities. The province also lifted a tuition freeze that administrators have complained about for years. Yet George Brown’s president, Gervan Fearon, told staff in a February email he doesn’t see these measures solving the sector’s deeper problems. He’s probably right.
Public funding offered in small chunks rarely fixes structural damage. Internal documents from a recent George Brown faculty meeting identified four core issues: international enrollment has cratered, domestic enrollment is sliding across all institutions, multi-year tuition freezes paired with low government grants have starved budgets, and labor costs keep rising.
Humber Polytechnic is feeling the same pressure. Earlier this week, Humber moved forward with layoffs after voluntary buyout packages failed to close a projected budget gap for the 2026-27 fiscal year. This comes after Ontario colleges already canceled or suspended more than 600 programs as emergency cost-cutting measures.
Union representatives with decades of experience say they’ve never seen mass termination notices on this scale. Jeff Brown, a lead steward for George Brown faculty, told reporters the justification for cuts has shifted noticeably. Previous layoffs targeted specific programs that were closing. Now management is calling for “cuts across the board” without tying them to particular closures.
Canadian colleges have struggled with inadequate funding since around 1970. Ontario has been hit hardest over the decades. But institutions found a workaround: they turned to international students as a revenue stream.
The strategy picked up steam around 2014 or 2015. By the end of 2015, Canada hosted 58,125 international students. Cash-strapped schools saw this as a lifeline. By the 2023-24 academic year, that number had ballooned to roughly 288,798 students holding both study and work permits (those with study permits alone were even higher). Nearly 60% came from India, according to Statistics Canada.
The financial rewards were substantial. In 2023-24, international students pumped approximately $37.3 billion into the Canadian economy through tuition, housing, and daily expenses. Projections suggested that figure would climb to $43 billion in 2024-25. Then the federal government capped enrollment.
Canada saw a 4% drop in international students in 2024 compared to 2023. But 2025 hit much harder. Between January and November 2025, Canada recorded 334,845 fewer new international student arrivals compared to the same period in 2024. That’s a 60% plunge in student inflows and the revenue they generated.
Alex Usher, president of Higher Education Strategy Associates, put it bluntly: “We’ve been able to pretend we’ve got a world-class university system, not because of our central and provincial governments, but because of our international students who have kept us afloat.” Now that the international pipeline has been throttled by federal policy, colleges face a stark choice. They can ask Canadian students and parents to pay more, or they can lobby governments for increased public funding.
Neither option is politically easy. Labor costs eat up 70 to 75 percent of most college budgets. When revenue drops, job cuts become almost inevitable. Younger staff and contract employees usually go first. Salary freezes and hiring moratoriums follow close behind.
Economists warn the sector is heading into what they call “a very, very unpleasant few years.” Students will likely pay more for less. Class sizes may grow. Program options will shrink. Institutions will scramble to cut operational costs or secure more public money from federal and provincial treasuries. Tuition hikes for domestic students may become unavoidable.
The broader question is whether policymakers understood what capping international enrollment would do to college finances. International students didn’t just fill seats. They subsidized the entire system. Domestic tuition rates have been frozen or barely adjusted for years. Government grants haven’t filled the gap. International fees made up the difference.
Now that revenue source is gone, and the structural problems hidden beneath it are exposed. Colleges built budgets assuming international enrollment would keep growing. When federal immigration policy shifted, those budgets collapsed. Staff are losing jobs. Programs are being axed. Students are getting less for their money.
Ontario’s $6.4 billion investment sounds generous on paper. But spread across multiple institutions over several years, it doesn’t come close to replacing lost international revenue. Lifting the tuition freeze helps a bit, but raising fees on domestic students during an affordability crisis creates its own political backlash.
Union leaders and faculty members say morale is low. Cuts are happening fast, and there’s no clear plan for stabilizing finances. Some worry this is just the beginning. If international student numbers don’t rebound and public funding doesn’t increase dramatically, more layoffs are inevitable.
The irony is that Canada’s colleges and universities built strong reputations partly by attracting global talent. International students brought diversity, academic excellence, and financial stability. Federal policymakers capped enrollment citing housing pressures and labor market concerns. But they didn’t coordinate with provincial education ministries to cushion the blow.
Now colleges are stuck. They can’t recruit the international students who balanced their books. They can’t raise domestic tuition fast enough to replace that income. And they can’t count on governments to step in with sustained, long-term funding increases.
Students currently enrolled are watching programs disappear and class sizes grow. Prospective students may find fewer options when they apply. Faculty and staff are bracing for more cuts. Administrators are trying to reassure everyone while quietly preparing for worse news ahead.
The education boom that started around 2015 has officially gone bust. What comes next depends on whether federal and provincial governments decide post-secondary education is worth serious public investment. If they don’t, students and workers will keep paying the price.
