Faithful readers may remember my blog last year about Cape Breton University and how it doubled its international enrolment in one year, making an absolutely ludicrous amount of money in the process. As a result of this phenomenal little piece of entrepreneurialism, Cape Breton has suddenly become hip in higher education circles, because the whole idea of anyone flooding into Sydney, Nova Scotia, let alone young people from halfway around the globe, is pretty astonishing to Sydneysiders as much as anyone else. Whatever they’re doing, others would sure like to know the secret.
For some background, do read the October 6th Globe and Mail article on Cape Breton University for some flavour of the campus these days.
Crazy story, right? Total one-off. An outlier, not a trend.
Except Cape Breton just did it again; you can see the data from the Atlantic Association Universities for yourselves here.
This year, their combined full and part-time student enrolment on October 1 stood at 5511, over a third higher than it was last year, and fully 80% higher than it was two years ago. The entirety of this increase is due to international students. Of those 5511, 3436 – that is, 62.3% – were visa students. That’s an increase of 73% over a year ago and 285% over two years ago.
This is kind of mindboggling. I cannot think of another institution in Canada in the past five decades which has grown by 80% in two years. The strain of this increase at CBU must be enormous.
But don’t think this move is without compensation. Cape Breton charges international students almost $18,000 per head. That’s low by Canadian standards, but then again, a lot of these students are in fairly cost-effective programs like business. In total then, these international students will be bringing in about $62 million. For comparison, the provincial grant CBU receives is about $23 million.
Let me expand a bit on the financial math here. The extra money generated by the 2500 or so new international students is equal to about $46 million. In 2017-18, Cape Breton’s entireoperating budget was $54.3 million. If there are any other institutions in Canada that have ever seen an 85% increase in their operating budget over the space of two years, I don’t know of them.
One final factoid. By my calculation, Cape Breton is now over 62% funded by international student tuition, a figure which rises to 75% if domestic tuition fees are included.
I have spent a bit of time at CBU over the past few years, and I have absolutely no doubt about its commitment to the local community. But you kind of have to wonder at this point: is it still a public university? How would we know if it was or wasn’t?
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There is no question that many of the new students, primarily from India, are coming to Cape Breton to seek a better future in Canada. There are doctors and engineers among the new cohort who are enrolled in bachelors programs in Public Health and Engineering Technology, and who have contributed to making these programs see extreme growth. If Cape Breton can find a way to have them want to stay after completion of their studies, the potential to enhance the island’s future would be great. There also is phenomenal opportunity here for CBU to finally put resources into transitioning from a college to a university.
However:
1. An online search shows that some of the recruiters being used are not the most scrupulous in what they’re promising to, or requiring of, the potential students. Whether CBU’s bean-counting exec is unaware, or simply don’t care, is not clear. This point has been raised by the students in the local media.
2. In some courses, pedagogy has taken a serious hit. Some of the classes have gone from 15 students once a year to 150 students twice a year; something not mentioned in the small class advertising done by CBU. Faculty shouldn’t have to fight for extra resources to cover the changes. Faculty have no idea from one semester to the next what to expect in terms of student numbers and end up scrambling at the last minute. (It’s not clear the upper admin know the numbers, either.) New buses and shelters, new IT systems, and long overdue maintenance/repairs are great, but consideration must be made by the admin to the actual practice of teaching and learning. Some of the desperation in mid-late August to find warm bodies to put in front of some classes was mind boggling; that’s not fair to the students or those teaching.
3. I think a better understanding by CBU of the learning systems the international students come from followed by a strong transitioning program would serve the students (and faculty) better than putting more money into the writing centre.
“[I]s it still a public university? How would we know if it was or wasn’t?”
Is it still a university? In the Globe article, one of the instructors noted changing more of the marking to multiple choice to accommodate poor English. There was nothing about UCB’s commitment to humanities, and little about its commitment to hard sciences. It seems to teach mostly remedial English and accelerated professional programs in business, engineering and tourism. Surely we wouldn’t need an entire university to do that. An American two-year college would do.