Conestoga College will need to cut international student intake by more than half this September

Conestoga College will need to cut their international student intake this September by more than half of their current enrolment.

In a statement on its website Thursday morning, the college saysofficialswillassess the enrolment and operational impacts as a result of the news and communicate moredetails to students and staff when they can.

The province announced on Wednesdayits plans forhow it woulddeal with the federal government'scuts to international student numbers announced by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Marc Millerin January.

Roughly 100,000fewer international students will getting permits to study in Ontario this year under the federal government's cap.

The province's2024 budgetalso revealed that Ontario's colleges will lose out on $3.1billion in revenue over the next two years as a result of the drop in international student enrolment.

Conestoga College granted morethan 30,000 study permits to international students last year. The province saidthe biggest declines in study permitswill be seen at Conestoga College.

In an interview with CBC Kitchener-Waterloo in February, Conestoga president John Tibbits defended theschool's intake of international students.

"Now, we're the focus because we're large and we're large because we serve 1.2 million people," Tibbits said in the interview.

Tibbits said at the time that the number ofinternational students makes up more than half the student population at the college andmany of those students are studying acrosscampuses inKitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph, Brantford, Milton, StratfordandIngersoll.

The college's statement on its website said the school has been a "predominant source of skilled workers in the eight cities we serve."