Tuition deposits going up $4K for international students at UPEI and Holland College

Holland College and UPEI are increasing tuition deposits for international students after the federal government's decision to cut the number of study permits itgivesout.

Both schools say they're raising that up-front cost from$1,000 to $5,000.

After Ottawa announced enrolment restrictionsin January, P.E.I. found outit couldbring in up to 2,000 new students across all schools. Those spots were divided betwen UPEIwith1,185,Holland College at 710, and 105 atthe French-language College del'le.

Each spot comes with an attestation letter. Similar to an acceptance letter, if an international student's application to a schoolis approved they give a tuition deposit and then get a letter.And they need that letterbefore applying for a permit to studyin Canada.

Greg Keefe, interim president at UPEI, said because of the limited number of spaces, they're deciding carefullywho gets a letter.

"We're doing what we can on our end, to make the adjustments, to ensure that folks that receive an attestation letter from UPEI are very serious about coming to our campus," said Keefe.

The school is doing what it can to make sure students offered a letter are committed,he said.

"They need to pay that [deposit] prior to receiving the attestation letter." Given the increase in fees, hesaid, "What we're trying to address is folks that would use one of these very precious attestation letters that we now have and then either not apply for a visa ... or study permit, and go to a different institution."

Keefe saidUPEI last year offered letters to 3,200 students and of those, roughly 675 received a permit and actually enrolled.

It's a similar story at Holland College: 1,400 offers were sent out and about 450 attended.

"The cap really limits our ability to send out offers for students to attend the college," said Lornie Hughes,registrar at Holland College.

"The goal is to ensure that the students who have been offered a seat and are going to confirm that seat have full intentions of coming to Holland College in the fall."

Why the upfront cost is multiplying for international students on the Island

7 months ago

Duration 3:59

Both UPEI and Holland College are increasing tuition deposits for international students. Lornie Hughes, the registrar at Holland College, explains why.

For new international students who do attend UPEI or Holland College, the deposit is put towardtheir tuition. If, for some reason, they are unable to get a study permit, 90 per cent of their deposit will be refunded.

Hughes said potential Holland College students who choose nottoattend can also get the90 per cent refundwithin three weeks of receiving an attestation letter.

And he said if the school gets that attestation letter back before it expires, it can give it to another student who wantsto study there.

The UPEI Student Union opposes the decision to increase the deposit. In a statement to CBC News, it said this will make it harder for students to access quality post-secondary education.

Keefe said he expects the increase to remain in place while the federal government's cap on international students is in effect.

"If the federal government changes their process then we will certainly look at ours," he said.

"We're ... hoping that we can get 500 new students as opposed to 700 last year,and that's what we're building our university budget on."

Hughes said Holland College will start sending its attestation letters out this week and is open to reevaluating or rejigging the change in the tuition deposit depending on how everything goes.

"One of the advantages of not being a large school is that we do have pretty good relationships with both our incoming and our current students," he said. "So if we do see any gaps in that process, we are always talking to students [to] make some changes."