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 says officials will assess the enrolment and operational impacts as a result of the news and communicate more details to students and staff when they can.

The province announced on Wednesday its plans for how it would deal with the federal government's cuts to international student numbers announced by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Marc Miller in January.

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

The province's 2024 budget also revealed that Ontario's colleges will lose out on $3.1 billion in revenue over the next two years as a result of the drop in international student enrolment.

Conestoga College granted more than 30,000 study permits to international students last year. The province said the biggest declines in study permits will be seen at Conestoga College.

In an interview with CBC Kitchener-Waterloo in February, Conestoga president John Tibbits defended the school'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 of international students makes up more than half the student population at the college and many of those students are studying across campuses in Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph, Brantford, Milton, Stratford and Ingersoll. 

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