As post-secondary institutes deal with the fallout from a cap on international students, one Catholic college appears to be nimbly responding to the new landscape.

Karen Thomson, the chief operating officer of King’s University College, a Catholic liberal arts institution affiliated with the University of Western Ontario in London, Ont., said the school is taking time "to de-risk our situation” by enacting several measures. 

"For example, this September we will be admitting our largest number of first-year domestic students,” said Thomson. “And that is a testament to some of the new practices. We also have a new approach to international recruitment to de-risk and diversify our student population from around the world, which I think is important both pedagogically and from our risk management standpoint.

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“And of course we’ve had to be more efficient and effective with our financial resources,” continued Thomson. “We’re rethinking how we are doing things, and we’re finding savings in areas, but we’re not just cost-cutting but investing as well."

In 2024, the federal government announced the cap on international students would drop 35 per cent that year and an additional 10 per cent in 2025, which means 437,000 is the authorized number of permits to be issued this year. This target number will continue forward into 2026.

Typically, King’s student body consists of approximately 3,500 students, of whom around 550 are international students.

Universities Canada has again decried the cap on international student permits in the days leading up to the start of the 2025-26 fall semester. President and CEO Gabriel Miller told CTV that “nobody is debating the need to limit the number of people coming into the country, and nobody is asking the government to revisit its decision to set lower immigration targets, including for international students.”

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But he also stated, “we need talent, and right now, too much of that talent is going away from Canada, and at the moment we need it most.”

Thomson does agree with Universities Canada’s conviction that the country must continue attracting talent from around the world, but the current system is not optimal because prospective international students “are concerned that our government isn’t welcoming or the government’s going to change the policy in another three months.” This uncertainty, she said, is leading these scholars to go to their second or third choice of country instead.

In June, the results of a survey from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada commissioned last November indicated that 52 per cent of Canadians believed that there are too many immigrants being admitted into Canada, even after the government slashed the target to 395,000 from 485,000. Just 37 per cent of Canadians said 395,000 is the right number, and the remaining five per cent believed this amounts to too few entries.

In reaction to this public sentiment, Thomson said “we as a country perhaps grew too fast when it comes to international and being equipped to properly support those individuals coming into the country,” and that has led to concern about housing and employment.

Thompson suggested that there “were probably some abuses that were happening with people going through loopholes,” and if those problems are addressed and the country gets better at operating its visa system “the sentiment of the public will change.”

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Time will tell if the government indeed rehabilitates the system.

Currently, Canada is on pace to blow past multiple immigration targets for 2025. The country admitted 207,650 permanent residents in the first half of 2025, a pace that will lead to over 415,000 newcomers before the end of the year, above the 395,000 goal. The International Mobility Program issued 302,280 work permits in the first half of 2025, which already exceeds the year-long target of 285,730. And the Temporary Foreign Worker program has issued 105,195 permits through January to June, well beyond the 82,000 January to December goal.