Every September, glossy brochures and polished websites welcome thousands of international students to Canada, promising world-class education, a multicultural community, and a pathway to success. But beneath the surface, Canada’s immigration laws and university financial strategies tell a different story, one in which international students are treated not as members of the academic or national community, but as economic inputs with precarious rights. 

Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA), the legal framework that governs immigration in Canada, international students are granted temporary resident status. Sections 29 and 30 of the Act make it clear: foreign nationals are allowed to stay only under strict conditions and rights to study or work are not automatic. According to IRPA, “a temporary resident must comply with any conditions imposed under the regulation,” the law states. Students must remain enrolled full-time and may only work or stay in Canada if explicitly authorized by IRPA. Any disruption, illness, financial emergency, or academic difficulty could result in the loss of legal status. 

Meanwhile, at institutions like Trent University, international students are not only navigating a complex legal system–one that restricts work hours, requires full-time enrollment, and revokes status for minor violations–but also paying heavily for the privilege of accessing Canadian education. According to Trent University’s International Student Tuition Fees page, full-time undergraduate international tuition fees for the 2024-2025 academic year are listed at approximately $30,549. When housing, meals, books, and personal expenses are added, total annual costs often fall between $48,000 and $53,500, depending on lifestyle and living arrangements. 

Sections 91(1) of the IRPA prohibits unlicensed individuals from offering immigration advice for a fee. While this is meant to prevent fraud, it creates a real gap for international students who cannot afford an immigration lawyer and may be misled by unofficial sources. Without adequate legal clinics or in-house advisors, many students are left to navigate high-stakes paperwork alone. 

The reason for this financial gap is not incidental; it is strategic. Trent’s 2024-25 financial report states that “with fixed Ministry funding and domestic tuition fees frozen,” the university has turned to an “enrolment growth strategy reliant on tuition-only revenue and increased international recruitment.” The same report states that “international enrolment, projected at 26% of total enrolment, is anticipated to generate approximately 59% of the estimated tuition revenue in 2024/2025.” That means international students are not just students–they are financial lifelines. An international student from Peru studying at Trent noted that rising tuition has been compounded by stagnant scholarship amounts, forcing her and others to take on additional loans. “They promote scholarships as a big help,” she explained, “but when tuition goes up and the scholarship stays the same, it feels like we are falling behind.” 

This dependence is further commercialized through recruitment agents. The university pays commission fees equaling 4.4% of international tuition revenue to agents tasked with bringing in more students from abroad. At the same time, these students are often left scrambling for housing, struggling with mental health, and trying to meet the conditions of their permits with

minimal institutional support. Trent’s 2024-2025 financial report acknowledges these challenges, listing “affordable housing, mental health supports, and obtaining study permits” as ongoing concerns. The same student described how another friend who is an international student at Trent lost a housing deposit to a rental scam before the semester began, a significant setback for someone already facing the high costs of tuition and living expenses. Months later, the friend still had not recovered the money, and there had been little institutional guidance on how to avoid such scams. 

The federal policy climate has only exacerbated the situation. In January 2024, the Canadian government announced a national cap on study permits, citing concerns over housing availability and institutional capacity. Based on a “net zero first-year growth model,” the cap reduced the number of new study permits to 485,000, a sharp drop that hit Ontario universities hard. While graduate students were exempt, undergraduate applicants faced longer wait times, increased competition, and greater uncertainty during an already high-stakes admissions process. For institutions that rely heavily on international tuition, and for students making major financial decisions based on the possibility of study, this policy introduced new instability into an already precarious system. 

The implications go beyond numbers. The cap implicitly positions international students as contributors to Canada’s housing and education crises, rather than recognizing them as students filling funding gaps created elsewhere. By focusing attention on the volume of incoming international students, the federal government shifts blame away from provincial underfunding, which has left universities financially vulnerable, and from university administrators, which have adopted unsustainable recruitment models. Instead of addressing the root causes, the cap frames students themselves as the problem. 

The risks of failure are high. If a student drops below full-time status, their permit may be revoked. If their institution loses its Designated Learning Institution (DLI) status, as outlined in Section 220.1 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations (IRPR), students may suddenly find themselves ineligible to remain in Canada, regardless of their academic performance or intentions. For a school like Trent, which relies so heavily on international enrolment for revenue, this creates a twofold risk: students face the threat of removal for minor violations, and the university’s financial model becomes increasingly dependent on maintaining regulatory compliance. Even employment, often necessary to cover high costs, is tightly regulated. Students can only work under certain conditions and for limited hours. 

For the same Peruvian student, the risks of failure became clear when she had to turn down a promising job offer because the eight-month contract would have exceeded her authorized work period. This would have meant losing her status as an active student, violating co-op regulations, and ultimately costing her the study permit she needed to remain in Canada. Accepting it would have given her valuable Canadian work experience, the risk of losing legal status made it impossible. Her experience reflects the difficult trade-offs many international students face–balancing financial need, career development, and the constant threat of deportation. And while Section 209.4 imposes rules on employers to prevent exploitation, enforcement is uneven, and students may hesitate to report violations for fear of jeopardizing their status. 

International students bring cultural diversity, academic excellence, and critical tuition revenue. They participate in local economies, support community services, and often remain in Canada after graduation to work and contribute further, but none of this is guaranteed. Their legal right to stay, study, or work is always conditional. 

Canada’s international student policy promises opportunity, but delivers conditional belonging. It markets inclusion, but enforces exclusion through bureaucratic and financial barriers. And while universities like Trent depend on international students to balance their budget, the support these students receive often falls short. 

If international enrolment is going to remain a pillar of university funding in Canada, institutions and governments must stop treating international students as short-term revenue sources and start recognizing them as full members of their academic and civic communities. Canada cannot continue to profit from international tuition while offering only precarious legal status, limited support, and rising costs in return. Accessible legal information, affordable housing, mental health care, and fair tuition are not luxuries, they are the minimum owed to students who are asked to give so much. Otherwise, the gap between promise and precarity will only grow wider.