St. Clair College sees increase in domestic, decrease in international students

Enrolment may be down at St. Clair College, but President Mike Silvaggi isn’t bothered.

“Our fall enrolment is something to celebrate,” he said.

A total of 15,761 students are currently enrolled over the three campuses in Windsor, Chatham-Kent and the Greater Toronto Area, which represents a two per cent decrease over last fall's numbers.

Silvaggi said all colleges that had a public-private partnership, including St. Clair's GTA affiliates, did not enroll any new international students this fall.

“When you look at it that way, that two per cent reduction overall means that we've done a few things right in Windsor, Chatham. So, we're happy,” Silvaggi told CTV News.

The college is enjoying a surge of domestic students, up nine per cent.

“We haven't had this number of domestic students, 7,600, since 2018, so we think we're doing a few things right. Maybe we're blessed by the growth and all the investment in the city.”

Numbers are up at their Chatham-Kent campus, as well jumping 29 per cent, to nearly 1,400 full-time students. The programs that saw the biggest enrolment increases includes Practical Nursing, Personal Support Worker, Early Childhood Education, Heating and Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Technician and Electrical Techniques and Robotics.

Silvaggi likes where enrolment is at, including their international student intake of over 1,400.

“We know that there are some rules of the game that still need to be identified,” Silvaggi noted. “International education specifically is going to be tied to labour market needs.”

It’s good for many popular programs, including Esports, which has students from Italy, Germany and France this fall.

“They don't have facilities like this in Europe, so they're coming over here because they want to be a part of what we're building,” said program director Shaun Byrne.

“We've got students coming in saying, ‘I want to build a career in this space and your facility is going to give me the tools to do that.’ That's why they're coming here.”

The college would like growth but is more interested in maintaining stability in their international student numbers.

“This is just the start. We want to keep going,” Silvaggi said.

The 11.9 per cent decrease in international students this fall is due to the Ace Acumen Academy not intaking any new students this semester.

"Despite the recent announcements of federal restrictions on immigration, our international student enrolment remained very stable," said Silvaggi.

"Thanks to having many service supports in place for these global visitors, our visa allocations were largely untouched. We're also very excited by the large increase in enrolment at our Chatham campus, made up of both domestic and international students."