The President of St. Clair College is pleased with the gains they're seeing in enrolment for domestic students in Windsor and Chatham.
Michael Silvaggi states that the fall 2024 enrolment numbers have shown an increase of domestic students.
A total of 15,761 full-time students are enrolled at the three campuses, which is a decrease of approximately two per cent compared to last year.
Despite the small overall drop, Silvaggi says domestic enrolment is up nine per cent at around 7,600 - a number they haven't seen since 2018.
The college also saw a new intake of 1,400 international students, which is in line with what the school has seen for the last 10 years.
Silvaggi says following the federal announcement on Wednesday by Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada - which will place another cap on study permits for 2025 - that the school will need to take a step back and wait for all of the rules to be 'ironed out'.
He says the fall enrolment is something to celebrate.
"We found capacity in programs that allowed us to grow, we found new markets if you will, we found students, incurred students, we pulled out all the stop. Certainly the uncertainty in the international market from all of those announcements in the early spring, it created some concern."
He says they will be okay based on their international student intake.
"We had a brand new intake of 1,400 international students, that's in line with what we've had for the past 10 years. If we have 1,400 to 1,500 students every semester we believe that we will be okay."
Silvaggi says they want to continue to see enrolment increases.
"Our domestic enrolment, domestic being students from Windsor-Essex, Ontario, Canada, we're up. 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 of the investment in the city, but this is just the start, we want to keep going."
He adds that in terms of the federal announcement capping study permits that international education will be tied to labour market needs, and more details need to be worked out on if it will be regional, provincial, or federal approach.
He adds that health care and nursing are still their most over-subscribed programs, with too many individuals applying for the amount of seats offered per program.
The Chatham-Kent campus has also seen a large enrolment jump of 29 per cent, with nearly 1,400 full-time students studying at that campus.