TIMMINS - After making over $98 million in revenue through international programs in the last school year, a Timmins college is predicting future deficits and says it's started to cut staff.
In 2025-26, Northern College is projecting a $6 million deficit and expects it to double to $12 million for the 2026-27 school year, the Timmins-based post-secondary school announced today.
The news release says the deficits show the "immediate impact" of federal changes to the international student study permit and post-graduate work permit eligibility. The college declined commenting on how many jobs are affected. It is also not providing data on its current international student enrolment.
“We have worked diligently to develop solutions to this concerning issue, exploring all alternatives that put our staff first,” said Mitch Dumas, Northern College president and CEO, in the news release.
“Unfortunately, due to the combination of existing funding models, reduced international recruitment numbers and growing costs due to inflation, Northern has had to make the difficult decision to reduce its existing staffing complement.”
Since May 2024, the college says it's offered early retirement incentives and voluntary exit packages for employees. Layoff notices are also handed out as required.
In the statement, the school said it's dedicated to finding new revenue streams.
“This isn’t the first time in our institutional history that we’ve faced an uncertain future, or endured financially difficult times, and we’ll weather this as we’ve done before,” said Dumas. “I would like to say that this was an incredibly difficult decision for us to make.”
In the past decade, the Timmins college has been making millions of dollars through the student visa program that was at the heart of the recent federal changes.
Early last year, however, the federal government announced a cap on the number of international students that can get visas and changed the rules for post-graduation work permits (PGWP). The cap meant a 50 per cent decrease in permits given in Ontario, which accepted the most international students.
One of the ways colleges were boosting their enrolment numbers was through partnerships with private schools.
Northern College's partnership with the private school Pures College made headlines in 2023 after acceptance letters were revoked for 503 international students — mostly from India — after the number of student visas issued by the Ministry of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) far exceeded the school’s capacity to run programs.
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Northern College’s financial statements for 2022, 2023 and 2024 record a huge financial payoff through the international programs and other revenue, which included the private college partnership.
The college revenue for international programs was $98 million in 2024, up from $84 million in 2023.
In 2024, the total revenue was $173 million, up from $142 million the year before.
The expenses were $139 million in 2024, and $112.9 million in 2023.
