Dealing with a $5-million loss of revenue from international tuition, Camosun College has announced a projected $3-million deficit for this fiscal year, which ends March 31. The college expects another $5-million loss of tuition next fiscal with a further drop in international student enrolment, creating a cumulative $10-million loss.
Camosun president Lane Trotter says that the deficit is linked “clearly” to international student numbers.
“At the start of this current fiscal year, almost a year ago, we were looking at 2,200 [international] students then, and that was based on the trends that we saw of students coming in,” says Trotter. “For next fiscal year, which starts April 1, we’re looking at 1,200 international students. So how things changed so rapidly in that year is in September 2024, our numbers were just over 1,800. In January, just a month ago, our numbers were approximately 1,600, and then as we look at… the number of students coming in and the number of students who are graduating and leaving, we’re projecting 1,200 next year. So that’s a swing of 1,000 students. The impact on that is very dramatic and very immediate, which is where that cumulative $10-million—at least $10-million—deficit comes from.”
Camosun’s budget this fiscal year is $179 million; approximately 45 percent of that comes from a grant the college gets from the province, while tuition makes up 33 percent, almost $60 million. Of the 33 percent, international enrolment accounts for $34 million, or 19 percent of total revenue.
The college is mandated to run a break-even budget, so it implemented measures such as an essential spending freeze (no travel expenses reimbursed, no Christmas party), keeping vacant positions unfilled, and instituting layoffs. In a February 5, 2025 email to employees, the college wrote, “The layoff process started in fall 2024 and is still ongoing. Unfortunately, there is not a firm timeline of when it will end.”
Trotter says that while the 2024/25 and 2025/26 fiscal years will run at deficits, Camosun’s proposed plan to get back to a break-even budget—a plan it has to have if it’s running a deficit, and must be approved by the minister of post-secondary education and future skills, and the minister of finance—should see the college with a balanced budget for the 2026/27 fiscal year, something that, as of now, Trotter defends as feasible.
“I’m going to use a word that sometimes reporters hate: it depends on factors we don’t know,” he says. “With what we know right now, we think we can get to the other side, and we’ve done this without cancelling programs. We’re working with other agencies on some of the services that we were previously looking at, and we’ll work with those agencies to work together to deliver those services, because that’s also within their mandate.”
Trotter admits that the cost-cutting decisions have been difficult, and says that it’s been hard on morale.
“These are colleagues, and friends. These are people we’ve known for a long time,” says Trotter. “And it’s not just them—it’s their families that are being impacted. We worry about all our colleagues and employees at this institution… I wish there was another way forward, but we have to align our expenses to the revenue that’s coming in, and that’s what we’re doing, and… Yeah, that’s what we’re doing.”
The college “doesn’t have a lot of manoeuvring room,” says Trotter, as it’s looking at a $10 million cumulative loss in tuition.
“This is all happening when we were just named one of the top employers in the province,” he says. “And the level of irony in that is significant.”
Trotter says that he understands that Camosun students are worried, and he stresses that despite rumours of programs being cut, that’s not the case.
“Continue to take your courses and programs; we have no plans to cancel courses and programs,” he says. “If you’re in a program, you will finish that program.”