University Canada West lays off 240 staff and faculty, citing crippling international student enrolment caps

https://vancouversun.com/news/university-canada-west-lays-off-240-staff-citing-international-student-enrolment-caps

45 Comments

  1. Well thats too bad but when you use international students to grow yourself too big and charge exorbitant admission fees well what did you expect to happen. Ofc the balloon would pop eventually

  2. Euclidisthebomb on

    A private for-profit university owned by an offshore company that was essentially a degree mill for foreign students and used by said students as a pathway to landed status in Canada. Accredited solely in British Columbia (and a controversial accreditation) and a degree from it carries no weight with employers elsewhere.

    I dare say were one to present a degree from UCW to a prospective employer in Ontario they would laugh you out of the office.

  3. cyclinginvancouver on

    The professor said one of his colleagues, who was also laid off, had come out of retirement on Vancouver Island to take a job at the university.

    “How is this fair?” the professor asked. “I also moved for this job.”

    The laid-off University Canada West professor said he doubts the institution will be able to maintain its academic standards with fewer staff. In September, he said the university required faculty to sign a new contract that reduced paid vacation time from eight weeks to four.

    “At this point, I don’t know where I will go. I hope to find a dishwashing job in the interim, or a warehouse job, so that I can stay in the city.”

  4. ResidentNo11 on

    Awww. Poor for-profit business designed to fleece international students who don’t know better. I’m sorry for any faculty who were hoping to make a living until they could get a job in a public college or university, but the writing was in the wall the last year or so.

  5. BariatricSurgeryGuy on

    I bet you they are well under the cap. Nobody wants your crappy degrees if you aren’t selling a PGWP attached to it.

    It was just a front to sell work permits.

  6. dizzie_buddy1905 on

    We screen out “University” like these. After a couple of interviews with low quality candidates, their grads aren’t worth our time.

  7. As expected with diploma mills. No one who grew up in Vancouver considers University Canada West to be a serious school.

  8. That’s a convenient excuse, UCW has always been a school built on an unstable foundation.

    Even before the cap on international students, UCW was already experiencing financial and recruitment problems. It was close to bankruptcy in 2018, the Eminata Group took it over, and then it was sold again to Global University Systems in 2014.

  9. Anotherspelunker on

    Calling this diploma mill “university” is quite the stretch. And while we are on the topic, focusing your whole operation on milking international students on 3X tuition fees wasn’t only inadequate, but a massive exposure that ended up backfiring as expected

  10. – Citing crippling international student enrolment caps.

    “We aggressively expanded our business empire to take advantage of the fact that a international student population of 5% was permitted, despite it destroying the shelter market, job market, social services and the sort, as if this was sustainable and could be taken to the bank.”

    I feel bad for this guy, but the people running the university need no sympathy

  11. It’s crazy I’ll go on LinkedIn and I’ll see so many people with degrees from these type of schools

  12. Guilty_Serve on

    Sounds like an institution that needs to be destroyed.

    *moarrrrrrrrrrrr* ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

  13. Only our governments look at these institutions as having any value worth protecting

  14. Good riddance. Establishment’s path to profits depended on breaking local societal capacity and safety nets. AND there was zero betterment to any part of society, local or across the nation. Even the villages where the foreign students come from suffer from this fraud.

  15. Apples_and_Overtones on

    Good? Sounds like this school was barely even a school, and that its sole existence was to push people through to gain PR.

  16. Lmao, this is the first I’m hearing of the existence of this so-called university. Sounds like a diploma mill that’s been hit with karma after a decade of predatory recruitment practices at the cost of both students and Canadians.

  17. Let’s see if University of Fredericton follows the same path soon with their scam MBA program. Same private model

  18. Known-Setting-8265 on

    uniVeRsItY

    That’s like calling Trump University an educational institution

  19. TeegeeackXenu on

    we should absoutely brining in highly skilled and qualified migrants to study STEM, business etc. we just dont want migrants studying digital marketing cert 3 and then working uber full time

  20. Hot_Cheesecake_905 on

    Never heard of this university. Are they new?

    Checking Wikipedia, it looks to be a private university targeting international students.

    Apparently, they were only second to Conestoga College when it came to international study permits.

    Oh well, so sad the grift is over. 🤣

  21. Neutral-President on

    From UCW’s Wikipedia page:

    >In 2023, University Canada West accounted for 13,913 international study permits, more than any other post-secondary institution in British Columbia, and more than any other institution in Canada other than Conestoga College.[25] This means, of their 14485[26] students, only 572 (4% of the total student body) were not on international study permits.

  22. WarmScientist5297 on

    This is not even a real university! How about they lay off everybody and shut down?

  23. This is a sign that that visa permit changes are having an effect. This school was the #2 school in Canada for international students, only second to Conestoga.

    Hopefully the school goes bankrupt and we can return to normal levels

  24. CorruptPower on

    We let these international students come through Canada and have them end up working minimum wage jobs and try applying for PR.

    Why should I care about institutions that try exploiting the system and make our people suffer? Of course the entire entry to citizenship is completely broken and these places are one source of the problem in the grand scheme of things.