THUNDER BAY — Confederation College has seen a steep drop in enrolment by international students, but college president Michelle Salo says the province has come through with more money to help soften the financial blow.
The college’s 2026 Report to Community says the eight-campus institution had 3,456 full-time students enrolled in post-secondary programs in 2025-26, down by 870 from the previous year.
International student enrolment dropped by more than 1,000 in those years, to 947 in 2025-26 from 2,014 in 2024-25.
Salo acknowledged there has been “a significant decline in the international enrolment,” and it’s had an impact on college finances.
“It definitely has a negative impact,” she said after presenting the community report to an audience in a college lecture theatre, “which is why we’re very appreciative of the additional funding that the (provincial government) is providing colleges and universities.
“The impact was seen when we had to suspend multiple programs in the past year,” she added.
The college indefinitely suspended 11 academic programs, including culinary management and human resources management, in March 2025.
Enrolment from local communities has increased, Salo noted.
“We’ve always put effort into the domestic and Indigenous enrolment,” Salo told Newswatch.
“We have the concerted effort now that we have a dedicated individual who does our Indigenous recruitment.
“And then we also created a hub-and-spoke model where we have individuals in community, and we’re up to four communities now where there’s individuals in community, who are helping from a recruitment perspective in some of our First Nation communities.”
The report, posted online, unveils a new mission statement: “Confederation College inspires students to succeed in their lives and careers.”
Salo said the mission was rewritten because “we wanted something that was going to be more reflective of the next five years and some of the work that we’ve already done.
“So, we were evolving over the past five years. We’ve changed as an organization. Our focuses on partnerships and students are a little bit different than what we’ve had in the past as the world is changing.”
The college is in the last months of a five-year strategic plan titled Kaa-anokaatekin – Work That is Now Carried, and Salo told her audience the college has seen successes in those years that include growth in domestic enrolment, expansion in skilled-trades programming and strengthened Indigenous partnerships.
She also introduced her audience to a 2026-31 strategic plan, Mino-Wiijiwiidowinan – Good Relationships, which is in the final stages of development and will be released in a few months.
With its main campus in Thunder Bay, Confederation College offers more than 50 programs at campuses across Northwestern Ontario, from Marathon in the east to Kenora and Red Lake in the west. It has the largest catchment area of any Ontario college, approximately 550,000 square kilometres.
