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Universities have aggressively recruited abroad because foreign students pay dramatically higher tuition than domestic students.

In the past decade, for example, the University of Toronto increased the percentage of its foreign enrolment in all courses from 10 per cent to 20 per cent. At UBC, one-third of first-year students were international.

These two schools have the highest proportions, but all are scrambling to catch up and this year’s foreign-to-domestic ratio hit a new peak. McGill had the highest level, with international students making up 30.7 per cent of first-year students, at Bishops it was 29.6 per cent, at the University of Toronto 25.7 per cent, and at Dalhousie and Waterloo roughly 20 per cent.

In graduate schools, involving medicine or other critical sectors, international enrolments are higher still: 57 per cent at Windsor University, 50 per cent at Memorial University and 40 per cent at Concordia University and another dozen schools.

UBC, and others where percentages are high such as University of Toronto, deny that Canadian students are being displaced, but the trajectory is obvious.

There’s another critical issue besides public institutions becoming for-profit cash cows.

Canada must identify those credentials and skills that are strategically important to meeting the needs of the future economy such as science, technology, engineering, and computer science. These courses must be offered to Canadians only and not to outsiders who will take these skills home and build their economies in order to compete against Canada.