A candidate for school trustee says the Calgary Board of Education spends more recruiting international students than it receives back in tuition, and wants something done about it.

Mike Bradshaw, who is running for trustee in Wards 12 and 14, speaking on behalf of Students Count, said high travel costs as well as a variety of other fees make recruiting international students a money-losing proposition.

He said his group used the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act to find out how much the CBE is spending to recruit foreign students.

"We FOIPed some travel costs, and we found for three [CBE recruitment] people, it was $250,000 over three years that they were spending, just on travel to these countries, to recruit these kids," Bradshaw told CBC News. "From our perspective, that's money that should be spent in classrooms."

ESL funding, recruitment fees drive up costs

"A lot of them [international students] are getting ESL funding," he said. "There's recruitment fees, there's high admin fees and by the time they get in the classroom, it costs more money to have them there than a regular student."

According to Bradshaw, the cost of recruiting international students is about a thousand dollars more than they bring in in revenue.

"The big message," said Bradshaw, "is that the CBE isn't doing the oversight they need to do on their own departments."

CBE responds

The Calgary Board of Education denied the math put forward by Bradshaw, based on 2016-17 figures for 850 international students.

"The net contribution to the bottom line of the CBE is projected to be in excess of $3.0M for 2016-17 as a result of international students," said CBE media relations spokesperson Megan Geyer in an email. "That is after all fees, staffing costs, finder's fees, travel, etc."

Education Minister David Eggen's office, in an email, said, "Our government believes that money flowed to education is always best spent in the classroom. We are currently conducting an operational review of CBE's finances to ensure that money is being spent in the most appropriate way possible."

Students Count is a team of five trustee candidates running in Calgary on five points, including greater accountability.

With files from Colleen Underwood, CBC News