President Steenkamp on international student enrollment
Royal Roads University President Philip Steenkamp spoke to reporter Katie DeRosa with the Victoria Times Colonist regarding the university’s enrollment numbers for international students.
Here is an excerpt:
At Royal Roads University, a 20 per cent decline in international students has been offset by an uptick in domestic enrolment, said university president Philip Steenkamp. The university, which doesn’t operate on the typical semester system but has a rolling intake of students, is expecting 1,100 international students in the fiscal year 2020-21, compared to 1,375 last year, Steenkamp said. International students make up between 20 and 25 per cent of the student body at Royal Roads.
However, overall enrolment is down by just six per cent due to the increase in enrolment from Canadian students, Steenkamp said. That translates into a $2-million revenue hit for the university, which has a budget of about $70 million.
The university has done some cost-cutting and re-deployment of staff, but has not laid anyone off.
“The commitment I made is that we would not lay anyone off and we’ve not laid anyone off,” Steenkamp said. “My view on all of this is that we need to build a bridge that gets our whole community from one side of this pandemic to the other side safely.”