SFU’s Finances and International Student Enrolments
January 8, 2026
Throughout its financial difficulties of the past two years, SFU has heavily emphasized the negative role of federal and provincial government policy changes on international student enrolments. In the University’s comparatively short 2025-2026 Budget and Financial Plan*, Dilson Rassier wrote, “In looking ahead to 2025-26, we are facing another tight budget cycle, driven largely by changes in government policies affecting international student enrolment and visa regulations.”
This forecast isn’t surprising given SFU’s statement in its March 31, 2025 Annual Financial Report (“AFP 2025”) that “[t]he university’s revenue growth was hindered by declining international enrolments and operating expense inflation” (Management Discussion and Analysis, page 12).
There is, very obviously, some painful truth to the negative role international student enrolment caps have had on Canada’s postsecondary budgets, including here at SFU — this is undeniable. Many of us have also watched the enrolment numbers closely to find a little certainty. But are declines in international student enrolments the critical factor affecting SFU’s finances?
First of all, let’s glean what we can from SFU’s own reporting.
SFU noted in its AFP 2025 that “[t]he majority of SFU’s revenue is earned by tuition fees for delivering the university’s core academic mission of providing education services to domestic and international students along with an operating grant from the Province of British Columbia” (Management Discussion and Analysis, page 10).
It’s important to note that this statement appears to be incorrect: the majority of SFU's revenue comes from government sources, not tuition revenue. In 2025, total government revenue was approximately 46.1% of SFU’s revenue, while tuition (credit and non-credit) comprises 31.5%. Even the B.C. government revenue comprises 35.1% of the University’s 2025 revenue.
When we look at SFU’s 2025 revenues, it’s unclear that the University’s revenue growth “was hindered by declining international enrolments and operating expense inflation.” For the first time in its history, SFU’s revenues exceeded a billion dollars: in fact, between 2024 and 2025, total revenue increased by almost $40 million.
Turning to tuition revenue, and in the words of our consultant financial researcher,**:
“… when you combine credit courses revenue with non-credit courses and other student fee revenues, SFU has seen total tuition revenue between 2019 and 2025, climb by 15.5% from $276.8 million to $319.7 million. In 2023 and 2024, total revenue was flat at about $315 million. This past year, 2025, total tuition revenue climbed to almost $320 million.”
As our financial researcher further added:
“SFU’s claim that changes in government policies regarding international students have negatively impacted SFU’s revenue growth is exaggerated. Yes, SFU, like many post-secondary institutions in BC - though not UVic or UBC according to the Tyee article - has seen a shift in enrolment, including a decline in international undergraduate enrolment, offset by domestic enrolment. Graduate student enrolment has fluctuated at SFU, but not significantly. The reality is that even with this shift in enrolment by type of student, total tuition revenue at SFU between 2019 and 2025 has increased by 15.5%, from $276.8 million to $319.7 million.”
Our financial researcher’s words, noted in my July 2024 article about SFU’s 2023-2024 financials, appear to still ring true:
“When SFU claims that “declining international student enrolment’ is one of the external factors to explain SFU’s revenue shortfall one could counter that enrolment has been flat for 3 years and SFU’s expectation that enrolment should have kept increasing from 2020/21 when total enrolment hit 27,344 was not based on the reality of present domestic and international factors such as Vancouver’s high cost of living, housing shortages and costs, and international turmoil and uncertainty.”
All of this raises a critical question: if international student enrolments aren’t the key factor for SFU’s financial difficulties, what other budgetary issues are contributing to SFU’s fiscal woes?
One of them might be, as Dilson Rassier stated, “operating expense inflation.” But again, even with the fiscal drag of declining international enrolments and operating expense inflation, SFU’s revenues still hit a high watermark.
It will take some time to learn if there are other institution-specific fiscal factors at SFU pressuring the senior administration to position eliminate over 90 APSA members in the last two years and offer volunteer retirement packages to many others, among other workforce reductions the University has recently made.
Obviously, given the serious consequences for many members like you in terms of increased workloads, declining resources and growing stress, fulsome details of what else may be eroding SFU’s fiscal situation are critical.
Stay tuned, as we try to learn more . . . .
* Unlike in prior budget years, SFU’s 2025-26 Budget and Financial Plan is just 22 pages in length, similar to last year’s 21-page 2024-25 Budget and Financial Plan. Previously, the SFU Budget and Financial Plan was over a hundred pages long.
** The full report isn’t currently available.