Students gather outside the Ontario Legislature in Toronto on Nov. 1, 2017, to protest against the strike by Ontario faculty members.Chris Young/The Globe and Mail
About 3,000 international students attending Ontario's colleges asked for a tuition refund after a faculty strike, according to new figures released by the provincial government.
The number represents roughly five per cent of the approximately 58,000 full time international students enrolled in the system.
In comparison, of the approximately 192,000 full time domestic college students, just over 22,600 – nearly 12 per cent – asked for and received the tuition refund.
Advanced Education Minister Deb Matthews said the international student figures, which are still preliminary and could change, make sense given the substantial costs incurred by international students to attend Canadian post-secondary institutes.
The government says that overall, 10.3 per cent of full time students – 25,700 students – sought the refunds.
Last month, the minister ordered colleges to refund tuition money for any student who felt unable to complete the condensed semester, a decision which is likely to cost the schools millions of dollars which would have otherwise been saved because of the labour dispute.