Canada universities see jump in US applicants as Trump cuts funding at home
UBC Vancouver even briefly reopened admissions to US citizens for some graduate programmes in response to the spike in demand
More students living in the United States are applying to Canadian universities or expressing interest in studying north of the border as US President Donald Trump cuts federal funding to universities and revokes foreign student visas.
Officials at the University of British Columbia’s Vancouver campus said the school reported a 27 per cent jump in graduate applications as of March 1 from US citizens for programmes starting in the 2025 academic year, compared to all of 2024.
In response to rising demand for graduate-level programmes, UBC Vancouver briefly reopened admissions to US citizens for several graduate programmes this week with plans to fast track applications from American students hoping to begin studies in September.
University of Toronto, Canada’s largest university by number of students, also reported more US applications by its January deadline for 2025 programmes, while a University of Waterloo spokesperson reported an increase in US visitors to campus and more web traffic originating from the United States since September.
The universities in Toronto and Waterloo did not cite the reasons for the increase in interest, while the UBC’s Vancouver campus attributed the rise to the Trump administration’s policies.
The administration has frozen hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for numerous universities, pressing them to make policy changes and citing what it says is a failure to fight antisemitism on campus.