Projected Financial Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Canadian Universities for the 2020/21 Academic Year

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted many segments of Canadian society, including post-secondary institutions given the uncertainty surrounding the enrolment of international students. With the current international travel restrictions in place in Canada and requests by health authorities to practice physical distancing, a large majority of universities were planning to utilize online learning as the primary teaching method for the entire 2020/21 academic year. Over the last decade, institutions have increasingly relied on international students' tuition fees as a revenue source. The aim of this paper was to assess, using projection scenarios, hypothetical financial losses for Canadian universities in the 2020/21 school year. These scenarios were based on a series of assumptions using forecasted international and domestic student registrations and recent trends in administrative and survey data.