Solving demographic decline, budget shortfalls, and labor gaps through education policy seemed like a masterstroke — until the system imploded. Canada’s experiment with the internationalization of higher education collapsed last year. What was meant to be a silver bullet instead became a political fiasco. A poorly designed policy and minimal oversight created a political crisis that now threatens the fifty-year Canadian consensus on immigration.

Canada was an early pioneer in expanding access to higher education, building an extensive network of new universities and colleges that, by 1981, gave it the highest share of university- and college-educated adults among industrialized nations. Today it still tops global rankings, with 63 percent of adults holding a postsecondary credential — far ahead of the United States’ 51 percent.

This achievement was anchored in a long-standing social consensus: that everyone in Canada, including immigrants, should have access to quality, affordable higher education. About one-third of postsecondary students attend community colleges and other nonuniversity institutions offering academic and vocational programs, while two-thirds enroll in universities. Most institutions in Canada are publicly funded, including all of the top-tier universities.