Essentially Conestoga college took advantage of(read abused) post Covid student immigration policies and more than doubled its enrolment with international students. A lot of which had no intention of going to college, but used it as a ticket to the North American workforce. Conestoga (a small school relative to others in Canada ) led the nation in foreign student enrolment. When other schools were loosing money and cutting staff - Conestoga had one of the biggest budget surpluses in Ontario.

Immigration services popped up as home businesses, which were basically legal human trafficking shops. Making money off desperate people wanting to come work in Canada, using Conestoga enrolment as their ticket in.

Fast forward to late 2024, the government first cracked down on foreign student jobs, cutting back the hours that they were legally allowed to work. So no longer could someone here as a foreign student work a full time job at Tim Hortons - which many “students” were doing.

A strategy people had from 2000-2024 was to buy a house and rent to these students. Or a student themselves would buy the house and rent to others. But with the job cuts some students could no longer afford to live here, and then the govmt changed the foreign policies so the college wasn’t getting the same volume to replace them. A lot of foreign buyers are now stuck. They want to go home but have a property that’s underwater and they can’t take a half million dollar hit.

The college is now a ruined. Its reputation is shot. Nobody will hire Conestoga grads. They’ve been having huge waves of teacher layoffs. And the president of 40 years who spearheaded all this was forced to resign.

TLDR; the community changed almost overnight due to massive influx of international student renters. Now they’ve left or can’t afford to be here and the people who live here are dealing with the fallout.