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Toews cites “broader systemic challenges” including declining international student enrolment over the past five years since the pandemic and the federal government’s reductions to international student study permits as the reasons for the complete shutdown — calling the EAP program “unsustainable.” In the past five years, the EAP program has “been running a financial deficit,” the college said in a statement. 

The academic preparation program has been around almost since George Brown College’s 1967 founding, offering students resources to develop English skills and tools to gain employment in Toronto. It also helps prepare for other programs and degrees.

The Star spoke to EAP students and peer coaches who said they were devastated by the closure. 

Yisra Alhaj Hussein, who’s from Syria, is a peer coach at the Student Success Program at the ESL school.

Hussein was “very shocked” to learn about the EAP closure and said she isn’t ready to let go of the memories she made at the program.

“We have this feeling of sense of home here. This area, this school and this office, these classrooms ... and then suddenly someone just wants to take it from you,” said Hussein.

“I’m so disappointed,” she said, her voice wavering. “I’m shocked by the system ... I felt so good here to have this access, and now it’s just an illusion.”

The program, which took admissions on an ongoing basis, separates instruction for domestic and international students through two streams. In each stream are nine levels of eight-week-long English classes that students take based on proficiency.

EAP at George Brown becomes the latest Ontario post-secondary program to fall victim to a financial crisis. Colleges have blamed chronic underfunding, a tuition freeze and the decline in enrolment and revenue as a result of the international student cap.

The college would not confirm the number of students in the program but said “enrolment has declined overall by 15 per cent year-over-year from 2023–24 to 2024–25, with international student enrolment down 33 per cent.” 

Jeff Brown, a George Brown professor and the chief steward of the local faculty union, said in 2024-25, 81 per cent of students in the EAP program are domestic while 19 per cent are international.

He said he thinks the “core reason” why the college has determined the program isn’t viable is that large discrepancy, since foreign students are more lucrative.

“All of these domestic students are now simply turned away and no longer have this program to help them make their way, both in the community but also in their studies because the international students’ tuition was being used as a funding gap replacement,” Brown said, adding that students specifically enrol in George Brown’s EAP program to be “part of the community.”

He said faculty and staff were informed of the closure during a department meeting April 30; that week, all EAP faculty received their written layoff notices. Brown says layoffs will be staggered, with the first faculty layoffs occurring by the end of August. 

Brown said halting the EAP program communicates to students that the college is “giving up” on preparing newcomers for success. He says it’s “gobsmacking” that George Brown isn’t “exploring the possibilities” such as considering restructuring or budgetary measures before permanently closing the program. , a college program can be suspended or dormant for up to five years before it has to be closed.

In response to this suggestion, the college said it has “implemented multiple initiatives to ensure the financial sustainability of the program,” including securing support from private donors and exploring alternative program models, but despite this, enrolment declined.

“How are we preparing students for their studies? This program has been essential, and are we now saying the students are simply on their own if English isn’t their first language?” Brown said. 

When asked if the closure would push domestic ESL students elsewhere and how the college will continue preparing newcomers for the workforce, George Brown said it will work with students to “suggest alternative programs at the college that may align with their educational goals.” 

As the program halts new admissions, current students will have the option of finishing all nine levels by the 2026 closure date as faculty work and support students in a teach-out arrangement.