The numbers show that efforts by Thunder Bay's Confederation College to recruit international students are paying dividends.
Confederation is projecting to enroll about 650 foreign students this year.
That would be only 15 more than last year but, more significantly, it's almost two-and-a-half times the international student enrollment just four years ago.
The number of students coming to the college from outside Canada has grown steadily from just 274 in the 2013/14 school year.
Confederation's registrar, Don Duclos, says the college has been doing "a lot of extra recruitment in those areas to fill some of our seats" along with ramped-up recruitment across northern and southern Ontario.
Duclos said the college uses recruiting agents in communities in countries such as India, China, Vietnam and other Asian nations, along with Mexico and South America. "They are mostly people on the ground. They are actually here this week learning about our college, and we've had those people for a number of years, so we pull from those same markets."
Confederation has taken about seven years to grow the international component of its enrollment to where it is today—about 15 per cent of the total—a level Duclos said the college will be happy to maintain going forward.
The college currently has students from more than two dozen countries, with India supplying the largest group.
Thunder Bay's other post-secondary institution, Lakehead University, has also admitted a record number of international students for the coming term, bringing its total foreign student enrollment to more than 1,000.
