By Tommy Osborne

CNC

Despite challenges, College of New Caledonia optimistic about its future

Nov 13, 2025 | 4:45 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – The College of New Caledonia (CNC) is facing potential program suspensions as it continues to try to find cost-cutting measures to combat a significant decrease in international student enrolment. The college already announced eight program cuts in October, but says eight programs could be suspended as well.

“We’re not taking new students in for a period of time, and some of those programs are, for example, a business program, programs that just need a pause, and the bulk of those were in the business area, as well as our associate degrees in some of the sciences and in the arts. So we have suspended intakes, but that frees us up to look at those programs, and do the work that we want to do so that they can be a valuable offering in the future,” said CNC President Cindy Heitman.

What do these program suspensions, on top of already announced cuts, mean for jobs? Heitman says there is still much that needs to be done before any final determinations, so at the moment, there aren’t any definitive numbers.

“It’s too early for us to tell. There are teach-out plans that have to happen, so we maintain our commitment to students that they get to finish their credentials. We still have teach-out plans that need to be reviewed, we need to look at enrolment in other programs to see if there’s opportunity for movement within the college itself, but we actually won’t know those numbers until later in the spring,” Heitman said.

Despite these challenges, Heitman says the college is building towards the future, focusing on improving domestic enrolment.

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“We have pivoted our future students, our marketing, to domestic students. CNC is a college that over the past three years has seen a steady increase in domestic enrolment, so we are going to continue to infuse our resources and our efforts into increasing our domestic enrolment so that we can continue to grow and thrive and offer quality education here in the north,” she said.

“We’re spending a lot of time talking about what programs are relevant to students today and really thinking about: ‘how do we do what we do the best? How do we be the place that students choose?’ We’re really looking at focusing our efforts into programs that are connected to labour market or that create pathways for students so that they can achieve their end result,” she continued.

While the cuts and suspensions may pose signifiant challenges now, Heitman believes long term, the college will be better positioned to serve its students in the years to come.

“This is actually an exciting time. It’s unfortunate that it’s layered with all of this bad news around loss and revenue and people feeling like they might lose their jobs. But in the end, the whole goal here is to position CNC to be a thriving school within the next few years.”

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