the government shouldn't be interfering in how academic institutions choose students, and that should be a foundational principle in any democratic society. the academies should choose the best students available, and they should do so based on merit. universities are not supposed to be a way to hand out social welfare, but i realize they are.
if there's one place in society that an attack on "dei" makes sense, it's in the schools. schools should not be trying to "provide opportunities" to people, that is not their mandate. the mandate of the academy is to advance education, not to redistribute resources. it is the mandate of government to redistribute resources.
in canada, the state had to step in because there were a large number of diploma mills set up that were importing international students in order to capitalize on their very high tuition fees and it was creating housing stability problems for poor people, while adding nothing of value to the country itself. these diploma mills are not serious institutions and their expensive diplomas have no market value. worse, a disturbing number of our accredited universities and colleges were beginning to participate in this process in order to maximize profits, which was breaking the education system. the state had to step in to regulate this, but it did so in the most lazy way possible. instead of setting maximum numbers of students, it should have regulated the entrance requirements. if canadian universities had higher minimum entrance requirements by legislation, they wouldn't be able to capitalize on these high tuitions from international students.
universities are not a business, and do not exist to generate profit for shareholders. more public ownership would also help, in addition to forcing the schools to set higher minimum entrance requirements. in canada, all universities are public institutions; that should be strengthened. schools would still be able to determine their own specific requirements relative to each other, but the bar should be raised so that the floor is higher and that should be determined in law. that would solve the problem.
there should be no C students allowed. sorry.
for the government to do the opposite and say it is going to bring in a set number of students from a foreign country and i guess find them schools to go to is blatantly undemocratic and probably unconstitutional. that is not the role of government in a democratic society.