Loyalist College President Mark Kirkpatrick spoke with Quinte News this week about a number of issues.
They include domestics vs international student enrolment, the school’s path back to the financial black, and a summer where the school almost ground to a halt.
“Domestic enrolment is doing better than our projections. This fall, we came in with 2,455 students, which is about six per cent above our projections. That’s a really good trend and internationally we’re way down, but we’re in line with what we expected.”
In 2023, Loyalist had approximately 7,000 students between their campuses in Tyendinaga, Bancroft, Port Hope, Toronto, and Belleville.
There has been a realignment at the school to focus on the needs of companies and employers in the Bay of Quinte region.
Kirkpatrick says it is critical to align with the needs of the area as the school is a critical part of Quinte.
” … for our workforce development and opportunities that we provide our region, so we have to find a way to make sure that we are a strong institution moving forward.”
In fiscal 2026, the school is running a $14-million deficit and another $10 million in fiscal 2027, but the president says things are fluid.
“We’ll have a better sense as we get through each fall from a financial perspective how we’re doing, but the initial numbers are are looking positive that we’re on track to meet our goals.”
“We have to be a much more focused institution going forward, but we still have to meet the needs of our region. We used to run upwards of 90 programs, for example. This fall, we came in the high 50s, but they’re very much focused on what we see from demand from our local workforce needs.”
Online classes over the summer were paused due to a ransom demand against the school on July 9, 2026.
“Loyalist suffered a major cyber attack in July. It was two primary attacks. One was an encryption attack, so it encrypted an awful lot of our servers, and then also some of the data was exfiltrated by a threat actor.”
It affected email, internet, communications, online classes, financial aid, and other network challenges.
We have asked school officials if a ransom was paid as part of the data recovery and are awaiting comment.
