The RCMP is investigating financial irregularities at a Burnaby aboriginal school.

A forensic audit at the Institute of Indigenous Government found that out of a total of 104 students, only 20 were aboriginal. Another 19 were non-aboriginal, and 65 were international students.

The college receives an annual operating grant of $2 million from the province, to be spent only on aboriginal education.

"They were offering programs for international students, which they weren't able to do through their agreement with the province," said Advanced Education Minister Murray Coell.

The audit also found financial problems, but Coell would not elaborate.

"The forensic audit had a number of areas where it showed irregularities," he said.

The audit results were handed over to the Burnaby RCMP.

"We do have a file open and are having an ongoing investigation with the Institute of Indigenous Government," said Const. Kalinda Link.

The college had revenues of $2.7 million in 2005-06, consisting of the B.C. government grant and tuition fees.

It spent $1.5 million on salaries, $800,000 on other expenses, and had an operating surplus of $177,000.

The college is being wound down by public administrator Ruth Wittenberg, and its courses moved to the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology in Merritt, which has taken over the campus.

The college opened in 1995, billing itself as Canada's first native-controlled public post-secondary college.

It offered aboriginal students career-training, first- and second-year courses and helped others to complete high school.

It moved to Burnaby in 2005, where it opened a new campus at a ceremony attended by Coell and a slew of politicians and native dignitaries.

Last February, the B.C. government installed a public administrator, after it received "complaints and reporting irregularities." The ministry suspended college president Sean Kocsis with pay, firing him two months later. And it disbanded the college's board of directors and council.

Kocsis could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Grand Chief Ed John of the First Nations Summit said the college may have taken in foreign students to make up the student quotas to qualify for government funding, which it's not supposed to do.

"IIG has for some time been under some difficult operating environment," he said.

"They tried to make a go of it."