Canadian universities reel from international student visa cut

The Trudeau administration’s tough new limits on international students appear to be showing some quick results, with key Canadian provinces promising to restrain a surge of low-quality private institutions, although much of academia fears longer-term harm.

The policy, as outlined by the federal immigration minister, Marc Miller, would cut new student visas by 35 per cent starting in the coming academic year.

Canada has long been regarded as one of the world’s most successful nations in attracting overseas students willing to pay several multiples of the tuition rates charged to domestic students. But that recruitment bonanza – total international enrolment across Canada roughly doubled in five years despite the quick downturn during the Covid lockdowns – has brought problems of its own.

That left Mr Miller pleading in recent months for provinces to confront a leading driver: a rise in the number of privately operated institutions catering almost exclusively to international enrolments and plunging their communities into housing crises.

Almost immediately, the move appears to have yielded some benefit. Leaders of Ontario and British Columbia – provinces where the trouble identified by Mr Miller looms greatest – both quickly issued pledges to work harder to halt abuses.

But more generally across Canadian higher education, Mr Miller and his government were accused of having imposed his solutions without properly consulting with the sector.

The central failure in the federal plan, said Universities Canada, the nation’s main higher education association, is that it in essence forces the provinces to figure out how to allocate the caps across all of their institutions. “The cap per province is going to add stress on an already stressed system,” the group said.

Colleges and Institutes Canada warned of “far-reaching consequences across the sector” that could harm the nation’s long-term reputation among international students. The changes should have been “implemented with care, and in collaboration with provinces, their postsecondary institutions and their associations”, it said.

CBIE, the Canadian Bureau for International Education, said it recognised the need to stop “unchecked and, in some cases, unethical growth” in international student enrolment, but it also feared the counterproductive imposition of “one-size-fits-all, top-down solutions”. The Canadian Association of University Teachers said it too was aware of abusive behaviour by some institutions but added: “If the goal is to crack down on the bad actors, then they should be directly targeted.”

As an example of the unintended side-effects that might now arise, Toronto-based higher education consultant Alex Usher suggested that post-secondary institutions – especially the problematic private operators that Mr Miller hopes to curb – will promptly notice that he has allowed some key exemptions outside the undergraduate arena and simply move their exploitative tactics to the postgraduate level.

The federal government last year issued new study visas to about 560,000 international students, and Mr Miller said the number will be capped this year at 364,000 and held at that level for at least two years. The allocation will be spread among the provinces based on their populations, with Ontario facing a cut of about 50 per cent.

The government’s new rules for the coming academic year also will end work permits for the spouses of international students at undergraduate level, and end post-study work permits for students of privately run institutions.

Erika Shaker, director of the national office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, said the problem identified by Mr Miller was that of rising inequality in society, “exacerbated by the underfunding of public institutions that are supposed to be accessible to everyone”. The solution, Ms Shaker said, was to provide sufficient public funding for higher education and stop “treating international students like cash cows”.

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com