Indian students rejected the most for international student permits in Canada

2025/11/06 Leave a comment

Given most of the growth has been from India, the extent of college recruitment in particular and the examples of fraud, not that surprising:

…For the second year in a row, Canada cut the number of international student permits in order to bring down the number of temporary migrants and to deal with fraudulent applications.

As a result, about 74% of Indian students applying to study at Canadian colleges and universities were rejected in August — a big increase compared to about 32% in August 2023, says Reuters, which was provided with immigration department data.

Indian applicants also dropped from 20,900 in August 2023, when they represented just over one-quarter of all applicants, to 4,515 in August.

During the past 10 years, India has been Canada’s top source of international students and in August,  it also had the highest study-permit refusal rate of any country with more than 1,000 approved applicants….

Source: Indian students rejected the most for international student permits in Canada

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Canada’s education sector has a new idea to lure international students back. Here’s what it is

2025/11/03 Leave a comment

Doesn’t appear to be a new idea:

…Niagara College president Sean Kennedy said Canada has remained a safe and welcoming country known for its progressive values, cultural diversity and quality education. 

“The messaging to the world through this campaign will be, ‘Come and grow your future as a global citizen,’” said Kennedy, whose school saw international applications drop by half and lost 40 per cent of international enrolment in the past year.

For graduates, that could mean returning home after an amazing education and international experience or staying and working for those who fall in love with Canada, he said.

“Both paths are really laudable, commendable and worth considering,” Kennedy noted. “It’s a bit more of a balanced approach. What we’re offering here is a chance to grow your skills and knowledge and expertise, but also to grow as a person.”

Source: Canada’s education sector has a new idea to lure international students back. Here’s what it is

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ICYMI – Brunner: Canadian international student policy at a crossroads

2025/10/15 Leave a comment

Good list of some of the issues and some easier to address than others:

This policy brief identifies four core challenges:

  • Lack of clear, cross-sectoral policy co-ordination: A disjointed, diffused and volatile policy arena is marked by competing objectives among its many actors and lacks a holistic approach to long-term planning and shared accountability.
  • Funding dependency: Overreliance on international student tuition fees as a revenue source has left post-secondary institutions vulnerable and without clear alternatives.
  • Damaged public consensus: High international student recruitment levels, unsupported by adequate settlement services and infrastructure, have eroded public support not only for international students but also for immigration more broadly.
  • Transparency and fairness: Complex and inconsistent immigration pathways create prolonged uncertainty and vulnerability for international students, resulting in a system marked by precarity and potential exploitation.

To address these systemic issues, this brief recommends:

  • An international education strategy that is collaborative, multi-level and cross-sectoral;
  • Predictable and clearly communicated pathways to permanent residency so international students can make informed choices before choosing to study in Canada;
  • Increased and sustained public investment in higher education to reduce institutions’ dependency on international student tuition;
  • Co-ordinated, universally accessible settlement services with clear accountability across government and institutional actors;
  • Strengthened transparency and regulation of institutional and recruitment practices, supported by accessible public data on student outcomes.

By rebalancing the policy landscape toward sustainability, transparency and ethical responsibility, Canada can better manage international students’ economic benefits, protect institutional integrity and uphold its commitments to the international students it recruits.

Source: Brunner: Canadian international student policy at a crossroads

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Chinese students take Ottawa to court over study permit delays

2025/09/04 Leave a comment

Security clearances take time, particularly for citizens of countries with a history of foreign interference and opaque organizations, making some being caught up in the vetting process:

Dozens of Chinese graduate students are accusing Ottawa of discrimination because their study permit applications have been left in limbo for months, preventing them from beginning their advanced degrees at Canadian universities.

“It’s already [done] very serious damage to my life,” Yixin Cheng, a 27-year-old would-be PhD student in computer science at UBC, told CBC News from Hangzhao, China.

Cheng is one of a group of 25 students who have filed a case in Federal Court against Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), alleging their files have been unfairly stalled in the security screening phase. All of them have been accepted into graduate-level programs in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) at universities including UBC, McGill and the University of Waterloo.

All 25 were still in China as the new school year began this week.

“Basically, the IRCC pressed the pause button for my life for over one year,” said Cheng.

Cheng applied for a study permit back in May 2024, and quit a high-paying job because he expected to be at UBC last fall.  The IRCC website says the standard processing time for students from China is four weeks. …

Their lawyer, Toronto-based Vakkas Bilsin, says their similarities  — all Chinese citizens, all seeking graduate programs in STEM — made him think “there is something serious going on.”

He says the lack of transparency is particularly frustrating, saying that four or five weeks after some students had submitted their applications, IRCC’s application tracker said the agency had only just started the background check process.

“We still don’t understand why a detailed, extensive security check is necessary in this specific circumstance of these students,” he said.

IRCC said in an emailed statement it is “committed to a fair and non-discriminatory application of immigration procedures. All applicants seeking to come to Canada — regardless of their country of origin or the program under which they apply — are subject to the same screening processes.”

It says the website only offers a general idea of how long the process may take and that, under the law, all people looking to enter the country must meet admissibility requirements, including a security screening.

Source: Chinese students take Ottawa to court over study permit delays

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Here are the top reasons why Canada rejects study permit applications

2025/08/28 Leave a comment

Useful information:

Almost five per cent of study permit applications were rejected last year because applicants allegedly misrepresented or withheld information, according to a new study that tracks international student refusal trends.

It was a small but noteworthy increase, according to the analysis released Monday by ApplyBoard, one of the largest online platforms for foreign student recruitment. The report looked at study permit applications for 2024 and found that 4.6 per cent of refusal reasons were linked to “authenticity and applicant honesty.”

In all, some 13,000 applicants were rejected based on misrepresenting or withholding facts in their applications.

Under the Canadian law, an immigration applicant can be found inadmissible “for directly or indirectly misrepresenting or withholding material facts.” Last year’s increase was up from 1.8 per cent in 2021, 2.3 per cent in 2022 and 3.5 per cent in 2023. 

In 2024, the Immigration Department rejected about 290,000 study permit applications, bringing the overall refusal rate to 52 per cent from 40 per cent the year before. The data covered applicants for all levels of studies; an application can be refused on multiple grounds.

Of the 81 different reasons given for refusals, 76 per cent were rejected because the officer was not satisfied the applicant would leave Canada — based on the person’s previous travel history. In comparison, this reason accounted for 7.6 per cent of all refusals in 2021.

The second-most common reason for refusal had to do with officers not believing an applicant would leave Canada, based on their financial assets. These rejected applications accounted for 53 per cent last year, up from 25 per cent in 2021.

Rounding the top five reasons for study permit refusals in 2024 were: an officer’s doubt over the purpose of the visit (47 per cent), applicants not having enough financial resources for tuition (19 per cent) and for living expenses (18 per cent).

While officials recognize some future students may want to stay and gain work experience in Canada after graduation, the predominant use of lack of travel history as a refusal ground, said the ApplyBoard study, “suggests that many applicants are perceived as having permanent residency as their primary purpose, instead of study.”

The report made no mention or speculation on the rise of this particular refusal reason, and it’s not known if immigration officials have heightened scrutiny of study permit applications amid integrity concerns raised about the international education program in the last couple years. 

Those alleged of submitting inauthentic documents and those who “didn’t truthfully answer all questions” were cited in 1.7 per cent and one per cent of all refusals in 2024, respectively — up from the correspondingly 0.3 per cent and 0.4 per cent since 2021, the report found.

In 2024, missing documents were also involved in thousands of refusals, with the proofs of financial assets being cited as the most commonly missing papers, followed by biometrics (photo and fingerprints), letters of acceptance by an institution, Quebec acceptance certificate and medical exam results.

“Every refusal reason above is entirely preventable, given enough time to review the application for completeness,” said ApplyBoard. “Having others review study permit applications can also prevent regrettable permit refusals.”

Source: Here are the top reasons why Canada rejects study permit applications

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Many U.S. Colleges May Close Without Immigrants And International Students, Report Finds

2025/08/22 Leave a comment

Comparable dependence on international students:

Many U.S. colleges and universities could be forced to close if they’re not able to enroll as many immigrants and international students, according to a National Foundation for American Policy report. That would mean fewer schools for American students and less employment opportunity for U.S. workers in towns with local universities.

Data show a bleak picture without the foreign born. Current immigration policies, including toward international students, affect the future of U.S. higher education.

“Without immigrants, international students and the children of immigrants, the undergraduate student population in America would be almost 5 million students smaller in 2037 than 2022, or about two-thirds of its current size, while the graduate student population would be at least 1.1 million students smaller, or only about 60% of its current size,” according to the NFAP study.

The study’s author, Madeline Zavodny, an economics professor at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, explains why foreign-born students are vital.

“U.S. colleges and universities face a looming demographic cliff. Due to the post-2007 drop in birth rates, the number of U.S.-born traditional college-age young adults is expected to start dropping in 2025,” writes Zavodny, who was an economist in the research department of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta and Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Source: Many U.S. Colleges May Close Without Immigrants And International Students, Report Finds

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Worswick: Where’s this brain gain of elite U.S. professors we keep talking about?

2025/08/06 Leave a comment

Arguing for a more selective approach to international student recruitment while allowing numbers to rise again (most of the abuse happened at the college and satellite campus levels):

…Taken together, this is hardly an environment where we would expect professors from elite U.S. universities to go when they can move to almost anywhere in the world. The widely cited QS ranking places Harvard University 5th in the world, while nearby MIT ranks 1st. University of Oxford is ranked 4th and University of Melbourne is ranked 19th, while the highest-ranked Canadian universities are McGill at 27th and University of Toronto at 29th. It is unlikely that the extreme budget stresses these Canadian universities now face have yet to fully affect their global reputations, and so their rankings may not stay this high.

Universities are important parts of modern economies. In the case of Ontario, a 2021 Conference Board of Canada report found that universities’ annual activities and human capital development is equal in value to 11.7 per cent of the province’s GDP. Elite professors can raise the prestige of their institution and help attract international students, strengthening the economy through their tuition and expenditures. To gain more of these benefits, both the federal and provincial governments should adapt policies to help Canadian universities attract top academics from the around the world.

Provincial governments are clearly struggling to provide adequate funding for both health care and education, and health care is typically ranked by Canadians as the greater priority. In this context, provinces should focus public resources on reducing health care shortages and allow universities to operate more independently, setting tuition as appropriate to support their academic programs.

The Canada Research Chair program needs to be revamped. The annual transfer from the federal government to the university for a given category of chair has not changed since 2000, meaning that, in real terms, each chair has fallen in value by roughly 40 per cent and will continue to fall in real terms with future inflation. The Canada Excellence Research Chairs, introduced in 2008, are more generous, but the program needs to be expanded if it is going to attract many elite faculty members from the U.S. 

Finally, as I have argued before, international student numbers at universities should be allowed to rise again given the high tuition fees they raise and the fact that these students typically go on to be strong candidates as economic immigrants. This would generate higher revenue, allowing universities to make more competitive salary offers to top international candidates.

Source: Where’s this brain gain of elite U.S. professors we keep talking about?

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Federal minister plans to hold consultations this summer on immigration intake

2025/06/30 Leave a comment

Early test of Liberal government and Minister Diab regarding maintaining or easing restrictions (most of those consulted will ague for the latter):

The federal government will use this summer’s planned consultation on immigration targets to guide future decisions about how many study visas it will issue to international students in the future, Immigration Minister Lena Diab said.

In a recent interview with University Affairs magazine, Diab said the annual immigration levels consultations will reach out to the provinces, university administrators and students themselves, as the government looks to ensure the visa system for students is “sustainable.”

This summer’s annual immigration levels consultations come as multiple universities and colleges face budget constraints after Canada began clawing back on the number of student visas last year amid concerns the number had grown so quickly schools could not provide adequate supports, including housing.

Julie Lafortune, an Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada spokeswoman, says the government expects schools to only accept students they can “reasonably support” by providing housing and other services.

“The annual growth in the number of international students couldn’t be sustained while ensuring students receive the support they need. Study permit applications subject to the cap require an attestation letter from a province or territory,” Lafortune said in an emailed response. 

The current immigration levels plan lays out targets for admitting permanent and temporary residents through 2027, and Lafortune said the upcoming consultations will help the government decide how many newcomers will be admitted in coming years.

Post-secondary institutions across the country are posting deficit budgets this year, laying off staff and cutting programs as international student enrolment drops. Schools had become increasingly reliant on international student fees to balance their books.

Universities Canada president Gabriel Miller previously told The Canadian Press that international student tuition acted as a “stopgap” to make up for years of “inadequate” funding at the provincial and territorial level. …

Source: Federal minister plans to hold consultations this summer on immigration intake

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Canada updates list of study programs that qualify international students for work permits

2025/06/28 Leave a comment

Further tightening:

To better align immigrant selection with Canada’s labour market needs, Ottawa is refining what academic programs are going to qualify international students for the coveted postgraduation work permit.

The Immigration Department has updated its eligibility list, adding 119 new fields of study and removing 178 others based on jobs with long-term shortages. A total of 920 coded programs remain eligible.

The Liberal government has been criticized for the soaring number of international students, who had increasingly used the international education program to come and work in Canada in order to ultimately earn permanent residence in the country.

Many international students enrolled in general programs at institutions that former immigration minister Marc Miller called “diploma mills,” studying in subjects that had no relevance to what’s needed in the labour market.

Last November, the Immigration Department started requiring international students in nondegree programs (programs other than bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral degrees) to complete a program in an eligible field of study to qualify for the postgraduation work permit.

As part of the plan to improve the integrity of the international education system, Miller not only capped the number of study permits issued, but also restricted the access to postgraduation work permits, which could be valid for up to three years and provided the incentive for people to study in Canada.

“It is not the intention of this program to have sham commerce degrees and business degrees that are sitting on top of a massage parlour,” Miller told reporters at a news conference last year. “This is something we need to rein in.” 

According to CIC News, an online media outlet on Canadian immigration, the additional qualifying programs cover health care and social services, education and trades.

However, it said, many of the agricultural and agri-food programs such as farm management and crop production were removed from the list, along with Indigenous education, student counselling and personnel services, environmental studies, building/property maintenance, drywall installation, solar energy technology, airframe mechanics and aircraft maintenance technology, among others.

The Immigration Department says students who applied for a study permit before June 25, 2025, will still be eligible for postgraduation work permits if their field of study was on the list when they applied for their study permit even if it has since been removed.

Source: Canada updates list of study programs that qualify international students for work permits

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Over half of Canada’s 2025 study permits going to international students already here

2025/06/27 Leave a comment

Part of the adjustment process. Will be interesting to see how the provinces priorize new study permits between universities and colleges and by discipline:

The number of new study permits approved in 2025 is expected to drop by 50 per cent from last year as a growing number of the permits are going to international students changing schools or programs, or extending their studies in Canada, according to new projections.

Fewer new international students — the result of a decline in new study permit applications and approval rates — could spell trouble for the postsecondary education sector, which will continue to see enrolment drop for at least the next three years, warns an analysis by ApplyBoard based on the latest government data.

“Onshore students and students extending their studies may help Canada reach its cap targets in 2025, but this trend is unlikely to hold in future years,” said the forecast released Wednesday.

“Search engine data has shown that interest in studying in Canada has fallen at a greater rate than for Australia, the U.K. or the U.S. And with issued study permit extensions now outpacing new study permits, the flow of new international students toward Canadian institutions is weakening.”

Canada should be alarmed by the low new student count, said Meti Basiri, CEO and co-founder of the online marketplace for learning institutions and international students.

“We have effectively closed the tap,” he told the Star. “When your graduation exceeds significantly your entry into the process … two years from now you will have no students because you graduated everyone.” 

Last year, Ottawa capped the number of new study permits issued in order to reduce international student admission by 35 per cent, as Canada’s temporary resident population was soaring. The cap did not apply to students for master’s and doctoral programs or in elementary and secondary schools.

This year, the study permit caps were reduced by another 10 per cent and include those pursuing post-graduate studies in the country.

Leveraging early 2025 study permit data, ApplyBoard projects the total number of study permits issued may reach 420,000, just short of the overall cap (437,000). However, Basiri said that’s deceiving because only 163,000 of these permits are going to new international students, half of the volume admitted in 2024 and nearly 70 per cent fewer than 2023….

Source: Over half of Canada’s 2025 study permits going to international students already here

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