{"id":25062,"date":"2024-02-21T09:00:29","date_gmt":"2024-02-21T17:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=25062"},"modified":"2024-03-01T11:44:09","modified_gmt":"2024-03-01T19:44:09","slug":"student-groups-concerned-over-international-student-cap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2024\/02\/21\/student-groups-concerned-over-international-student-cap\/","title":{"rendered":"Student groups concerned over international student cap"},"content":{"rendered":"

On January 22, minister of immigration, refugees, and citizenship Marc Miller announced that the government of Canada is implementing a cap on international student permit applications for two years. According to the federal government, the new measures were put in place to ensure that international students have the proper support when entering Canada and to stop institutions from increasing international student intake to drive revenues.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the government said that rising numbers of international students can impact services such as housing and healthcare; they placed a large focus on less reputable private \u201cdiploma mill\u201d institutions, but public institutions like Camosun College will still be impacted.<\/p>\n

Because of the cap, 2024 will now see a 35 percent decrease in international students from 2023, resulting in approximately 360,000 approved study permits. BC\u2014the province with the second highest number of international students, behind Ontario\u2014has been allotted 83,000 study permits. Based on current acceptance rates, this could mean roughly 50,000 international students studying in BC.<\/p>\n

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The federal government has put a two-year cap on international student permits (photo by Greg Pratt\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Each post-secondary institution will have its own cap; these are still being decided.<\/p>\n

Current international students will not be impacted, and the cap will be reassessed after 2025.<\/p>\n

The government also recently changed the amount of money international students need to prove they have to study in Canada, raising it from $10,000 to $20,635, on top of travel and tuition.<\/p>\n

Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) executive director Michel Turcotte says that it\u2019s imperative that international students receive a recognized credential and a good experience upon coming to Canada, something that private institutions essentially running \u201cdiploma mills\u201d can\u2019t offer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAcross Canada, there\u2019s been an absolute growth in private institutions that essentially target international students just purely for the money,\u201d says Turcotte. \u201cPublic institutions certainly use international students in that way, too; I don\u2019t think Camosun could keep the lights on without them. But at least there\u2019s a quality credential at the end of that. If you go to Camosun or UVic and you\u2019re an international student, you\u2019re going to pay three or four times the tuition of a domestic student, but you\u2019ll still get a credential that is recognized by employers and has some perceived value. That\u2019s not always the case for those attending private institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both the CCSS and the BC Federation of Students (BCFS) have been lobbying for the government to give more funding to post-secondary institutions to prevent the over-reliance on international student fees.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe acknowledge that a lot of institutions do heavily rely on international [student] fees,\u201d says BCFS chairperson Melissa Chirino. \u201cOne of our advocacy asks that we\u2019ve had for years is there needs to be more funding in the post-secondary sector because we\u2019ve become more reliant on these international fees, and, really, our argument prior was that if anything were to happen, we would really feel the impact of that. I think after that announcement, we were worried about the implication that it has for our institutions, and how are they going to have all the services on campus? How is that going to affect their budget? Are they going to increase the international student fees [for students] who are currently here? There is a lot of concern there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additionally, the CCSS is concerned about how international students may now view Canada due to these new restrictions. Turcotte says that international students might now be looking to countries like Australia or the USA to study because of how unsettled Canada appears. He says international students might also be fearful of additional regulations being announced.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is few people were given advance notice that the federal government was going to react in this way. We have been pressuring the federal government, when we go to lobby weeks in Ottawa and other things, to take some ownership of some of these issues. But we were hoping for a more consultative approach as to how to do it,\u201d says Turcotte. \u201cThe government has taken a very decisive step; we\u2019re very happy they\u2019ve got involved in helping to regulate this field\u2026 but the way that this has come down has certainly increased instability in relation to how international students abroad are viewing Canada right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The BCFS acknowledges that this is a good first step in protecting international students, but say that more work needs to be done. Chirino says that along with more government funding, BCFS is also asking for a two-percent cap on tuition raises for international students.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe BCFS does commend the provincial government for taking the first step to stop exploitation faced by international students,\u201d says Chirino. \u201cThe one new measure that is put in place that really does speak to our members from the public post-secondary is the new requirement to provide fee transparency. I think that really acknowledges that more overhead is needed for international students in BC. Essentially, that\u2019s one of the things we\u2019ve been advocating for years.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On January 22, minister of immigration, refugees, and citizenship Marc Miller announced that the government of Canada is implementing a cap on international student permit applications for two years. According to the federal government, the new measures were put in place to ensure that international students have the proper support when entering Canada and to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25063,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,306],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-february-21-2024"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25062"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25064,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25062\/revisions\/25064"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}