The recent Government announcement on January 22, 2024, has significantly impacted the higher education sector. The narrative has shifted from admission-focused to encouraging institutions to provide adequate support for international students. This is a time when institutions that prioritize their international students will rise to the top.
As a former international student myself, now building a success platform for international students, I know firsthand how challenging it is to navigate the journey in a new country—from studying and working to immigrating—and that the support system in the country is limited. Today, international students are left vulnerable, struggling to find proper accommodations and meaningful employment. 56% of international students report difficulty finding employment after graduation, with 70% leaving the country within five years due to a lack of opportunities. Canada needs to do better to retain great talents and contribute to the economy.
This is the fight our company engages in every day through our mission of helping international students thrive. We believe that international students and post-secondary institutions need an infrastructure and support system to ensure international student success from day one and beyond graduation, meeting the unique needs of every student using technology. We believe that now is the time to support international students in achieving their dreams, and we are excited to be a solution partner.
In this article, I will outline the changes and what they mean for ecosystem partners like us, Isempower, and partner post-secondary institutions.
On January 22, 2024, Canada announced three significant changes to the international student program:
- A temporary two-year cap on international student admissions, reducing the number of international student permits issued per year by 35%, cutting the approved study permit to 364,000 (2023 was 600,000).
- As of September 1, 2024, students attending public-private partnership (PPP) institutions (PPP = private businesses that license public institution’s curricula) will no longer be eligible for post-graduation work permits (PGWP), losing their opportunity to work after graduation.
- Open work permits will be available only to spouses of students in master’s & doctoral programs and other programs like law and medicine.
So, what do we expect to see after this announcement?
Though I believe this measure is needed to stabilize the population’s growth and ensure the country has the systems in place to support them, it will take a big toll on the higher education sector, especially those that rely on international students. I believe that introducing the cap is only a bandage solution that does not tackle actual problems. Instead, investment in building infrastructure to provide sufficient support for these international students to succeed is crucial. This means:
Post-secondary institutions compete to provide student support to stay competitive
The competition to attract international students from a smaller pool will now be greater than ever. With 60% of post-secondary institution revenue coming from international students in a province like Ontario, a large portion of the overall higher education sector relies on this population. These changes will penalize institutions that are not legitimate and exploiting students without proper support will soon face significant losses. With the cap being implemented, institutions will be forced to look for ways to differentiate besides providing academic programs and investing in student success support to attract more international students.
The government is more focused on building a support system than ever through the creation of the “trusted institution framework”
Prior to the cap announcement on October 27, 2023, the government introduced a new framework that mandates post-secondary institutions to provide support like housing, employment, and other support to international students. Trusted institutions will receive priority in study permit processing which affects their bottom line directly. Our software as a service provides comprehensive international student success software which helps them get recognized under this framework.
More career support is needed at private & private-public institutions now without post-graduation work permits
While private institutions have never been able to offer post-graduation work permits to their students, some private-public partnership (PPP) institutions can but will no longer be able to after this change in September 2024. Almost all of the private and public-private institutions have co-op & practicum as part of their academic programs which require students to complete a co-op or practicum term to graduate with the hope of their students securing a work sponsorship after graduation. This means the PPP institutions will need more support in sourcing internship & practicum opportunities to offer to their international students.
Advance data-tracking in student retention and success outcomes across all institutions
Some private institutions offering short-term degrees have been required to report on the graduation rate and employment outcomes of their international students over the past few years. We expect to see more institutions including both private and public invest their dollars in tracking engagement and success outcomes such as employment rate, providing adequate support for international students in the months to come. We expect that the institutions will have to look for innovative ways to maximize success outcome data collection to be able to prove the return on investment and further build credibility.
Students will demand a greater return on investment
Together with the increased financial requirement for study permit applicants (from $10,000 to $20,635 announced on December 7, 2023) and the changes that favor providing post-graduation work permits to graduates from public institutions, we expect to see enrollment shifted from the one-year diploma programs offered at private institutions to more international students choosing to enroll in designated learning institutions in programs like bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees that will allow them to acquire post-graduation work permits. These programs tend to be more expensive, and difficult to get into. For these reasons, we expect students to demand higher returns on investments and institutions to help them transition into the workforce.
Aligning international students’ workforce integration with industries experiencing the labour shortage
With the rising labour shortage, we are going to see a closer alignment in the study program being offered at institutions and a friendlier immigration program that favors international students attending programs, creating pathways & programs in place to help them transition into the workforce easier, alleviating the shortages, starting with the sectors that experiencing higher shortage such as healthcare and trades.
More enrollment will spread out to other provinces
The cap is being distributed at a higher proportion toward two provinces that have a greater concentration of international students; Ontario & British Columbia. With the cap being implemented, the future cohorts of international students will be more spread out, choosing institutions in other provinces. In our experience, institutions located outside of metropolitan cities often struggle with sourcing employment opportunities for their students as there aren’t many locally. Their appetite to invest in a platform to help them provide employment opportunities to their students will naturally increase.
How these changes enable us to help more international students & institutions
We have been keeping a close eye on the movements in the international education sector over the past two years, advocating for an international student success support system to be built. Our international student success software is in place to enable post-secondary institutions to scale the in-country support for their growing population of international students, focusing on measurable student success outcomes.
Over the years, we have built Canada’s largest international student platform with over 60,000 students in the network, collaborated with 170+ employers to help them hire international students, and partnered with 26 post-secondary institutions to provide jobs & resources. We believe that the #1 reason why any international student decides to study abroad is the motivation to build a better future and career for themselves. Employment is one of the top concerns that international students have when they arrive in the country which sets a foundation for their quality of life, building a successful life and career in a new country. As the new policies roll in, Isempower is committed to our mission of helping international students thrive in a new country through a few initiatives:
- Continue our investment in advancing our “all-in-one international student success platform”, doubling down on our proprietary data-collection gamification feature, to help institutions track & report success outcomes mandated by the new framework.
- Integrating our international student success software into post-secondary institutions to help them provide adequate student success support for international students end to end.
- Success is beyond employment and we believe in being a bridge for international students to get access to all of the resources they need to succeed. Our all-in-one international student success platform helps connect them to service providers such as accommodation and financial aid to help them succeed.
- We are doubling down on building relationships with post-secondary institutions offering programs that are aligned with the labour shortage such as healthcare & STEM and employers looking for interns & new grad talents. We’re creating more industry-specific initiatives to further close the labour shortage gap.
- We believe that more opportunities will need to be spread out to other provinces to accommodate more international students coming in. We are building a pipeline of employer and post-secondary institutions in other provinces (outside of Ontario and British Columbia) to be ready to help them succeed.
If you are an ecosystem partner, who is looking to make an impact on international students’ lives through providing support, please contact me at [email protected]. If you are an advocate who deeply cares about this topic, I would love to hear from you about any other ways to find ways to bridge the gap, propel the international education sector forward, and help international students & institutions succeed together.
Author: Pat Chaisang (Founder & CEO) [email protected]
