International study in BC
Regulatory announcements since January
Like tourism, international study is an export industry. And like any industry, it requires regulation.
Post-Covid, there's been a staggering increase in the number of international students in Canada, especially at Ontario colleges. To be clear, it's a good thing that young people want to come to Canada to study and to work here. But in a lot of cases they're basically being exploited: they're paying high fees and receiving low-quality education. This also increases demand for housing, at a time when we have a severe housing shortage, aggravated by Covid and the sudden surge in people working from home and needing more space.
On January 22, Marc Miller announced that the federal government was imposing new province-wide caps on international students. Effective immediately, each student visa application would require an accompanying “letter of attestation” from the province, with a cap on the total number of attestations (and thus a cap on the total number of visa applications). Processing of visa applications would be halted until the provinces were able to start issuing the letters of attestation.
At the time, Alex Usher wrote:
Now it starts to get complicated, because we’re into the provinces where some institutions will inevitably lose spots. Governments might simply drop everyone’s existing numbers proportionately, but they may also be tempted to try to achieve other goals with their rationing strategy.
In British Columbia, I think there are two issues the government will have to deal with. The first is whether the government chooses to prioritize the public sector over the private. My impression is that the phenomenon of private vocational colleges educating international students directly (rather than through a PPP arrangement as in Ontario) is more pronounced here than elsewhere in the country. An NDP government might well choose to privilege publics over privates in which case public institutions might not in fact experience all that big of a hit. The second set of decisions has to do with geographic concentration: the influx of international students has certainly caused a lot more disruption in the housing market in the lower mainland than elsewhere. It is possible that we will see allocations tighten more around Vancouver than in, say, Victoria, Prince George, Terrace, etc.
January: BC freezing new private schools, tightening regulations
Apparently the BC government had already been planning to tighten regulations in response to quality problems, going back to spring 2023. A week after the federal announcement, Selina Robinson announced a two-year freeze on new private post-secondary institutions that can accept international students, plus forthcoming policy changes for public and private institutions. Chuck Chiang, Canadian Press: B.C. places 2-year ban on new colleges enrolling international students. Press release.
Post-Secondary Education Minister Selina Robinson said Monday that the freeze is necessary to correct faults in an international education system that "has not been working as well as it should."
Robinson said the province began looking into the system last March and found instances of "poor-quality education, a lack of instructors" and even the "scaring away" of students from lodging formal complaints by certain private institutions.
One student, Robinson said, told her that the woman's family in India saved money to send her to B.C. for a "quality education." Instead, she was placed in online classes upon arrival, the minister said.
Of the 175,000 international post-secondary students from more than 150 countries in B.C., about 54 per cent are enrolled in private institutions.
There are 280 of those private schools [!!] in the province, and 80 per cent of them are in the Lower Mainland.
Robinson said the province will step up inspections of the schools to ensure standards are met.
March: BC allocates attestation letters
Compared to 2023, BC’s facing a cut of about 1/6 in total study permits. It’s allocating 53% of its attestation letters to public universities and colleges, and 47% to private institutions. Roughly speaking, that means that private institutions are taking most of the cuts, and total private enrolment will drop by about 1/3 (from about 32,000 to 23,000).
On March 1, BC announced that its attestation letters were ready to go. From the press release:
B.C.’s allocation allows for 83,000 undergraduate study permit applications. This compares to approximately 97,000 study permit applications in 2023 for undergraduate programs. Based on previous acceptance rates, the federal government expects this to result in approximately 50,000 approved study permit applications for 2024. This compares to approximately 60,000 approved study permits for B.C. in 2023.
The distribution for the provincial attestation letters will be 53% for public post-secondary institutions and 47% for private institutions. The distribution is based on supporting public post-secondary institutions to maintain their international student programs while managing growth for this year and for future years.
Note that the situation in Ontario is much more severe. As Alex Usher describes it, the Ontario government and Ontario colleges have been extraordinarily greedy, bringing in international students as a lucrative source of revenue, with little consideration for either educational quality or housing.
Ontario is, not to put too fine a point on it, a shit show. My impression is that the Ford government, which has been throwing gasoline on the international student fire ever since it got into the office, mainly so it could avoid having to actually spend over its own money on post-secondary education, is in no way equipped policy-wise to deal with the mess it has just been handed.
In 2023, there were 363,000 study permits issued for international students in Ontario. The new federal cap is for 235,000 attestation letters, which should result in about 140,000 approved study permits - a cut of more than half. Ontario ended up allocating 96% of its attestation letters to public universities and colleges, and also providing an additional $1.3B in funding. ICEF Monitor.
July: new regulations for public and private institutions
The headline this week is that BC is setting a limit of no more than 30% international-student enrolment at public institutions. Canadian Press:
British Columbia's government has introduced new guidelines for public post-secondary education institutions, capping the number of international students at 30 per cent of their total enrolment.
In a statement, the provincial Ministry of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills says the new limit is meant to make sure that "international student enrolment doesn't strain an institution's ability to provide appropriate services."
The ministry says the new guidelines call for public universities and colleges to submit international education strategic plans to the government, which the province will monitor to make sure the cap is being followed.
Schools such as the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, the University of Northern B.C. and University of Victoria say international student enrolment levels there do not exceed the 30-per-cent limit and the change will not impact operations.
Camosun and Langara do exceed the cap - Camosun was at 36% last year, and Langara was at 37% in 2021.
The press release also describes new requirements which affect private institutions:
Changes to the Province’s Education Quality Assurance (EQA) designation, which all post-secondary institutions must hold to enrol international students, include:
requiring institutions deliver at least 50% of the program in person to international students;
having appropriate locations controlled by the institution;
having staff to support international students; and
ensuring compliance with Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada reporting.
The new EQA code of practice that EQA-designated institutions must agree to improves protections for students by requiring clear and accurate marketing and promotional information, accountability for education agents, tuition transparency, housing assistance, academic supports, and student health and safety.
Not abiding by the code of practice could result in an institution losing its EQA designation and no longer being able to accept international students.
Private degree-granting institutions will see changes, including:
labour market alignment for degree programs;
requirements that institutions manage enrolment in a manner appropriate for their infrastructure, student resources and services.
And finally, for private training institutions:
requiring greater program content standards;
more generous refund policies;
shorter maximum terms on contracts;
banning high-pressure sales and recruitment tactics.
Third-party agents and bad incentives
I’m not sure any of the regulatory announcements so far have focused on bad incentives.
Colleges and universities like Cape Breton University have been using third-party agents to recruit students en masse. The agents have no incentive to pay attention to either educational quality or housing availability - their incentives are to recruit as many students as possible, to maximize their commissions. (I'm reminded of mortgage brokers in the run-up to the 2008 crisis in the US.) Students are paying very high fees for education which in many cases is of dubious quality.
Alex Usher in 2019, writing about Ontario's partnerships between public colleges and private colleges:
The Ontario government is explicitly selling out international students and creating systemic reputational risks for all Ontario colleges, just to paper over problems created by its own funding policies. This is a terrible idea. Just as it was two and a half years ago.
More
From September 2011: Premier's jobs plan touts international students. “Premier Christy Clark wants to increase the number of international students studying in B.C. in the next four years as a way to bolster the provincial economy.” Canadian Press. Ian Bailey, Globe and Mail: “As B.C. seeks to lure almost 50,000 new international students by 2015, the head of an association representing many of the province's key universities says its members will have to figure out how to accommodate their share of the new arrivals.”
Bethan Norris, StudyTravel Magazine, July 2024. BC International Education Week conference addresses recent international student policy changes in Canada. Describes how the cuts look from the industry side.
Also see: "Keep the lights on": Canada's international student crackdown could have severe impacts on universities. Nikitha Martins, Daily Hive, February 2024. Some B.C. universities could lose tens of millions per year due to student cap. Daisy Xiong, Business in Vancouver, March 2024.
A Redditor comments: “I work for one of the largest REITs in Canada. This was the first month we've sent a decrease in rent prices in over a year. 150$ less than last month for a 2 bedroom unit.” They’re in the Guelph / Kitchener / Waterloo area, where Conestoga College is having its international student intake for the upcoming school year cut by 50%.