Rising enrollments of International students in Canada

Rising enrollments of International students in Canada

Before COVID 19 pandemic happened, enormous international students enrolled in post-secondaries in Canada at three times the rate of domestic students.

A recent Statistics study in Canada surveys the student enrolment prior to the pandemic and evaluates the impact of coronavirus on students’ enrollments. The research analysts have taken the 2018/2019 academic year as the criterion to compare the effect of the pandemic on enrolment and graduation, particularly for international students.

In previous years, over 2.1 million students enrolled at Canadian universities and colleges, with a growth of 1.8 per cent from the 2017 academic session. The increase in enrollment percent was entirely due to international student enrolment, which extended up to 16.2 percent. Enrolment by domestic students decreased 0.5 per cent in that particular year.

Many students enrolled in formal programs, while only 8.4 per cent of them opted the courses outside a formal program such as continuing education or personal interest.

International student enrolments more than triple within a decade

Between the academic years 2008 and 2018, the number of international students enrolling rose from minimum of 101,000 to more than 318,000. Canadian student enrolments in formal programs increased 10.9 per cent in the same period of time.

This provoked the increase of the proportion of international students at Canadian post-secondaries from 6.4 per cent to 16.2 per cent, and there is a total growth of 57.2 percent in all program enrolments.

Canadian universities depend more on education fee for funding

With the decline in the revenue from provincial governments, Canadian universities rely on the student tuition as the main source of their income, as stated by the Statistics Canada report. The share of revenues from tuition fees increased 4.7 percent between 2013 and 2018.

International students have to pay higher tuition fees than  the domestic students. Thus due to the higher fees and enrollment growth, international students contributed about 40 percent of all tuition fees, or $4 billion among the Canadian universities in the 2018 academic session.

STEM enrolments grow rapidly, while humanities decrease but not for International students

Education systems evolve around the requirements of the workforce. In the past decade, there were more than 24.2 percent enrolments in mathematics, computer and information sciences. Although these programs accounted for 5 percent of all enrollments in 2018,  growth in this field was the strongest over a 10-year period.

In Canada’s labour market, jobs related to the digital economy grew 37 per cent, outstanding the growth rate of the total economy which was 8.6 per cent between 2010 and 2017. Although humanities accounted for 11 percent of enrollments in 2018, these programs saw the largest decrease in enrollments. In a 10-year period, the overall number of students who enrolled in these programs dropped 19.4 per cent. Statistics Canada also discovered that arts and humanities graduates were most probably overqualified in their jobs than their co-workers.

There were drastic differences in the number of students enrolling for humanities compared to international and domestic students. Students enrolling in humanities decreased 25.2 percent for Canadian students, while it increased 106.1 percent for international students. The growth in enrollment of international students could be because of initiatives intended to attract them to study in Canada, or to respond to demands of the labour force in their home country.

Development in business, management, and public administration programs assisted by international students

International students have contributed to the rapid growth in enrolments in business, management and public administration programs over the 10 year period of time leading up to 2018. The percentage of international students studying in these fields increased more than 200 percent, while the Canadian student enrollments only extended about 7.7 percent.

Canadian students were most probable to work in health and related fields, with about 15.2 percent of all Canadian enrolling in these respective fields. Only 5.1 per cent of all international students chose these fields in 2018.

Looking forward in the course of time

Even though the prolonged consequences of COVID-19 pandemic on international students is long ahead of time, Statistics Canada suggests that their active participation is necessary for particular reasons.

“Not only does international student tuition revenue contribute to the viability of some courses and programs, international students increase the social and cultural diversity of campuses”, the Statistics Canada report read.

International students promote a lot to the local economy while they study in Canada, and also increase the probability of creating a highly educated society of people that can become permanent Canadian residents and contribute to their labour market. Nearly one third of international students who secured a Canadian bachelor’s degree, and almost half of international students who qualified with a master’s degree turned out to be permanent residents of Canada in the next 10 years after they got their primary study permit.

Statistics Canada is keeping track of these data as they will become handy in the post-pandemic world. This helps to understand the perception of the impact of COVID-19 situation on the enrollment of students and fields of study.

Origional Article:

International students driving enrolment growth in Canada

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