Category: Education

It all seemed to happen quite suddenly, and then relentlessly. Beginning in mid 2023 and stretching through 2024, several national governments – notably those in the UK, Australia, and Canada – tightened immigration settings, increased scrutiny of education providers and agents, and made it more difficult for foreign students to obtain visas. In the Netherlands, universities committed to reducing international student volumes to avoid imminent legislative intervention.

We came to expect an announcement every week or two – whether it was news of an immediate cap on new study permits, a massive visa application fee increase, higher financial requirements for students, amendments to work rights, or the withdrawal of most dependants’ permission to accompany students.

The question is: why? Why would governments act to stem the flow of bright international students capable of alleviating critical skills shortages and declining economic productivity? What ended a post-pandemic enthusiasm for welcoming record-high numbers of foreign students?

The answer lies in declining public support for immigration amidst persistent economic pressures and a global migration crisis that is overwhelming critical infrastructure such as healthcare systems and housing.

A quick shift in priorities

The more restrictive policies signal that the cultural and economic value of international students is now secondary to an urgent new priority for elected governments in many advanced economies: reducing migration at seemingly any cost.

Among policy makers, there appears to be little memory of – or concern about – the devastating toll of plummeting international student numbers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Interrupted student mobility flows when borders were closed impacted not only the revenues and staff of education providers, but also the fortunes of whole communities and other business sectors.

When borders reopened, governments enacted all manner of policies to attract new international students, knowing full well that billions of dollars would return to their economies as a result. Foreign enrolments quickly surged to record-high levels in Australia (nearly 800,000 in 2023), Canada (over 1 million in 2023), and the UK (nearly 700,000 in higher education alone in 2021/22).

But in tandem with these new peaks, more and more stories appeared in national media outlets about a disturbing trend: growing numbers of people in major cities in Australia, Canada, the UK, and elsewhere are struggling to access affordable housing and other vital services, including healthcare. And all this amidst a backdrop of surging inflation, rising costs of living, and economic uncertainty.

These factors combined for a potent political cocktail that has made immigration a hot-button electoral issue in leading study abroad destinations. For example, in Canada, 50% of Canadians responding to a survey conducted by Leger in February 2024 said that “there are too many new immigrants in Canada” — a proportion that more than doubled over January 2023. This stands in sharp contrast to a long-standing belief in previous decades among most Canadians that immigration is a public good.

A global crisis of movement

The world is facing what some have termed a global migration crisis, characterised by historically high numbers of people attempting to cross borders in search of safety and opportunity. The crisis stems from a horrible combination of wars, natural disasters, and crumbling economies. Any or all of these elements are present in dozens of countries, especially in the Global South (a designation generally understood to contain large swaths of Africa, Latin America, and Asia). Millions of people in affected regions face difficult or unsafe circumstances, and so many are driven to seek temporary or permanent settlement elsewhere.

UNESCO figures indicate that there were 281 million international migrants as of 2020 (the latest year for which global data has been compiled). Of that total, 169 million were labour migrants and 117 million were displaced people (mostly asylum and refugee claimants).

International students, who fall under the category of “temporary migrants,” currently number about 8 million worldwide. This segment is a drop in the bucket, even a rounding error, when you consider the total migrant population of over 280 million people. But international students are nevertheless caught up in the same migration politics. They are explicitly counted in net migration figures in the UK, for example, and in temporary migration figures in Canada.

What is to be done?

There is little debate about the following facts:

1. Rising numbers of people moving from country to country do place pressure on local services, labour markets, and housing markets.
   
2. There remains an undersupply of housing and healthcare services – and persistent concerns about rising costs of living – in many top destinations for international students.
   
3. Growing segments of the public in those countries want to see immigration levels reduced. This has fuelled not only the rise of ultra-nationalist and/or far-right movements, but also more restrictive immigration policies in liberal democracies such as Australia, Canada, and the UK.
   
4. What is sometimes known as the “social licence” afforded to the international education sector has been eroded due to shifts in public support for immigration, media coverage of unethical practices on the part of a small segment of education providers and agents, and a perception in some circles that the sector is more concerned with revenues than with the well-being of international students.

Across our industry, we all have a role to play in restoring the standing of international education in the eyes of government and the public. The way forward includes a renewed commitment to providing an outstanding study experience to all students: in the classroom, through student services, by securing more and better accommodation, and by improving graduate outcomes.

It will be crucial to:

• Build stronger links between recruitment and housing availability;
• Align recruitment with labour market needs;
• Work in collaboration with industry and other stakeholders to ensure improved career outcomes for international students, both in their study destinations and at home;
• Improve communications with government stakeholders and the public at large;
• Advocate for international student numbers to be tracked separately from net migration figures.

This has been a year in which global political and economic pressures have had a profound impact on international student mobility. Among the many important lessons to be drawn from 2024 is how vulnerable our sector can be to changes in policy and how critical it is to communicate the benefits and standards of international education to policy makers and other key stakeholders.

For additional background, please see:

• Join the ICEF Monitor Global Summit (23 September 23 2024, London). A landmark one-day summit bringing together the industry’s senior leaders, policy makers, and experts, all focused on shaping the future of the international education sector.

The German government has confirmed a modest increase in proof-of-funds requirements for the 2024/25 academic year. Since 1 January 2023, the proof of funds threshold for student visa applicants has been set at €11,208 (US$12,135). For the coming academic year, the funds required will increase to €11,904 (US$12,875), representing about a 6% increase over the previous level.

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research’s Study in Germany website explains that students can meet the funds requirement in a number of ways. These include the submission of certified documents detailing family income and assets, producing a bank guarantee (“Bankbürgschaft“), or via the use of a blocked account. The latter is is a bank account designed precisely for international students and offered by German banks, including Deutsche Bank and Fintiba. The account is considered “blocked” because students cannot access it until they arrive in Germany, and then may only withdraw funds up to a specified monthly limit.

Any of those methods may be used to obtain a ““Finanzierungsnachweis,” or proof of funds, for purposes of applying for a study visa for Germany.

The new requirement of €11,904 (US$12,875) keeps Germany near the top of the range among major study destinations and can be compared to Australia (AUD$29,710 which equates to US$19,540), Canada (CDN$20,635, US$14,930), Ireland (€10,000, US$10,680), and France (€7,380, US$7,980). Both Australia and Canada have announced substantial increases to their funds requirements over the past several months. In December 2023, Canada effectively doubled its proof of funds requirement. And Australia announced a 20%+ increase in May 2024 – the second such increase within a year.

Foreign enrolment in Germany reached a record high in the winter semester of 2022/23. There were nearly 370,000 international students enrolled in Germany at that point, a 5% increase compared with 2021/22, and the fifth consecutive year of growth.

For additional background, please see:

Responding to an IDP Pulse survey conducted in June 2024, a large proportion of Chinese and Indian prospective students and applicants said their study plans would be affected by Australia’s visa fee hike, higher savings threshold, and high visa rejection rates. Similarly, many respondents from other Asian and African countries said they were now thinking twice about studying in Australia.
 
IDP’s survey went out to over 1,400 international students, most of whom were exploring postgraduate options (60% versus 28% undergraduate, with the remainder looking at pathway and vocational options). The respondent pool was heavily weighted to India, with one third of respondents coming from this key sending market.

What do students make of the new savings threshold required for Australian student visas?

Overall, about three-quarters of surveyed students were aware that students must now show savings of AUD$29,710 (US$19,537) to be eligible for a study visa for Australia, which is much higher than the requirement in other destinations (e.g., it is US$5,000 more than what students must show for a Canadian study permit). Awareness rose to about 90% in India and Nepal but was much lower in Ghana (45%) and Taiwan (40%).
 
Just over half of the responding students (53%) said the new threshold would not change their intention to study in Australia, leaving nearly half saying it might change their decision. This average belies extremes across sending markets. For example, in more price-sensitive markets such as Cambodia and the Philippines, about three-quarters of students said the new requirement will impact their decision about whether to study in Australia. By contrast, only 27% of Chinese and 15% of Taiwanese students said they would change their study plan because of the savings requirement.

Will the new, non-refundable application fee of AUD$1,600 deter potential students?

Effective 1 July 2024, the Australian government raised the visa application fee to AUD$1,600, representing a 125% jump from the previous fee of AUD$710.

The IDP survey results require more interpretation in this respect because the students responded in June 2024, ahead of the actual fee announcement. The student respondents would not have known, at that time, the scale of the increase announced on 1 July.

Even so, the survey did find that a significant proportion of prospective students would reconsider their choice of destination as a result of a fee hike (whatever the exact amount). As the following chart illustrates, nearly two-thirds of prospects (63%) said they “would” or “might” change their study plans. That number would likely have been larger still if the students were asked to respond to an actual 125% increase in the visa fee.

Again, there are significant variations by sending market: about half of prospective Chinese and Indian students said they wouldn’t change their intention to study in Australia, but more than 7 in 10 students from the Philippines, Malaysia, and Vietnam said they might. The Philippines and Vietnam are Top 10 sending markets for Australian institutions, so this finding is particularly worrisome. Students in other price-sensitive markets were also notably affected by the prospect of a higher fee: at least 40% of Kenyan, Nepali, Pakistani, and Ghanaian students saying said an increase in visa fees would impact their study plans.

New Zealand stands to gain

New Zealand, with its highly ranked universities and relative proximity to Asian markets, is looking more attractive to many prospective students in the wake of the recent Australian savings and fee hike announcements. More than 4 in 10 Pakistani and Filipino students said they were highly influenced by the relative affordability of a New Zealand visa versus an Australian one, and this rises to over 7 in 10 Ghanaian and 8 in 10 Egyptian students.

The fact that New Zealand currently requires AUD$10,000 less in financial savings than Australia does is also very much on the minds of Ghanaian, Filipino, Kenyan, and Nigerian students, as shown in the following chart.

New Zealand’s expansion of its Green List of priority skills – which opens the door for more international students to gain a post-study work visa – is also very attractive to some students. Overall, a third of students said the expanded Green List would influence their choice of degree or destination, rising to 45%, 50%, and 57% in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia, respectively.
 
New Zealand has also announced that the partners of students at the bachelor’s level or above in degrees linked to the Green List are now eligible for a work visa with open conditions, and that the children of Green List-oriented students do not have to pay international student tuition fees. These provisions are also very likely to increase New Zealand’s attractiveness to international students.

Visa rejections won’t deter most students from trying again to study in Australia

On average, about 1 in 6 survey respondents had been rejected for a study visa (for Australia or elsewhere) or had seen their friends/family receive a rejection. However, more than 7 in 10 prospective students said they would continue as planned to try to get a visa for study abroad, and very few said they would study in their own country as a result of a visa rejection.

For additional information, please see:

Immigration New Zealand has expanded the eligibility for work visas for partners of some foreign students in the country.

Accompanying dependants can now apply for a Partner of Student Work Visa with open work rights if their partner is studying in “a specified level 7 or 8 bachelor’s or bachelor’s (honours) degree that will lead directly to professional registration required for a Green List role.”

Green List roles are occupations that have been classified as being in high demand by the New Zealand government. They include positions in health care, STEM fields, and others.

The new policy offers a significant benefit to accompanying children of Green List-enrolled students as well in that: “For partners who are now eligible, their dependent school-aged children can be treated as domestic students. The children can apply for a Dependent Child Student Visa so they will not have to pay tuition fees to go to school. This currently applies to anyone with a Partner of a Student Work Visa.”

The news follows the recent announcement of New Zealand’s full-year enrolment figures for 2023. The country’s schools, universities, language institutes, and vocational institutions together hosted 69,135 international students last year, a 67% increase in total foreign enrolment over 2022.

This represents 60% of the international student base in 2019, when over 115,000 international students were enrolled.

For additional background, please see:

It is becoming increasingly clear that a decline in international enrolments is putting the finances of UK universities under great pressure this year, leaving many with no choice but to cut staff, eliminate courses, reduce research innovation, and even shut down whole departments. Some universities are facing financial pressures so dire that they are at risk of bankruptcy.

A prominent article in The Sunday Times last week highlighted to the UK public the virtually impossible challenge the country’s higher education sector now faces:

• Most universities will lose vital international student tuition in the 2024/25 academic year in part because the dependant’s ban (preventing most international students from bringing their partners and children with them to the UK) is depressing demand from key non-EU markets.
• At the same time, universities are losing on average £3,000 per domestic student they enrol, not least because of inflation. As The Financial Times (FT) explains, “inflation is driving up operating costs, including energy bills and salaries, while eroding the real-terms value of domestic tuition fees.”
• The UK government spends less on public tertiary education than many advanced economies, including Canada, the US, Germany, Ireland, and France.

Over a third of UK universities are in trouble

The Sunday Times reports that 40% of England’s universities will run budget deficits this year and that closures and mergers are highly possible. The UK’s University and College Union (UCU) shared a list of 66 universities in financial distress in 2024 – a proportion that represents over a third of all universities in the UK. Many of those universities are having to lay off staff and eliminate courses – especially in the humanities and creative arts.

Jo Grady, UCU’s general secretary, wrote a letter to Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson and Skills Minister Jacqui Smith last week in which she stated:

“Anything short of an emergency rescue package for the sector will be insufficient to stave off catastrophe. This funding package should, though, come with conditions such as ensuring jobs are protected. We think there are three universities we have been able to identify that could be close to financial collapse and would benefit from state intervention and support. If they do not get state support they will struggle still and use cuts to staff as shock absorbers. We see this as a systemic crisis. We don’t think parents and prospective students understand the total mess some of our universities are in.”

At Goldsmiths University, half of the history and sociology department and a third of all English and creative writing academics are at risk of being laid off. The Sunday Times spoke with Michael Rosen, the former children’s laureate, whose position as professor of children’s literature was one being considered for redundancy (he has since learned he is “safe”), and Rosen commented:

“What’s happening at Goldsmiths is a disaster. Slashing the number of staff means whole courses are being closed down, and the essence of what Goldsmiths has offered in terms of diversity, is being wrecked. It’s heartbreaking.”

Why are universities in such dire straits?

Since 2012, when the government under David Cameron raised undergraduate UK students’ tuition to £9,000 a year, domestic fees have risen by only £250 (to £9,250). As reported in FT, consultancy firm DataHE has calculated that “the £9,000 fee introduced in 2012 would now be more than £12,000 if it had increased in line with consumer prices … instead it is £9,250.” Universities have thus become increasingly reliant on international student tuition to cover costs. A Guardian analysis in 2023 found that “one in every five pounds received by UK universities last year came from international students.”

FT elaborates:

“International students, who typically pay about double the home fees, are the primary source of additional income enabling many universities to make ends meet. International fees account for nearly 20 per cent of universities’ income — up from about 10 per cent just over a decade ago. For a long time this money helped fund research, but it is now being diverted into making up the shortfall on domestic undergraduate tuition. At the same time, Brexit has cut off access to EU funding streams that were worth an aggregate average of £800mn a year to UK higher education institutions between 2010 and 2020, leaving the sector even more reliant on overseas students to balance the books.”

What’s more, the UK government spends much less than other leading economies on higher education, as shown in the chart below.

UK universities have thus become highly dependent on international students – especially those from non-EU countries. The following chart from the Guardian shows the extent to which some universities are dependent on foreign students’ income.

The dependant’s ban, introduced in summer 2023 and launched in January 2024, is seriously affecting the ability of many UK universities to recruit in key non-EU markets (including Nigeria, the third-largest source market), thus imperiling their ability to operate.

There has been a 49% decline in Nigerian students’ applications to UK universities for the upcoming academic year according to June 2024 UCAS data. Nigerian students have been especially drawn to one-year master’s programmes in the UK, and these programmes are now subject to the dependant’s ban.

The situation is worse for postgraduate taught courses (also included in the dependant’s ban). The number of international students applying for such courses at Russell Group universities (24 leading universities in the country) starting this September have declined by 10%. Tim Bradshaw, chief executive of the Russell Group, warned former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak – who was mulling the prospect of scrapping the UK’s popular Graduate (work rights) Route – that if the applications decline led to a similar drop in enrolments, “it would cost our group £500 million in lost income.”

The Russell Group aside, a survey by the British Universities’ International Liaison has determined that “the drop in applications is nearly three times bigger across the sector as a whole.”

Vivienne Stern, chief executive of Universities UK, said in an LBC interview earlier this month:

“With costs rising and income for teaching falling as a result of frozen tuition fees, we need the government to recognise that this cannot be left to drift. If we want our universities to be amongst the best in the world, as they currently are, we need to do something to stop the deterioration in their finances.”

For its part, the newly elected Labour government in the UK has been quick to signal that it will continue to look to international revenue to bolster funding for the sector. Speaking to BBC this week, new Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said, “We want to make sure we are putting universities on a more sustainable footing overall. And part of that is what we see, for example, around international students, who are an important part of our system—not just in economic terms, what they contribute, but also in our reach around the world and our soft power.”

Worries about research funding in Australia

Australian universities are also reeling from the Australian government’s decision to massively hike visa application fees (which are non-refundable) and begin capping international student numbers in 2025. Australia, like the UK and Canada, is losing share of international students’ interest in the wake of these announcements.

Writing in Times Higher Education in July 2024, John Carroll, director of the Monash Biomedicine Discovery Institute and dean of biomedical sciences at Monash University, warned:

“The direct causal relationship between international student revenue and research support was brutally exposed by the pandemic, as borders were closed and overseas enrolments plummeted. Are memories really that short? We are still recovering from that trough in revenue: deficits remain in most research-intensive universities, but the bigger impact has been the year-on-year savings targets and cost-saving measures needed to keep the books balanced. This is undermining risk-taking, creative endeavour and innovation.

It is also sapping the morale of researchers. For many of them, getting out of bed every day has become harder. And with the proposed visa restrictions making Australia the least likely destination for the world’s smartest students and researchers, they now go to bed worried about whether the resources will be in place to allow them to do their best work and, quite frankly, keep their jobs secure.”

For additional background, please see:

At the same time as leading Western destinations – e.g., Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom – are applying brakes to slow or reverse the expansion of their foreign enrolment, several Asian destinations are doing the opposite: pursuing policies to boost international enrolments to record-high levels.

Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, and South Korea have all set ambitious new international enrolment targets. These are:

• Japan: 400,000 by 2033
• Malaysia: 250,000 by 2025
• Taiwan: 320,000 by 2030
• South Korea: 300,000 by 2027

To date, this is the progress the four destinations have made:

• Japan: 279,275 international enrolments as of May 2023 (+21% over 2022).

• Malaysia: Between 115,000 and 170,000 enrolments currently (estimates vary). Malaysia tends to report application volumes publicly rather than enrolment volumes. Looking at this measure, Malaysian institutions received 58,285 applications in 2023, a 14% increase over 2022 following a 28% increase the previous year. Asia contributed the most growth – especially East Asia (+22% over 2022).

• Taiwan: 116,040 in 2023, representing a 90% recovery from foreign enrolment losses in the pandemic. Just over 6 in 10 (61%) of Taiwan’s international students are from “New Southbound Policy” (NSP) countries: Brunei Darussalam, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, Australia, and New Zealand.

• South Korea: 205,170 as of March 2023 (+23% over 2022).

South Korea is thus approaching the volume of Japan’s current foreign enrolment as it adheres to a strategy known as the Study Korea 300K Project. That strategy aims to position South Korea as one of the world’s top 10 study abroad destinations by 2027.

The following table shows top markets for each of the four Asian destinations. It also demonstrates the large number of Vietnamese students opting to study in Asia as opposed to the West. For example, South Korea enrols more Vietnamese students than do Canada (17,175) and the US (21,900) combined.

How is South Korea working towards its goal?

Here are some of the tactics and policies at the heart of the Study Korea 300K Project:

• In 2023, the part-time work allowance for international students enrolled in language studies or bachelor’s programmes increased from 20 hours per week to 25 hours per week. Master’s and doctoral students can work 35 hours during the weekdays. All international students are permitted to work unlimited hours on weekends/holidays.

• Also in 2023, the financial requirement for international students to get a D-2 visa (for degree studies) was lowered from to 20 million won (just under US$15,400). Previously, the financial threshold had been US$20,000. In addition, degree-seeking international students applying to universities outside of the Seoul metropolitan area is lower still: 16 million won.

• In 2025, the South Korean government will allow international students to remain in the country for up to 3 years to look for a job; currently the allowance is 6 months with a possible extension to a maximum of 2 years.

• Also planned for next year: expanding the type of jobs for which international students can apply and extending the amount of time job holders can remain in the country. Currently, foreign graduates are eligible only for a limited number of visas that lead to specialist jobs.

• The government’s Global Korea Scholarship (GKS) programme is being expanded to double the number of scholarships available for STEM students (to 2,700). There are now also 6,000 scholarships for international students pursuing non-STEM degrees, up from about 4,500 last year.

• STEM graduates are to be fast-tracked for permanent residency, and graduate and postgraduate students graduating from Korean universities will see the residency requirement for their permanent residency application reduced from 6 to 3 years.

• Korean universities now accept a wider band of tests to prove Korean-language proficiency, and there is also a controversial proposal to lower the level required on the Test of Proficiency in Korean (TOPIK) for international students. (Some academics are worried that this may reduce international students’ ability to succeed in their Korean-taught programmes.)

Too much ambition?

Some media outlets have reported on Korean academics’ concerns that the means being used to advance the Study Korea 300K Project – such as easing language requirements and pursuing a high rate of annual international enrolment growth – may put too much pressure on universities to support students well enough.

Song Ki-chang, emeritus professor of education administration at Sookmyung Women’s University, told University World News last year that attracting international students by easing entrance conditions “can be effective to secure new student numbers but if their language proficiency is not enough the education cost for quality education may work as another financial burden (on universities).”

And earlier this year, upon news that the threshold for Korean universities to obtain certification in the International Education Quality Assurance System would be lowered, Jun Hyun Hong, professor of public policy at Chung-Ang University, said: “I am concerned that pursuing a goal too aggressively may lead to the indiscriminate [recruitment] of international students, which has the potential to lower the quality of international students.”

However, the South Korean government is working to maintain quality standards. Following an annual evaluation of colleges and universities’ capacity and performance with respect to international students, it announced in February 2024 that it had stripped the right of 20 degree programmes and 20 language-training programmes to issue visas to international students for one year from the second semester of 2024. At the same time, it certified 14 more degree-granting institutions (to 134) for and 15 more language programmes (to 90) compared with 2023 based on the results of the evaluation.

Increasing supports for international students will be key

South Korea has historically had a reputation for being a tough market for international graduates to find a job in after their studies are completed. International students have had to jump through hoops to move from one visa category to the next to be able to remain in the country, all the while searching in what seems like a small proportion of jobs that international students can be hired for. The Korea JoongAng Daily reported in March 2024 that “…of 7,321 [international] students who graduated from universities or vocational colleges last year, only 8.2 percent got jobs in Korea, according to the Korea Educational Development Institute.”

Kumar Suraj, a 29-year-old Indian graduate student at Hanyang University’s Division of International Studies, was quoted in the Asia News Network last year, saying there is a “gap between education and employment”:

“Many foreign students find it hard to keep track of job openings that accept foreign applicants. They can look for employment opportunities through portal sites, but most recruitment posts are focused on hiring Koreans.”

University World News reported in 2023 that “currently, the rate of settlement for foreign graduates of Korean universities is low compared to some other countries, with studies pointing to a lack of incentives to stay.”

The country is generally facing a serious issue of youth unemployment. Government data released in July 2024 indicate that “the number of South Koreans without a job or seeking a job marked an all-time high in the first half of this year.”

The South Korean government knows very well that the country is competing with other ambitious Asian destinations that are working hard at increasing their retention of international students. For example:

• Japan has a target of enrolling 60% of international student graduates by 2033. This year, the Japanese government announced that foreign graduates of vocational schools and colleges – not just universities – can now look for a job after completing their studies without having to find work in a job/industry related to their field of study.

• Hong Kong extended students’ post-graduation stay allowance to 2 years in 2022, and Taiwan followed suit in 2024.

• Malaysia has also had a reputation for being a difficult job market to crack for international students. This year, it introduced the “Social Visit Pass” which allows graduates of Malaysian degree programmes from a list of eligible countries to remain in Malaysia for up to a year to look for employment. Eligible countries are Australia, New Zealand, Brunei, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Switzerland, Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, United States, Oman, and Bahrain.

South Korea’s plans to (1) extend the duration of the job-seekers permit, (2) expand the type of jobs for which international students can apply, and (3) extend the amount of time job holders can remain in the country are to be put into effect in 2025.

For additional background, please see:

Long-time tech watchers will likely remember Mary Meeker well. Ms Meeker is an American venture capitalist, focused on the technology sector, and the founder of the San Francisco-based investment firm BOND. She regularly appears on lists of the most influential business leaders globally and gained wider profile for her “Internet Trends” reports, which were an annual event for about 20 years. The last of those reports appeared in 2019, but they were famous for each providing hundreds of pages of charts and observations and were arguably some of the most widely read and cited analyses of their kind.

So it was a somewhat noteworthy development when Ms Meeker published a new report last month: “AI & Universities”.

The paper is essentially a call for higher education, corporations, and government to work together to, on the one hand, transform higher education to take full advantage of new AI technologies. On the other hand, it is also a call for continued American leadership in the field of generative AI.

“Actions taken in the next five years will be consequential,” says Ms Meeker. “It’s important for higher education to take a leadership role, in combination with industry and government. The ramp in artificial intelligence – which leverages the history of learning for learning – affects all forms of learning, teaching, understanding, and decision making…In the wake of ChatGPT and the AI explosion, we have likely reached a generational, fast and furious change across education. At their essence, AI and connected technology devices provide multimodal personalised output that can help users quickly get information and develop skills on their own terms. Tools that provide real-time feedback on engagement and skill development will continue to improve, enhancing the evolution of pattern recognition.”

She is echoing a point made by many others throughout history, from Aristotle to Khan Academy founder Sal Khan and many in between, and that is that students benefit the most from individualised learning and from the chance to learn at their own pace. At the same time, Ms Meeker sees a number of factors coming together to drive change in higher education, including the rising costs of post-secondary, an increasing focus on ROI and career outcomes, and a greater emphasis on core skills and adaptability alongside more specific job or technical skills.

“To maintain academic relevance and market share, many universities require a mindset change,” she adds. “The key for universities today, we believe, will be creating education-as-a-service and generating ROI for student-customers while building best-in-class programmes with differentiated teachers…Yesterday’s signaling credential may not make sense in a more meritocratic, skills-based world…[I]n each case, universities must determine their competitive advantages, create relevant best-in-class programmes and environments, and find ways to gain share in an increasingly competitive environment.”

This is a paper to play attention to, given the author and her audience, which will include many of the larger institutional and venture investors in the technology space. Investment continues to pour into AI technologies, and we should expect that this will only further accelerate growth in digital teaching and learning, including with respect to transnational education or other remote delivery.

For additional background, please see:

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has proposed a series of regulatory changes to the country’s international student sector. The new rules, first posted on 20 June for a 30-day review and comment period, require a new level of compliance reporting on the part of Canadian institutions and schools. They also:

• Provide IRCC with the authority to suspend study permit processing for non-compliant institutions;
• Require that students apply for a new study permit when transferring to a new institution; and
• Expand the limit on off-campus work during study from the current 20 hours per week to 24 hours per week.

The headline item is the new compliance reporting and suspension authority extended to IRCC under the draft regulations. This bumps up against the sometimes-contentious division of federal-provincial jurisdiction within Canada. As a statement accompanying the draft regulations explains:

“The administration of the International Student Programme (ISP) is a shared responsibility between IRCC and Provinces and Territories (PTs). For its part, IRCC is responsible for setting policy regarding the entry of international students, establishing the conditions study permit holders must meet while in Canada, and deciding whether a study permit should be issued to an applicant.”

“For DLIs [Designated Learning Institutions] to receive international students to study in Canada, they must be designated by the province or territory based on a set of standards [mutually agreed by the province or territory and IRCC]…PTs also set their own standards that DLIs must meet in order to be designated by their jurisdiction. PTs inform IRCC when institutions need to be added or removed from the public DLI list, which enumerates the institutions who are allowed to receive students within a given province or territory.”

As that summary indicates, under the proposed regulations IRCC is effectively assuming a greater role for DLI oversight (and sanctioning) than has previously been the norm.

IRCC frames the move as a matter of industry integrity, and one that is designed to address the following three issues.

• “Under the existing regulations, the federal Government does not have the regulatory authority to compel reporting from DLIs as part of the compliance program and letter of acceptance verification system. Where DLIs are not reporting, IRCC does not have a reliable way of determining whether a student is attending the DLI and complying with their study permit requirements, and IRCC cannot effectively detect fraudulent letters of acceptance.
  
• Currently, IRCC cannot impose conditions on a non-compliant DLI, such as the suspension of study permit processing. This means that IRCC is required to issue study permits for students attending the DLI even when the DLI is not reporting to IRCC on student enrolment status or participating in the letter of acceptance verification system.
  
• Under the current regulations, IRCC cannot compel international students to notify the Department if they change DLIs. As a result, IRCC is unable in many cases to confirm student attendance and study permit compliance when a student changes DLIs. When students move between institutions without notification, this risks circumventing the study permit cap which has a negative effect on DLIs.”

The regulations accordingly prescribe a number of mandatory reporting requirements for post-secondary DLIs. They also empower IRCC to suspend study permit processing for a non-compliant DLI “for a maximum period of 12 consecutive months.”

“The regulatory amendments would allow IRCC to effectively respond to integrity challenges and address common occurrences of unethical behaviours that undermine the integrity of the programme,” concludes IRCC’s assessment of the proposed regulations. “The enhanced LOA verification system would allow IRCC to verify each LOA submitted with study permit applications before they are processed…Codifying the requirement to submit biannual compliance reports would allow IRCC to close the compliance gap that exists in [the current] regime…[And] requiring international students to obtain a new study permit when transferring to a new DLI would ensure that IRCC can more accurately assess and track student compliance with conditions set out in their permit and identify when they change DLIs.”

The proposed rule changes follow a period of significant policy change in Canada, most notably the introduction of a cap on foreign enrolment alongside announced and pending changes to post-study work rights. They also follow a period of substantial growth in Canada’s international student numbers. There were more than a million foreign students in the country at the end of 2023, representing a nearly two-thirds increase over the previous five years.

For additional background, please see:

The just-released 2024 Annual Report on English Language Programs in the USA expands on survey findings released earlier in the year to provide some additional detail on how the English-language teaching (ELT) sector in the US continued its post-pandemic recovery in 2023. The report, produced by industry research specialists BONARD for peak body EnglishUSA, gathers survey responses from 366 responding centres, representing nearly half (44%) of the 827 active ELT centres in the US last year.

It finds that those ELT centres collectively enrolled 97,813 language learners in 2023 for a total of 1,042,485 student weeks. This works out to roughly 69% of pre-pandemic volumes, in terms of student numbers, and it means that the US continues to lag the recovery of the sector globally. More broadly, ELT enrolments were equivalent to 77% of 2019 levels in the top eight English-language learning destinations last year.

Those 2023 figures put the US as the third leading ELT study destination, after the UK and Australia, and with a 13% global market share.

The majority of English-language learners in the US were adult students in 2023 (81%) but the junior segment (19% of enrolments) registered notable growth during the year. “Between 2022 and 2023, the junior segment experienced a 55% increase in student numbers (based on a like-to-like comparison), while the number of adult students decreased by 6%,” explains the report. “The increase in the number of junior students is linked to two major factors. One is pent-up demand post-pandemic: in 2023, junior students were returning to study abroad in greater numbers compared to 2022. The second factor is a global trend observed in most source countries: more junior students are traveling abroad than ever before.”

As we see in the following chart, the most popular course type for ELT students in the US last year was “General/Intensive English,” followed by “Short-term summer and winter” courses and “English for Academic Purposes.”

Where are students coming from?

Nearly four in ten ELT students in the US come from Asia (38%), with another 25% arriving from European countries and 20% from South American markets. The top ten sending markets for US ELT are outlined in the table below, which highlights as well that five of the ten recorded strong growth in 2023.

Visa denials identified as a major challenge

Most ELT students in the US in 2023 (54%) were F-1 visa holders. Another 19% had ESTAs and 8% B-1/B-2 visas. Visa rejection rates remain a key area of concern for the sector, with nearly two-thirds (64%) of responding centres citing student visa denials as the most significant challenge for US ELT providers in 2023.

The report notes: “Visa refusals are one of the most pressing challenges in the US international education sector. In 2023, the US Department of State rejected 36% of F-1 student visas, representing 253,355 students. Responding ELPs reported an average 24% visa refusal rate in 2023. India recorded the highest number of visa refusals with 1,181 students. Brazil followed with 994 students, and Türkiye came third, with 862.”

“Student visa denials are likely to have played a part in slowing down post-pandemic growth in the sector,” adds Dr Ivana Bartosik, BONARD’s international education director. “Several key source markets, such as Brazil, Türkiye, and Colombia, did not reach their growth potential because of visa denials.”

When asked what would help mitigate visa refusal rates, respondents to the EnglishUSA server call especially for greater transparency in visa processing and additional supports for applicants.

More specifically, responding centres highlighted the need for:

• More and better information about visa refusals, including detailed explanations for denials so that future applicants can be better advised and prepared.
• Additional documentation and video briefings for applicants to help them better understand the visa application process, and to ensure that all steps are properly and thoroughly completed.
• Targeted supports for applicants to assist with visa interview preparation, including advance Zoom calls or orientation videos offering tips for successful interviews.
• Improved visa processing times, including reduced wait times for applicant interviews.
• Additional sector advocacy for ELT study as a valid reason for a visa application. “It is important to recognize ELT as a legitimate pathway to higher education and cultural immersion in the USA,” adds the report. “Initiatives such as awareness campaigns, workshops, and advocacy for incoming F-1 approvals for ELPs could mitigate visa denials based on misconceptions about the purpose and validity of language study.”

Commenting on this aspect of the survey findings, EnglishUSA President Daryl Bish again stressed the need for better data and insights around visa rejections, “Survey participants called for better communication and increased transparency around visa denials. Understanding the specific reasons why visas are rejected can help programs provide better support for students and address shortcomings in future applications.”

The report highlights as well the significant financial impact of poor visa services for ELT students with its estimate that the total direct economic contribution of the sector for 2023 surpassed US$1.7 billion.

For additional background, please see: