Universities | Foreign students return

The efforts of the university community to recruit foreign students at the start of the pandemic will have borne fruit: registrations have resumed with a vengeance, according to data obtained by La Presse from a dozen establishments. But behind this success, students wait a long time in uncertainty to obtain their study permit. To the point that some are considering postponing their registration.

The pandemic has resulted in a slight drop in the number of foreign students enrolled in several of the universities surveyed by The Press.

However, surprise: from 2021, registrations are on the rise again.

So much so that most institutions now have a higher number of foreign students than in 2019.

“The drop that was observed at the start of the pandemic was immediately followed by a rebound,” confirms Neko Likongo, director of the international and diplomatic relations department at UQAM.

By fall 2020, the international student population at UQAM had dropped to 3,325 individuals – nearly 900 students less than the previous year.

But the university quickly rebounded: at the start of the 2021 academic year, it recruited 4,387 students from abroad, which represents an increase of 32% compared to 2020. “And we have good reason to believe that growth will continue. to continue in the future,” says Mr. Likongo.

Ditto in the rest of Canada: in 2021, more than 550,000 study permit applications were processed by Ottawa, an increase of 152% compared to 2020 and 30% compared to 2019 – unheard of. And at the current rate, the year 2022 should break this record.

At the École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS), the number of foreign students increased by 39% between the 2019-2020 and 2021-2022 school years. As of the next academic year, the university expects foreign students to represent 30% of the total student body.

For its part, Bishop’s University is slowly catching up with the decline in international students that it has observed over the past two years.

“There is an increase in admissions [à la rentrée 2022]. Will this translate into actual registration? Are there any students who are going to have to postpone it again? says Lysange Gervais, coordinator at Bishop’s international office.

Delays persist

Behind this success hides another reality: students can wait months to obtain their study permit.

Some of them are even considering postponing their registration to a later term, reports UQAM spokesperson Jenny Desrochers.

“However, we do not have an order of magnitude since the vast majority are waiting at the last minute to carry out the postponement”, she specifies.

At the University of Montreal, we note that the increase in applications for admission from French-speaking African countries “does not materialize in registrations afterwards”.

“You might think that some of the students who don’t enroll do so because they have had their study permit refused,” says Geneviève O’Meara, UdeM spokesperson.

It should be noted that the institution does not automatically know the reasons why an admitted student does not continue their registration, and therefore cannot provide precise statistics on this subject.

“However, our current statistics show that we have to deregister more students from Africa than from other countries such as India, China or Brazil, for example. And this trend has accelerated in recent years,” adds Ms.^me O’Meara.

According to the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada website, the processing time for study permit applications from abroad is estimated at 12 weeks.

“A growing demand” imposes “increasing pressure on treatment”, says the Ministry on its site.

Recently, UQAM says it has noticed shorter delays in the issuance of these permits, and hopes that the situation will continue to improve by the next school year, especially for African students.

Redouble your efforts

To recruit so many foreign students in the pandemic, universities have gone into overdrive.

For example: most institutions have offered distance education to the thousands of students stuck outside the country due to border restrictions.

For the first time, Université Laval held virtual open houses, an activity it intends to repeat in the coming years.

The University of Quebec at Rimouski has instead relied on promotional campaigns in France and Africa. The strategy seems to have paid off: its campuses had nearly 600 foreign students last fall, more than in 2019.

A multi-million dollar bill

For universities, this strong comeback of foreign students is also paying off. It’s that they pay hefty tuition fees – 3 to 10 times higher than those of Quebecers⁠^⁠1.

As an indication, a foreign student pays $25,462 per year for the baccalaureate at ÉTS, while it costs $3,533 for a Quebecer. (This excludes French and Belgian students, who benefit from special agreements with Quebec.)

More than the universities, it is all of Quebec that is emerging as a winner from the foreign student boom, points out Pierre Baptiste, acting director, academic affairs and student experience at Polytechnique.

“With the demographics we have in Quebec, we need these international students. We don’t have the means to supply the number of highly qualified people we need,” he says.

With the collaboration of William Leclerc, The Press