Canada's international student commencements likely to drop by 50% this year

Canada in January announced a temporary cap on the issuance of study visas for international students. For 2024, the cap is expected to result in approximately 3,64,000 approved study permits, a decrease of 35% from (the number of study permits issued in) 2023, as per Canadian Immigration Minister Mark Miller.

“The number of new study permit applications processed by the Canadian government dropped by 54 per cent in Q2 2024 versus Q2 2023. Year over year, we project the number of applications processed to drop by 39 per cent in 2024,” said an ICEF Monitor report quoting ApplyBoard.

If current trends hold, around 230,000 new study permits will be processed in the second half of 2024, said the report.

“If the study permit processing projection above is accurate, and the study permit approval rate stays at 51%, we estimate that just over 231,000 new study permits will be approved in 2024. This projected approval count is roughly 47% lower than the 436,600 new study permits which were approved in 2023.”

Those mid-year totals demonstrate that student demand is “shifting away from Canada” under the new policy settings due to the “confusion and uncertainty arising from the new rules this year”, the report said.

ApplyBoard projects a 50% reduction in study permits for capped post-secondary programs and a 24% reduction for cap-exempt programs in 2024.

Between January and June 2024, only half as many Indian students were approved for study permits as in the same period in 2023 despite a relatively high approval rate of 85% for this market.

ApplyBoard report said that the overall “drop in permits processed (in the first half of 2024) can be attributed both to students who paused or deferred their study permit application and to others who pivoted to different destinations.”

The US, Germany, Italy, and other destinations are picking up share from Canada (as well as Australia and the UK) according to Studyportals research. For its part, ApplyBoard has detected a 20% decline in global searches for “study in Canada” this year compared to 2023.

Source: https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/study/canadas-international-student-commencements-likely-to-drop-by-50-this-year-study-abroad-visa/articleshow/113283530.cms