US Witnessed Dip While Canada Registers Exponential Growth In International Students’ Enrolment

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the entire world, along with the course of action for everyday things. From industry to healthcare, and from IT to education everything has changed, and so, has the abroad education sector for Indian students. The students from India going abroad are now exploring more options than they used to do in the pre-COVID times. In the pre-COVID times, getting a quality education, and better employment prospects were largely the main drivers behind choosing a country for higher education. In this respect, the US always appeared to be the best destination for getting high-paying jobs and world-class education. Now, that the COVID pandemic happened, there is a marked difference in the students’ behavioral patterns. Students are exploring more options, and factoring in different criteria before taking the call for abroad education.

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In India, students moving abroad, and in particular for engineering, medicine or MBA choose mostly English-speaking countries, such as the US, UK, Australia, Canada, etc. What’s common in all these countries apart from an excellent education system? A world-class lifestyle. Once you land in these countries, you would witness excellent public amenities, high wages, a more organized lifestyle, and a lot of minute factors that make these countries attractive to immigrants. Now, Indian students have shown a keen interest in getting admission to those countries that have a relatively easier system for getting permanent residence(PR), and citizenship in the long run. This behavioral shift is already happening, and it is very much evident from the latest data regarding the choice of the country between Canada and the US.

The Story of Decline in International Students Enrolment

The decline, as shown above, is pretty much sharp even in the pre-COVID times. So, one can’t even put the blame solely on the pandemic. If anything, the pandemic accelerated the shift. The pro-immigrant policies and opening up better opportunities for immigrants helped Canadian universities attract way more students than ever before. However, in the US the enrolments declined further when the pandemic forced governments across the globe to close their doors to students from the international community.

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The main reason behind the decline is the lack of confidence among the students whether they will be able to settle in the US or not. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone is now looking for a better life, and education is certainly the best way to get it. Canada is helping students in making this decision easy by clearly laying out much easier criteria to get permanent residence, and those interested can even apply for citizenship. Keeping in mind the fact that Canadian citizens have much easier access to the US job market, more students are shifting toward Canada than the US. The cost of education is another significant factor, as it is comparatively less in Canada.

As is evident from the above data set that the enrolments have reduced by 38% in a mere 3-year duration. The behavioral shift among Indian students is pretty evident, and this doesn’t seem to be changing in the near future unless the US makes a bid toward a more lenient immigration policy that’d aid students in the American universities. At the same time, the universities in Canada witnessed a rise of 182% in the enrolments of Indian students. As of now, Canada seems to be winning the race of getting more students into its universities than the US.

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The Reason Behind the Shift of International Students from the US to Canada

Traditionally, Indian students have always preferred the US over Canada, or for that matter, any other country. The reason was plain and simple. It’s the endless opportunities that come with the American dream. However, of late, the American dream is appearing to glow a bit dim than it used to be a decade back. The US is still the land of opportunities. However, it is facing tough competition from other countries working hard to attract the international student community. Canada is emerging as a better alternative to Indian students than the US, mainly because it has streamlined the visa process, the proficiency score requirements, the permanent residency requirement, accentuation from PR to Citizenship, and announced a ton of other immigrant-friendly policies.

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The trend is very much reflected in the ginormous enrolment of Indian students in Canadian universities. The numbers speak volumes of the above reasoning, with a whopping 300% rise in the number of Indian students from 2015-16 to 2019-20. As per an estimate by the Congressional Research Service, in the US, due to its restrictive practices, it can take 195 years to get a green card. While an Indian student gets PR in 2-3 years of stay post completion of the studies in Canada. The astounding difference in getting just a PR is the real reason why students are increasingly moving toward Canada. The US has a very restrictive policy when it comes to giving PR as they have limitations on the number of immigrants they will take in a year while no such restriction exists in Canada. The data speaks for itself, as there is a whopping 115% rise in the number of Indian immigrants getting PR in Canada from 2016 to 2021.

Affect of this Trend on the US Markets

The US is known as the land of immigrants. Immigrants in the US have done wonders, and more than 33% of immigrants have a college degree or more, as per the US Immigration Council. The steep decline in the number of immigrants is worrying for the US markets as the students studying at these universities and colleges in the US are a crucial part of the intellectual workforce. Immigrants from India have gone on to head the world’s biggest corporations like IBM, Google, Microsoft, Pepsi, Adobe System, Twitter. All of them have studied in the US at some point in time but the above-mentioned data is worrisome for the US job markets. With all the data, one can comfortably say that Canada is truly emerging as an equally good option for Indian students who wish to pursue higher education and settle in Canada.

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