International students should have an affordable education
Creating opportunities for higher education to be more accessible would strengthen Canada’s economy
Widely accessible higher education for international students will strengthen Canada’s economy. (Unsplash/Joshua Hoehne)
Over the past decade, international students have been coming to Canada for an education at high rates, a result of their hopes for the country’s ability to enhance their quality of life.
In 2022, Canada received a record-breaking 551,405 foreign students from 184 different countries, according to data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).
The reality of these students’ dreams, however, is far from what they had hoped for because of the financial burden they face as they arrive. Even though there are many international students who contribute to the economy as citizens do, it’s unfair when they have to pay over three times as much for tuition, compared to domestic students.
Norway has maintained its high-quality educational system while offering free education to overseas students, in contrast to many other nations where education has turned into a source of business. While providing free education for international students Norway has a GDP per capita rate of $89,154 USD with a population of 5 million whereas Canada has a GDP per capita rate of $51,987 USD with a population of 38 million.
If higher education was more accessible to international students, graduation rates would rise, and young people would graduate with less student loan debt and more money from their cheques to invest in the country’s economy and development.
International students already have a difficult time adjusting to living far from home and in a completely foreign environment and culture. The financial obligations make this adjustment even harder. Students continually worry about paying their tuition for the upcoming semester, which means often working multiple jobs that require additional hours and neglecting their health. These issues have led to an excessive number of fatalities in the previous year.
It’s often believed that lowering education expenses will result in lower incomes for graduates, cause more students to be placed on waitlists, make it more difficult to find employment, and even more difficult to get accepted into universities with poor rankings for graduate programs.
Even when paying over five times less in tuition than international students, Canadian domestic students still drop out of post-secondary or choose not to attend at all. Even when international students pay the same tuition as citizens once they become permanent residents, they often don’t pursue a degree.
Access to free education in Canada, just as Norway, won’t guarantee everyone will attend university, but it will give everyone the opportunity to pursue their education regardless of their financial situation.
Canada spends only 11.4 per cent of its GDP on education, which is considerably low to achieve the goal of providing higher education at lower costs for international students.
Lowering tuition fees will not only encourage more people to immigrate to Canada, but will also contribute to the already growing economy which significantly relies on international students.
