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<h1 id="gmail-headline" class="gmail-headline"
style="max-width:536.924px">Canadian Colleges See Surge of
Foreign Students. It’s Not Just Politics.</h1>
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class="gmail-story-meta-footer">
<p class="gmail-byline-dateline"><span class="gmail-byline">By
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/craig-s-smith"
title="More Articles by CRAIG S. SMITH"><span
class="gmail-byline-author">CRAIG S. SMITH</span></a></span><time
class="gmail-dateline"
datetime="2017-05-20T19:10:16-04:00"><br>
</time></p>
<p class="gmail-byline-dateline"><time class="gmail-dateline"
datetime="2017-05-20T19:10:16-04:00"><br>
</time></p>
<p class="gmail-byline-dateline"><time class="gmail-dateline"
datetime="2017-05-20T19:10:16-04:00">MAY 19, 2017</time><span
class="gmail-visually-hidden"></span></p>
</div>
<div class="gmail-story-body-supplemental">
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<figure id="gmail-media-100000005110887" class="gmail-media
gmail-photo gmail-lede gmail-layout-large-horizontal">
<div class="gmail-image"> <img moz-do-not-send="true"
src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/05/18/world/19canada-students/19canada-students-master768.jpg"
alt="" class="gmail-media-viewer-candidate">
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<figcaption class="gmail-caption"> <span
class="gmail-caption-text">Maddie Zeif, a high school
student from Vermont, plans to attend the University
of British Columbia in the fall.</span> <span
class="gmail-credit"> <span
class="gmail-visually-hidden">Credit</span> Karsten
Moran for The New York Times </span> </figcaption> </figure>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Canadian
universities may have a more international feel this fall.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Enrollment
of international students will be sharply higher,
universities say, and the incoming freshmen include large
numbers of high school students from the United States.
With the increase coming during the first year of a
contentious presidency, there’s plenty of talk about the
trend being an obvious reaction to President Trump.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">“The
so-called Trump effect is real when it comes to enrollment
in <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/canada/index.html?inline=nyt-geo"
title="More news and information about Canada."
class="gmail-meta-loc">Canada</a>,” said Alan Shepard,
president of Concordia University in Montreal.
“Applications from international students for this coming
fall’s semester have surged.”</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">But
it’s not that simple. While plenty of students who have
chosen Canada for higher education cite the political
climate in the United States, admissions officers and
students say economics remains the main motivation.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Maddie
Zeif, 18, a high school student from Sunderland, Vt., said
costs in Canada were cheaper than in the United States and
were comparable even to in-state tuition at the University
of Vermont. She’s going to the University of British
Columbia in the fall.</p>
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</div>
<div class="gmail-story-body-supplemental">
<div class="gmail-story-body gmail-story-body-2">
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content"
id="gmail-story-continues-2">“At U.B.C., I will be right
in a city, at a very large university, right on the ocean,
an hour from Whistler,” she said in an email, referring to
the popular Canadian ski resort, “and I will be paying
almost the same amount as my in-state tuition without
factoring in any financial aid yet.”</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content"
id="gmail-story-continues-3">Besides the cost and the
political climate, students also say they were attracted
by affordable health care, relative safety and a more
relaxed atmosphere in Canada. Students from outside North
America also point to the ease of immigration to Canada.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">With
about a million international students within its borders,
the United States is still the leader in international
education. Canada’s international student population,
though, surged 92 percent from 2008 to 2015, reaching more
than 350,000, according to the Canadian Bureau for
International Education.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Final
figures for this year’s application season are not yet
available. But Canadian university officials say the early
numbers suggest that Canada will be educating many more
international students than ever this fall, particularly
from the United States.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content"
id="gmail-story-continues-4">At Ryerson University in
Toronto, for example, the number of international
undergraduates, including from the United States, who have
confirmed that they will attend in the fall is up nearly
50 percent over this time last year.</p>
<figure id="gmail-media-100000005110934" class="gmail-media
gmail-photo embedded gmail-layout-large-horizontal
gmail-media-100000005110934 gmail-ratio-tall"> <span
class="gmail-visually-hidden">Photo</span>
<div class="gmail-image"> <img moz-do-not-send="true"
src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/05/18/world/19canada-students2/19canada-students2-master675.jpg"
alt="" class="gmail-media-viewer-candidate">
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<figcaption class="gmail-caption"> <span
class="gmail-caption-text">Nancy Gorosh of Houston
just finished her freshman year at Concordia
University in Montreal.</span> <span
class="gmail-credit"> <span
class="gmail-visually-hidden">Credit</span> Michael
Stravato for The New York Times </span> </figcaption>
</figure>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">University
of Toronto officials said the enrollment of students from
the United States for this fall had doubled from last
school year, with a “yield” — the percentage of accepted
students who commit to attend — of 25 percent compared
with about 20 percent last year.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content"
id="gmail-story-continues-5">“We’re going to see record
numbers of students from the U.S.,” said Ted Sargent, a
vice president at the university, Canada’s largest.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Officials
at the University of Toronto said they saw a jump in
enrollments from other countries, too, with an increase of
75 percent from India and more than 60 percent from the
Middle East and Turkey.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Smaller
colleges like Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax,
Nova Scotia, said the number of applications from the
United States had more than doubled this year.</p>
<div id="gmail-story-ad-2" class="gmail-story-ad gmail-ad
gmail-ad-placeholder gmail-nocontent
gmail-robots-nocontent">
</div>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content"
id="gmail-story-continues-6">Tuition at Canadian colleges
is generally lower than at comparable universities in the
United States, even though students from outside Canada
pay a higher rate than locals do.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content"
id="gmail-story-continues-7">Also, the Canadian currency’s
weakness relative to the United States dollar gives
students headed to Canada an instant discount of about 26
percent.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Megan
Ludwig, 23, from Prather, Calif., graduated from the
University of Nevada with a bachelor’s degree in
ecohydrology, which studies the interaction between water
and ecosystems. But for her master’s, she decided on
Canada. The economics were compelling.</p>
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</div>
<br>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">“Canadian
tuition is half the price per semester or less than most U.S.
universities and scholarships for master’s positions are less
competitive and more widely available,” Ms. Ludwig wrote in an
email. She said she landed a stipend that was nearly double
any of the offers she received in the United States.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content"
id="gmail-story-continues-8">Nancy Gorosh, 19, of Houston just
finished her freshman year at Concordia. Last year, she was
choosing between Concordia and Hofstra University in
Hempstead, N.Y., on Long Island. Ms. Gorosh said her tuition
and fees at Concordia next year will be about $12,400 a year;
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="http://www.hofstra.edu/admission/adm_costofattendance.html">Hofstra</a>
would have been about $44,000.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Politics is
on the minds of students choosing Canada for college, but
their concerns are more nuanced than a simple dislike of Mr.
Trump.</p>
<figure id="gmail-media-100000005115711" class="gmail-media
gmail-photo embedded gmail-layout-large-horizontal
gmail-media-100000005115711 gmail-ratio-tall"> <span
class="gmail-visually-hidden">Photo</span>
<div class="gmail-image"> <img moz-do-not-send="true"
src="https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/05/19/world/19canadastudents3/19canadastudents3-master675.jpg"
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<figcaption class="gmail-caption"> <span
class="gmail-caption-text">Sofía Solar Cafaggi of Mexico
City got her undergraduate degree at McGill University in
Montreal.</span> <span class="gmail-credit"> <span
class="gmail-visually-hidden">Credit</span> Jim
Wilson/The New York Times </span> </figcaption> </figure>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">“I don’t
want to spend my college years worrying about what’s going to
happen if I need an abortion,” Ms. Zeif said. “I don’t want to
spend my college years worrying about what happens if I get
caught with a little weed in my bag.”</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content"
id="gmail-story-continues-9">Ankit Saxena, a 23-year-old
engineer from New Delhi, will apply to graduate programs in
the fall. He said Mr. Trump’s policies were one of many
factors leading him to focus on Canada over the United States.
He plans to apply to the University of Toronto, the University
of Waterloo and the University of British Columbia, among
others.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content"
id="gmail-story-continues-10">“Racial discrimination is
becoming a big problem, and it’s really scary to hear about an
Indian getting shot in the U.S. every week,” Mr. Saxena said.</p>
<div id="gmail-story-ad-3" class="gmail-story-ad gmail-ad
gmail-ad-placeholder gmail-nocontent gmail-robots-nocontent">
</div>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content"
id="gmail-story-continues-11">Some students say the visa
process for entering the United States is onerous, especially
considering the uncertainty about how regulations might
change. More than half of the international students in Canada
plan to seek permanent residency, according to the Canadian
international education bureau.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Marius
Poyard, from France, said he had the option to pursue a
master’s degree in mechanical engineering at Michigan State
University, Manhattan College or the University of Sherbrooke
in Quebec. But he couldn’t face the visa application process
in the United States after having endured it for a summer
program several years ago.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content"
id="gmail-story-continues-12">He complained about irrelevant
questions asked online, the need to travel to Paris for an
interview, and then a wait of hours for the interview, which
consisted of a few questions he had already answered online.
The Canadian process was simple, he said. “Everything is on
the internet and is very fast.”</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content"
id="gmail-story-continues-13">But Mr. Poyard said cost was
another compelling reason to choose Canada. The University of
Sherbrooke will cost less than a third of either option in the
United States.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Sofia Solar
Cafaggi, 29, of Mexico City, got her undergraduate degree at
McGill University in Montreal after turning down M.I.T.
because of the cost. She was able to get permanent residency
in Canada two years after graduating. Now she’s on her way to
medical school. She said she was offered a full scholarship at
a school in the United States but will be going to the
University of Toronto.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content"
id="gmail-story-continues-14">“I can get citizenship upon
graduation, whereas in the U.S. I’d be an alien for another
decade and would need sponsorship for residency,” she said.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Jane White,
of Carbondale, Ill., cited health care as a main reason for
enrolling in a master’s program at Nipissing University in
Ontario this fall. Under the Affordable Care Act, Ms. White
was covered by her family’s insurance until she was 26. At 27,
she’s now covered by a state plan, but she worries how she
will be able to pay the $300 a month she needs for her asthma
medication if the rules change.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Other
medications require a periodic visit to a doctor, further
raising the cost.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">“My husband
and I are both eligible for health care through the Canadian
university,” she said.</p>
<span style="color:rgb(255,0,0)">A version of this article
appears in print on May 20, 2017, on Page A4 of the <span>New
York edition</span> with the headline: Canadian Colleges See
Surge of Foreign Students. It’s Not Just Politics<br>
<br>
<div style="font-size:large;display:inline"
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