[Fdu] Canadian Colleges See Surge of Foreign Students. It’s Not Just Politics. By CRAIG S. SMITH NY TIMES

[Cynthia Wright]

  Canadian Colleges See Surge of Foreign Students. It’s Not Just Politics.

By CRAIG S. SMITH <https://www.nytimes.com/by/craig-s-smith>


MAY 19, 2017

Maddie Zeif, a high school student from Vermont, plans to attend the 
University of British Columbia in the fall. Credit Karsten Moran for The 
New York Times

Canadian universities may have a more international feel this fall.

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.

“The so-called Trump effect is real when it comes to enrollment in 
Canada 
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/canada/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>,” 
said Alan Shepard, president of Concordia University in Montreal. 
“Applications from international students for this coming fall’s 
semester have surged.”

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.

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.

“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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

Photo
Nancy Gorosh of Houston just finished her freshman year at Concordia 
University in Montreal. Credit Michael Stravato for The New York Times

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

Also, the Canadian currency’s weakness relative to the United States 
dollar gives students headed to Canada an instant discount of about 26 
percent.

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.


“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.

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; 
Hofstra <http://www.hofstra.edu/admission/adm_costofattendance.html> 
would have been about $44,000.

Politics is on the minds of students choosing Canada for college, but 
their concerns are more nuanced than a simple dislike of Mr. Trump.

Photo
Sofía Solar Cafaggi of Mexico City got her undergraduate degree at 
McGill University in Montreal. Credit Jim Wilson/The New York Times

“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.”

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.

“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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

“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.

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.

Other medications require a periodic visit to a doctor, further raising 
the cost.

“My husband and I are both eligible for health care through the Canadian 
university,” she said.

A version of this article appears in print on May 20, 2017, on Page A4 
of the New York edition with the headline: Canadian Colleges See Surge 
of Foreign Students. It’s Not Just Politics

​https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/19/world/canada/canadian-colleges-see-surge-of-foreign-students-its-not-just-politics.html?mwrsm=Email&_r=0​


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