Due to its first-rate educational resources, welcoming and cosmopolitan culture, and opportunities for both permanent immigration and post-graduation work, Canada is a popular destination for international students. Even though international students have significantly influenced Canadian campus culture and inventiveness, they have also encountered many challenges in their academic pursuits, such as trouble finding appropriate housing.
The Minister of Immigration makes it clear to the territories, provinces, and educational establishments how important it is to make sure that foreign students entering Canada are prepared for success.
In order to ensure that overseas students are financially prepared for life in Canada, the Honourable Marc Miller, Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship, announced today that the cost-of-living financial criterion for study permit applicants would be enhanced as of January 1, 2024. From now on, this cutoff will be modified annually in accordance with Statistics Canada’s revisions to the low-income cutoff (LICO). LICO stands for the lowest income required to guarantee that a person does not have to spend a larger percentage of their income than is typical on needs.
Since it was first established at $10,000 for a single application in the early 2000s, the cost-of-living threshold for study visa applicants has remained unchanged. Because of this, the financial requirements haven’t kept up with the rising cost of living over time, which means that when students arrive in Canada, they find their money insufficient. In 2024, a single candidate will have to demonstrate that they have $20,635, which is equivalent to 75% of LICO plus the cost of their first year’s tuition and transportation. New applications for study permits submitted on or after January 1, 2024, shall be subject to this modification.Although we believe that this will lessen student susceptibility and exploitation, we acknowledge that each applicant’s experience with the change may differ.
We want to launch focused pilots with partners in the upcoming year to test out fresh concepts geared at supporting underserved groups of overseas students pursuing their education in Canada.The statement made today comes after significant changes to the foreign student program were made public on October 27, 2023. These changes deal with the creation of a new system for identifying educational institutions that provide foreign students with accommodation and other first-rate services and assistance. We anticipate that educational establishments will only take as many students as they can accommodate, both in terms of accommodation and assistance.Additionally, Minister Miller gave an update on three temporary regulations pertaining to foreign students that were scheduled to lapse at the end of 2023:
- The exemption from the 20-hour weekly cap on the amount of time foreign students can work off campus during the academic year will last until April 30, 2024. Up to December 7, 2023, international students who are currently in Canada and those who have previously applied for a study visa will be permitted to work off campus for more than 20 hours per week. Future possibilities for this regulation are still being considered; one such idea is to allow overseas students to work off-campus for up to 30 hours a week throughout the academic year.
- For students who start a study program before September 1, 2024, the accommodating measure that has allowed international students to credit time spent studying online toward the duration of a future post-graduation work permit will remain in effect, provided that the time spent studying online makes up less than 50% of the program of study. On or after that date, students who start a study program won’t be subject to this policy. The initial steps toward facilitating distance learning were taken in 2020 in reaction to travel limitations brought on by the epidemic, and they were scaled down in September 2022. Currently, the great majority of overseas students are enrolled at Canadian universities in person.
- Three times during the pandemic and the post-pandemic recovery, a temporary policy was implemented to provide post-graduation work permit holders with an extra 18 months of work permit while their original work permit was about to expire, in response to labor market disruptions. Foreign nationals may still apply if they have a post-graduation employment visa that expires on December 31, 2023. This interim measure, though, won’t be renewed.