Facing a surge of foreign student applications from around the world, Canada has announced new caps on the number of applications that will be accepted each year, along with restrictions on eligibility for work permits for some graduating students.

Even with the changes, Canada will remain one of the most welcoming countries for foreign students, hosting more of them relative to population than any other country and offering many a path to permanent residency after they graduate.

However the rapidly growing foreign student population — estimated at about 900,000 last year in a country of 38 million — is seen as exacerbating a nationwide housing crisis by driving up rental costs while placing pressure on the country's government-funded health care system.

In announcing the changes, government officials also cited concerns that some foreign students are being exploited by low-quality profit-oriented diploma "mills" that offer something less than the level of education expected by the incoming students.

Students flock to Canada

The popularity of Canada as a destination for foreign study has exploded in recent years, with the number of applications increasing by about 300,000 a year between 2019 and 2022, according to an immigration ministry study cited by the Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper.

But the foreign study program "has been inundated with problems as international student volumes have increased," said Earl Blaney, an immigration consultant in London, Ontario.

He told VOA those problems include "academic integrity of academic programs and colleges, lack of student supports, poor post-grad employment showings for international grads, lack of diversity in enrollment [and] poor student-to-permanent residency transition rates."

Under the changes announced this week, the government said it will approve about 360,000 permits for undergraduate study this year, about 35% fewer than in 2023. Permits for post-graduate study are not affected. The restriction is to remain in place for two years and to be re-evaluated at the end of this year.

The undergraduate permits will be allocated on a population basis among the 10 provinces, which will be able to decide how they are distributed among institutions. But in making the announcement, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Marc Miller made clear that the measure was aimed in part at certain private colleges.

"It's unacceptable that some private institutions have taken advantage of international students by operating under-resourced campuses, lacking supports for students and charging high tuition fees all the while significantly increasing their intake of international students," Miller told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

"To be absolutely clear, these measures are not against individual international students. They are to ensure that as future students arrive in Canada, they receive the quality of education that they signed up for and the hope that they were provided in their home countries."

Miller also announced that, starting in September, foreign students attending certain private colleges, including at the graduate level, will no longer be eligible to receive a work permit upon graduation. Students completing a masters or certain other short graduate programs at public institutions will be eligible to apply for a three-year work permit — which is longer than at present in many cases — while spouses of graduate students will be eligible for open work permits.

Community college students likely not affected

Al Parsai, an immigration expert based in Vancouver, told VOA the new policy will likely not affect regular international students attending accredited community colleges.

"These students should remain unaffected as long as they are enrolled in programs exclusively offered by these institutions, without involving partnerships with private, for-profit colleges often labeled as 'degree mills,'" he said. "This distinction ensures that the policy targets preventing abuse while not disadvantaging genuine students."

But Harald Bauder, a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University, told VOA he believes foreign students have become scapegoats for sky-high housing costs that have driven up rents and put home-ownership out of reach for many younger Canadians.

"The public and political debate in Canada, however, is shifting and increasingly projecting a more nuanced picture of the impacts international students have," he said in an interview.

"Many international students are not only suffering from the same high housing costs as Canadian residents, but their lack of secure status can also expose them to exploitation by unscrupulous consultants, employers and landlords."

Foreign students interviewed by VOA expressed understanding for the new policies but worried they might become more restrictive in the future.

"Having resided in Canada for over three years, dealing with inflation and housing challenges, it is understandable why the government would implement a cap to address the housing issue," said Oluwatimileyin Aina, a fourth-year biomedical science student from Nigeria now studying at York University in Toronto.

"I hope that within this timeframe, they can genuinely resolve the housing crisis."

Jwalant Patel, an international student who serves on the board of directors at the University of Regina Students Union, said this week's announcement "makes it transparent that not every student studying in Canada would have a pathway for permanent residency."

But, he said, "It is also important to ensure students who are already in Canada have a simple and direct pathway to permanent residency after graduation."

Inside Higher Ed sums up the academic landscape with 24 statistics.

The article, from Ashley Mowreader, explains how many students use ChatGPT and how many borrowers face personal stress from their student loan debts, among other things. (December 2023)

Abortion is on the ballot in 2024, the White House says, with Vice President Kamala on Monday launching a cross-country tour to equate the campaign of President Joe Biden with protection and expansion of reproductive rights – as Republican candidates speak of possible federal abortion bans.

On Monday — the 51st anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling that federally protected the right to have an abortion — Harris visited the battleground state of Wisconsin to highlight the Biden administration’s support of full access to reproductive health care, including abortion.

“In America, freedom is not to be given,” Harris said. “It is not to be bestowed. It is ours by right. By right. And that includes the freedom to make decisions about one’s own body. Not the government telling you what to do.”

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Biden, a devoted lifelong Catholic, has expressed personal reservations about abortion. On Monday, however, he described the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade — and throw the matter to individual states — as unfair.

Since that court ruling, he noted, voters in different states have repeatedly voted to uphold abortion access.

“Voters have voted to protect reproductive rights,” Biden said. “We need these protections in every state, because for your family to have access to health care should not depend on your ZIP code.”

Followers of the current Republican presidential front-runner, Donald Trump, say Trump opposes abortion rights, but his position has varied and is unclear. His campaign website does not address the issue.

A request for comment from Trump’s campaign was not immediately returned.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from the Southern state of Louisiana, gave his opposition a personal spin at a recent anti-abortion rally in Washington, where he said he was the product of an unplanned teen pregnancy.

"We're passing these bills and we're marching today because it takes a lot of work to convince people that every single human child, every unborn child, has a value that is too profound and precious to ignore,” Johnson said. “And we have every reason to be optimistic, my friends, that we can change public opinion."

Anti-abortion-rights activists say they’re glad the Supreme Court put the decision back in states’ hands. But now, they must decide which national leader is going to move the issue forward.

Activist Eric Scheidler, who joined the Washington march, said that Biden was “too extreme” in his support of abortion access but that none of the remaining Republicans fit his worldview.

“I also don't know if I trust Donald Trump,” said Scheidler, who is executive director of the Illinois-based Pro-Life Action League. “I mean, he gave us the Supreme Court justices that overturned Roe. Since the overturning of Roe, he has said some things critical of the pro-life movement and criticized [Governor Ron] DeSantis’ policy in Florida. I don't really know where Trump stands, because he seems to be talking out of both sides of his mouth on the issue. So I am reserving judgment on both Haley and Trump, because I've been concerned about where both of them stand.”

Abortion rights have won at the polls with voters in states from liberal California to conservative Kansas.

The key swing state of Ohio was the latest, with a decisive 57% approving a constitutional amendment to ensure access to reproductive rights late last year.

A foreign exchange student was found in a remote area of Utah, having been forced to participate in his own “cyber kidnapping.” In the scheme, he was made to fake his own kidnapping, so his parents would pay an $80,000 ransom.

Such “cyber kidnappings” often target international students and their families. Helen Li of Semafor rounds up reports from The New York Times, Australian Financial Review and The Guardian. (January 2024)

The U.S. government uses a form called the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to determine eligibility for financial aid.

An overhaul of the form promised to simplify things for students, but many are running into glitches on the website.

Danielle Douglas-Gabriel has more for The Washington Post. (January 2024)

Sarah Wood of US News & World Report has rounded up the most financially generous universities for international students.

Topping the list is Connecticut’s Wesleyan University, which offers about $83,000 on average to every international student. (December 2023)

ChartAttack.com has a checklist for international students to make the adventure as smooth as possible.

It includes:

• Getting student health insurance
• Planning your economic blueprint
• Setting the stage for academic success

Read the full list here. (December 2023)

The Universities of Wisconsin aim to double its international student population in the next five years.

Madison.com has an article on the hows and whys. (December 2023)

College students want more faculty and adviser involvement as they prepare for careers, according to a Student Voice survey from Inside Higher Ed.

Students are looking for academic experiences that incorporate passion, practicality and breadth, and they want programs that prepare them for life after college. (December 2023)

Business Insider's top executive and parent company said Sunday they were satisfied with the fairness and accuracy of stories that made plagiarism accusations against a former MIT professor who is married to a prominent critic of former Harvard President Claudine Gay.

"We stand by Business Insider and its newsroom," said a spokesman for Axel Springer, the German media company that owns the publication.

The company had said it would look into the stories about Neri Oxman, a prominent designer, following complaints by her husband, Bill Ackman, a Harvard graduate and CEO of the Pershing Square investment firm. He publicly campaigned against Gay, who resigned earlier this month following criticism of her answers at a congressional hearing on antisemitism and charges that her academic writing contained examples of improperly credited work.

With its stories, Business Insider raised both the idea of hypocrisy and the possibility that academic dishonesty is widespread, even among the nation's most prominent scholars.

Ackman's response, and the pressure that a well-connected person placed on the corporate owners of a journalism outlet, raised questions about the outlet's independence.

Business Insider and Axel Springer's "liability just goes up and up and up," Ackman said Sunday in a post on X, formerly Twitter. "This is what they consider fair, accurate and well-documented reporting with appropriate timing. Incredible."

Business Insider's first article, on Jan. 4, noted that Ackman had seized on revelations about Gay's work to back his efforts against her — but that the organization's journalists "found a similar pattern of plagiarism" by Oxman. A second piece, published the next day, said Oxman had stolen sentences and paragraphs from Wikipedia, fellow scholars and technical documents in a 2010 doctoral dissertation at M.I.T.

Ackman complained that it was a low blow to attack someone's family in such a manner and said Business Insider reporters gave him less than two hours to respond to the accusations. He suggested an editor there was an anti-Zionist. Oxman was born in Israel.

The business leader reached out in protest to board members at both Business Insider and Axel Springer. That led to Axel Springer telling The New York Times that questions had been raised about the motivation behind the articles and the reporting process, and the company promised to conduct a review.

On Sunday, Business Insider CEO Barbara Peng issued a statement saying "there was no unfair bias or personal, political and/or religious motivation in pursuit of the story."

Peng said the stories were newsworthy and that Oxman, with a public profile as a prominent intellectual, was fair game as a subject. The stories were "accurate and the facts well-documented," Peng said.

"Business Insider supports and empowers our journalists to share newsworthy, factual stories with our readers, and we do so with editorial independence," Peng wrote.

Business Insider would not say who conducted the review of its work.

Ackman said his wife admitted to four missing quotation marks and one missed footnote in a 330-page dissertation. He said the articles could have "literally killed" his wife if not for the support of her family and friends.

"She has suffered severe emotional harm," he wrote on X, "and as an introvert, it has been very, very difficult for her to make it through each day."

For her part, Gay wrote in the Times that those who campaigned to have her ousted "often trafficked in lies and ad hominem insults, not reasoned arguments." Harvard's first Black president said she was the subject of death threats and had "been called the N-word more times than I care to count."

There was no immediate comment Sunday from Nicholas Carlson, Business Insider's global editor in chief. In a memo to his staff last weekend that was reported by The Washington Post, Carlson said he made the call to publish both of the stories and that he knew the process of preparing them was sound.

With the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling discouraging some minority students, and the college degree gap widening between Black and white Americans, college counselors are changing their strategies.

A report in USA Today explains that advisers are encouraging prospective students to focus not just on academics but also on leadership. (December 2023)

The number of Bangladeshi students studying in the United States increased by more than 300% over a decade, from 3,314 in 2011-2012 to 13,563 last academic year, according to the U.S. government’s Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange 2023.

Porimol Palma, writing in The Daily Star of Bangladesh, gives some of the reasons for the increasing popularity of the U.S. as a study destination. (December 2023)

A total of 28 students have been deported from the United States to India in 2023, according to Indian Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan.

India Today reported that the Indian government has expressed concerns to the United States about the deportation of students with valid visas. (December 2023)

US News & World Report takes a look at the dreaded college waitlist and what it means for international students.

In addition to the anxiety and waiting of the waitlist, international students carry an additional burden: visa complications. Read the full story here. (December 2023)