Recovering from the gluttony of Christmas dinner and resolving to resist the lure of nibbling on leftovers is a little like universities making new year resolutions to be slightly less greedy and indiscriminate about international student recruitment. We all know that it makes sense to lose the excess pounds, focus on high quality, nourishing food, and cease acting with the incaution of a drunken sailor. But the temptation of finishing the mince pies, the bottle of egg nog and the turkey sandwiches, while avoiding the gym is sometimes overwhelming.
Maybe that’s why it’s up to Governments to decide who has been naughty or nice and who deserves a visit from the Ghost of Christmas 2024. The last few months of 2023 saw a lot of political posturing and positioning in the four main recruiting countries and the impact of some changes are already being felt. A quick look at the implications suggests that for the big four recruiting countries international recruitment at the latter end of 2024 will be a Nightmare Before Christmas for some but a Miracle on 34th Street for others.
The good news for student recruiters is that it’s a leap year so they have a whole extra day to work out their response.1
United Kingdom
The gift of post-study work in September 2019 gave UK universities the keys to the student recruitment larder but they appear to have been caught eating too much low-quality pie. This has left the sector vulnerable to Government action and it is likely to find the coming recruitment cycle difficult. Enroly Data Insights in November 2023 indicated “..overall deposit payments are down by 52%, CAS issuance is down by 64% and visa issuance is down by 71% when compared to January 2023.” While the year-on-year comparison has its limitations there seems little doubt that changes in Government visa policy on dependents is already biting.
News in early December that a review of the Graduate Route to “prevent abuse” and “protect the integrity and quality of the UK’s outstanding higher education sector” may not augur well for the medium term either. Although the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) is not likely to report on the issue until near the end of 2024, when a general election is either under way or already over, one suspects that any new Government, will accept its recommendations. MAC recommended against the graduate route before it was introduced and there is no reason to believe they won’t do so again.
MAC’s starting point seems clear from the Annual Report 2023 where it notes that there are “..a very different set of students accessing the route than might have been expected based on student patterns in 2019 when the route was announced.” The largest growth has been “predominantly been in institutions that charge the lowest fees” and “been strongest at the less selective universities”. Anyone who understands international recruitment would have predicted these outcomes and it is quite extraordinary that Government supporters of the Graduate Route did not understand these as likely outcomes.
A possible saviour for the current length of post-study work visa might be that the recent restrictions on dependents make a serious enough dent in international student numbers before the main intake in autumn 2024. Aligned with an unwillingness to invest further in the higher education sector this could find the narrow path that allows the next Government to see how net migration figures play out for at least another year before imposing further constraints. One suspects, however, that the ideological setting of MAC will demand more in terms of quality recruitment and a requirement to move to a different visa after study.
Canada
The growth in Canada’s international student recruitment numbers has been remarkable. According to Erudera, study permit holders nearly doubled from 2016 (410,570) to 2022 (807,750) with international students in tertiary education increasing by around 150,000 from 2015/16 (228,924) to 2020/21 (373,599). The strength of recruitment from India has been a feature of the market for many years so it was well placed to capitalize on the boom of recent years.
Many observers would reflect that the magnitude of the growth has come at a cost to processes and reputation. Claims of “bureaucratic mismanagement” were being called out as long ago as 2017 and there have been reports of universities accepting 99% of international students who apply and/or having visa rejection rates around 80%. Issues around aggregator platforms allowing institutions to absolve their responsibilities for agents and the sheer volume of applications causing delays in visa processing or allowing fraudulent applications through have also been prominent.
It does look as if the Canadian federal government has responded to the various scandals around students starving, dying and being misled about their study choices but in the wrestling match with powerful provinces it is difficult to see a comprehensive response taking hold. One response to a possible international enrolment cap was from Alexandre Lahaie, a spokesperson for Quebec’s Immigration Ministry saying that “Quebec does not intend to impose a cap on the number of foreign students in its jurisdiction…..Although issuing study permits is the responsibility of the federal government, education is the exclusive power of Quebec,”. The pace of change can be slow as reflected by the cost-of-living financial requirement for students going up recently for the first time since the early 2000s.
While the IRCC has signalled a new Trusted Institution framework in 2024 and the International Education Strategy is due a refresh in mid-2024 experts reflect that this is a “challenging policy area”. It is difficult to see that a minority Government facing an election no later than October 2025 is likely to want to upset the apple cart, particularly when some suggest Prime Minister Trudeau’s own role as party leader is under scrutiny. One suspects that any changes to policy on international student recruitment in 2024 will be about tidying up around the edges and minimizing friction rather than significantly reducing intakes.
Australia
While the Australian government has rattled its sabre over the issues of international student recruitment the smart money seems to be on plenty of light touch regulation and monitoring along with touches on the tiller for employability without significantly damaging intakes. The Australian Migration Strategy released in December 2023 looked a pretty nuanced document that provides plenty of space to “…lift the standards for international students and education providers while ensuring graduates help meet skills shortages and do not become permanently temporary.”
Study Australia leapt on the Strategy to suggest a join up between clear post study pathways, genuine student requirement, requirements on education providers and high-quality education agents. By maintaining special initial stay periods for Indian nationals they have kept faith with a key market while setting IELTS at 5.5 for university foundation and pathway programs at the same time as moving levels for Temporary Graduate and Student visas upwards balances access with quality.
In contrast to the UK and Canada there seems to be a coherence in the Migration Strategy which respects the strength of its higher education sector as a critical part of national branding and infrastructure while addressing issues in the private VET sector where some “have systematically exploited Australia’s education system and broken migration law.” Issues of graduate employability are addressed with the responsibility of institutions being noted and a study commissioned “..to better analyse international student outcomes and pathways into the labour market, with deep tripartite consultation of unions, employers, and training and education providers.”
Some are concerned that the measures put in place to date will have a dampening impact on recruitment but the sense is of a more reassuring picture than that being offered by the UK. Placed alongside some speculation that the Canadian juggernaut might be losing pace this is likely to make the Australian picture pretty benign for international students. 2024 looks like it should be another good year.
United States of America
For the growing sending markets the USA is a highly desirable country with a well-regarded higher education sector. There is also every sign that US universities seeking to increase international recruitment have upped their game in terms of focus, competitive awareness and professionalism. Even the Government has played its part with exceptional numbers of visas processed in 2023, amendments to H-1B visas and steps towards modernizing the visa process more generally.
The India numbers were material in driving international enrolments in Fall 2023 and the chief executive of the Institute of International Education was positively gleeful in suggesting, “Made in the USA is something that these students and families want on their diplomas.” It should be very difficult to be negative about the potential for the US to substantially grow international enrolments in 2024. The real question is what might disturb that and what might happen next.
A presidential election in November 2024 already has some pundits claiming that a re-election for Donald Trump would lead to, “A mass deportation operation. A new Muslim ban. Tariffs on all imported goods and “freedom cities” built on federal land.” Study Portals data from 2016 suggests that more than 50% of international students were “far less likely” to study in the US than they were before Trump’s election. It is difficult to see why the outcome would be any different in the coming year.
Trump’s views on higher education institutions suggest there may be even wider implications for the sector. The noise around the election is bound to rise and the rhetoric is almost certain to ramp up in a way that begins to make alternative countries look a more stable option. Relationships with India could also become a bit sticky if the threatened “retribution” on reciprocal taxation looks like becoming a reality.
Summary
The world offers many options delivering courses in English and most are finding ways of making post-work study a possibility with some going further in terms of possible routes to citizenship. In the face of uncertainty many agents and students have a tendency to consider their options and look for the route of least resistance to meet their needs. The evidence of the past few years is that options are kept open and decisions can be delayed for much longer than ever used to be the case.
We also seem to be seeing Governments viewing higher education and its capacity for international recruitment as a work-force planning component in the face of changing population demographics. While university leaders are quick to proclaim quality education as the key driver of global interest there is growing evidence that low cost, post graduate employability and routes to citizenship are much more important for the growing markets. All this at a point when the enthusiasm for university education is under pressure from disenchanted youth, apathetic public and cash-squeezed Governments.
More than ever before there is a need for joining up the dots in the way that the Australian Migration Strategy seems to do (although everyone recognizes that implementation is something different). The UK seems to lurch from policy to policy without much apparent insight into the consequences and Canada appears to be slow moving and in thrall to competing interests across Federal and Provincial governments. The US runs the risk of finding its historical attraction and dominant position undermined by more nimble players while internal, political factionalism prevents any realistic hope of long-term, strategic planning for growth.
Notes
- Royal Museums Greenwich tell us that “the first leap year in the modern sense in Britain was 1752, when 11 days were ‘lost’ from the month September with the adoption of the Gregorian calendar by Britain and her colonies. After 1752 we adopted the system still in use today where an additional day is inserted in February in years wholly divisible by four, other than years ending in 00 with the exception of those divisible by 400 which are still leap years (like 2000).”
Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay