Could caps on international students come to the UK?

Meet Canada’s new chief international student recruitment officer. https://t.co/EaNxJrvxfB

— Alex Usher (@AlexUsherHESA) October 25, 2022

Some in the UK might be tempted to tweet back – given what’s been announced by Canadian immigration minister Marc Miller this week.

Back in January the federal government announced a decrease in the number of temporary residents – from 6.5 per cent of Canada’s total population down to 5 per cent by 2026 – in part via a cap on international student visas. The idea was that each province and territory would be allotted a portion of the total, distributed according to population.

Now it has announced a further reduction – a 10 per cent reduction from the 2024 target of 485,000 new study permits issued, and then stabilising the intake cap for 2026 so that the number of study permits issued remains the same as 2025.

For 2025, that means reducing study permits issued to 437,000.

It also means updating the Post-Graduation Work Permit Program this autumn to “better align” with immigration goals and labour market needs (via a toughened up English or French language test), limiting work permit eligibility to spouses of master’s degree students to only those whose program is at least 16 months in duration, and limiting work permit eligibility to spouses of foreign workers in management or professional occupations or in sectors with labour shortages.

Many in the UK still cling to the idea that we should take international students (and other temporary residents) out of net migration figures – but regardless of whether you can prove that temporary residents are temporary, once the volume of temporary residents in a given category is huge, that volume becomes a policy concern in and of itself.

At the press briefing this week, Miller noted that the number of temporary residents in Canada has grown rapidly over the last few years – from about 437,000 in 2019 to about 1.2 million in 2023.

The political framing we’re used to is the idea that international students “give” – money and cultural diversity. Much of the framing here was “take”:

…when you look at the growth that we have seen in people that are temporary residents of Canada. That’s something that has grown almost exponentially over the last few years… that comes with consequences.. I think it’s safe to admit that we have allowed certain aspects of this to get overheated, and probably for too long.

Meanwhile in Australia following an announcement that the government would cap international students, at the end of August it announced that its “National Planning Level” (NPL) for new international student commencements would be 270,000 for calendar year 2025.

That will bring numbers back to pre-pandemic levels – to “strengthen the integrity of the sector”, ensure it maintains its “social licence” and ensure a “managed international education system designed to grow sustainably over time”.

They grew too big too quickly, and now the Albanese government is, for want of a better phrase, taking back control.

A big bit of the story in Australia is an Institute of Public Affairs study from last year that identified an accommodation supply shortfall and argued that an “influx” of students was exacerbating an housing shortages in general:

Australians are entitled to ask how they can find a home as inflation drives up mortgages and rent prices become unsustainable, yet the federal government has presided over the largest intake of international students who filled the equivalent of seven out of 10 new homes.

Providers – especially private providers – are hopping mad that their allocations have been made public, although that does at least mean some eyes on the methodology.

Federation University Australia in Victoria has been allocated 1,100 enrolments, a 52 per cent decline from 2023 levels and 72 per cent lower than pre-pandemic levels. Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia is facing a 34 per cent reduction:

The big winners are regional universities. Almost every regional university will be able to enrol more international students next year than they did last year.

Both of the governments here are centre-leftish in character – both countries have seen large increases in international numbers – both are seeking to exert control over both numbers of students and their distribution. Ministers here will be keeping a close eye on the impacts of reforms like these.