Challenges for international students extend beyond visa cuts

International students are facing higher costs of living and tuition, cuts to new study permits, and challenges back home. So where does that leave them?

The Gateway spoke with Abdullah Al Anik, the co-president of the International Students’ Association (ISA) at the University of Alberta. He says the overall situation for international students is worrisome.

Anik said that some of the ISA’s concerns are around Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) becoming stricter with the processing of visa applications. 

“That’s valid, but we need to understand that there are a great number of gems and brains across the world who are waiting for their application to be processed,” Anik explained. 

The growing backlog of visa applications is cause for further concern, Anik said. As of December, the IRCC has a backlog of over one million applications.

“Regulations are good, but it’s just about the processing times that we are worried about,” he said. “If you send an application and it comes back to you within a month, it’s okay, four working weeks is fine. But if you have something in the application and you have to take six months, eight months, a year, this is when people are getting more confused.”

Anik said that even after getting a study permit, students can face challenges in obtaining a work permit for a co-op term.

Oftentimes students are unsatisfied with the response they get from the IRCC, according to Anik. 

These challenges accumulate to greater uncertainty and anxiety for international students looking to pursue their studies in Canada. Anik has seen people leave Canada because of processing delays, or because of rising costs.

University encouraged by Ottawa’s response to advocacy

Melissa Padfield is the deputy provost (students and enrolment) at the U of A. She responded to some of the concerns and challenges international students are facing in an interview with The Gateway.

“We know [visa processing] has created a lot of stress, both outside of Canada with students that want to join our community, and within our community,” she said.

Padfield explained that the university does provide guidance for students who are navigating their visa applications. She noted that only certified immigration specialists can advise students on anything to do with immigration, visas, and study permits.

The U of A has some certified individuals housed within the International Student Service Centre.

“We have also increased the number of people that can support that process,” Padfield said. “We work with a company that also helps students in preparation of their visa applications.”

She said it helps to make sure students know what to prepare for and don’t miss any of the required components of the application. Missing a component of the application can lead to further delays.

Padfield also said that the university advocates to the federal government around the processing timelines.

“We’re really encouraged to see the government starting to think about how we can expedite study permit evaluation for some of our graduate students, [and] how graduate students no longer need to have a provincial attestation letter,” Padfield said.

Graduate and post-doctoral students are also exempt from the study permit cap. President of the Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) Aashish Kumar said this is an advocacy win for graduate students.

No acknowledgement or offer of support from U of A during conflict in his home country, Anik says

International students are facing challenges within the university too. For many, their home countries are facing conflict. 

Anik is from Bangladesh and said that he received no support when there was conflict in his home country. He didn’t receive any email of recognition of the conflict or information about the available supports. Other students he talked to said they experienced the same. 

He said he confronted a university administrator about this at a tuition town hall last year. Anik said they only said sorry, which didn’t feel like enough for him.

He had a friend who was unable to continue his studies at the U of A because of the conflict happening back home. According to Anik, he had already committed to paying his tuition for the upcoming year and lost that money even though he didn’t continue his program.

“They have to restart their career back home because the university does not care about what happened to that one student,” Anik said.

He said that it made it harder for him to think that he would recommend that someone from his country should come study at the U of A.

When asked about the lack of support offered to students during the conflict in Bangladesh, Padfield said that it is standard that the university reaches out to students.

“Geopolitical instability is unfortunately a reality that we are contending with all the time,” she said. “It’s something that when we have a global learning community is going to affect those different groups of our students from one time to another.”

When the U of A reaches out to students, it tries to connect them with the available supports. This spans across mental health, personal issues, financial, and school-based issues, Padfield explained.

The university also tries to keep their staff and professionals informed about the ongoing conflicts so they can be sensitive to how that may affect their students.

“I understand we are cash cows … [but] we expect a certain level of care, sincerity, and service,” Anik says

Anik also cited the rising cost of tuition for international students as a concern. International students have a guaranteed tuition when they are admitted to the U of A, but there is no cap to what the increases for newly enrolled students can be.

Tuition for international students can be three or four times higher than that of a domestic student in the same program.

Anik described it as feeling like exploitation.

“I understand we are cash cows, I understand that we give money to afford the education here for a better future. But we also have to understand that if this is a business, if we are being cashed out like a farm animal, we also expect a certain level of care, sincerity, and service.”

He added that increasing the cost of attendance will affect the diversity of the U of A’s population. The more tuition costs, the harder it will be for students from developing countries to attend the U of A.

Padfield said that she’s not unfamiliar with the sentiment that international students are “cash cows.” She said that “any time I’ve heard a student say that, that really makes me sad to hear that anyone in our community would feel [that way].”

“I want every student to feel valued as a part of the U of A,” she said. “The reason why I think it’s so important for us to talk about the international student experience is because I truly believe international students are a key component of building out a learning community that I want to be a part of, and that I think students want to be a part of.”

She said the reason to have international students is not the tuition they pay, as it only supports the cost of program delivery. Rather, she sees international students as vital to building a community with diverse perspectives.

“We believe Albertan students deserve to sit next to students from around the globe to have those diverse perspectives exchanged,” Padfield said.

Call for change and action

If the existing framework isn’t fixed, students will look to other countries to pursue their education, Anik said. Students may see other countries as being more affordable, having better opportunities, or having better pay.

“If the U of A continues like this, unfortunately, it will be devastating,” he said. “Hopefully they are improving things, maybe by next year, maybe one year later, I will say a different thing.”

Taking action is necessary, according to Anik. Putting pressure on individuals with the power to make change is needed. 

“As long as you wait for a person’s availability … there will always be 10 other things before they look at this,” Anik said.