Nova Scotia grants 12,900 applications for studies 

For the next academic year, Nova Scotia has been allotted 12,900 study permit applications; based on past issuance rates, 60% of these applications are anticipated to be accepted. According to CBC News, the information was provided by the province’s minister of advanced education on March 4 during a gathering in Halifax.

Although Brian Wong did not specify how the applications will be split between public and private universities, he did state that his department is developing a “fair” plan.

“Before this year, educational institutions had the ability to submit an almost limitless amount of applications from overseas students to the federal government. Depending on the school, the success rate of those applications could range from average to extremely low,” he said, as per the news article.

The province could expect 7,740 international undergraduate students in the upcoming year, based on average approval rates.

“We want to ensure that every school and other recognized learning institution has a good chance of succeeding.”

In January, the federal government said that foreign undergraduate enrollment will be limited to 360,000 students nationwide for the following two years.

British Columbia received 83,000 applications for undergraduate study permits for the next year earlier this week, with the hope that 50,000 of them would be granted. Some were taken aback by the amount of funding allocated to private institutions, given the balance between public and private institutions (53% public vs. 47% private). The minister’s statistics are somewhat less than ApplyBoard’s estimations for the province.

To offset any declines in the number of foreign students, several universities are reportedly thinking of recruiting students from nations with historically higher visa acceptance rates. This might lead to a final cap that is higher than the 360,000 government objective.

It’s unclear, though, if the IRCC will merely alter its procedures in the event that the typical 60% acceptance rate for study permits is exceeded. The federal government will provide 605,000 provincial attestation letters to post-secondary schools nationwide in the upcoming year in order to enforce the federal cap.

The minister went on to say that the government is in talks with the province’s institutions about bilateral financing agreements. 15% of full-time students must live on campus, according to the regulations. Some don’t currently have enough housing on their campuses, such as Dalhousie University and Cape Breton University, which plans to cut its total enrollment to 7,000 students in four years.

Prior to Nova Scotia announcing that it will increase fees for first-year foreign undergraduate students at eight universities by 9%, CBU had previously protested that it had been excluded from all consultation and negotiating procedures.

This week, Wong stated that the housing problems are “not related to the international students. Their goal in attending the institution was to learn. Many of them desire to integrate into that community.”