Canada's foreign student quota cut may force Indians to head to East Europe
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Indian students seeking a foreign degree will have to scout for new options after top favourite Canada took an axe to its international student permits programme. “We’re granting 35% fewer international student permits this year.
And next year, that number’s going down by another 10%," said Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau on September 19. "Immigration is an advantage for our economy — but when bad actors abuse the system and take advantage of students, we crack down," Trudeau posted on his social media handle on X. In January, Canada's immigration minister had noted that a reduction of 35% would lead to 364,000 approved study permits in 2024; now, a 10% further drop would mean that only 3,27,000 student permits will be issued in 2025.
Canada slashing permits by more than a third this year may prompt students to turn to destinations in Eastern Europe, a consultant said. "About 22% of our students (616 students) head to Canada while 7-10% go to the Eastern European nations," said Vaibhav Gupta, chief marketing officer, iSchoolConnect Pvt Ltd, an overseas education consultant. “We will see the intake for the latter increase.
Colleges from Poland, Georgia, Estonia, Lithuania are coming to schools, holding counselling sessions to attract more students from India." The cap on international students and stricter work visa rules have forced thousands of students to seek other countries at the application stage itself. The Indian government informed Parliament in April that over 1.3 million students were studying abroad in 2024. According to a PTI report quoting the government data - of the 1,335,878 Indian students, 427,000 were studying in Canada, 337,630 students in the US, 8,580 in
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