Losing International Students Would Have A Huge Impact On N.B. Campuses
This is the second in a series about Covid-19’s impact on international students in New Brunswick.
Covid-19 has interrupted regular programming for universities and colleges, including services for international students that are currently enrolled and those set to arrive in the fall.
Currently, many international students can’t go home to their families due to air travel restrictions. At the same time, many have lost summer employment opportunities that they rely on to help pay for living costs and tuition, while their families’ financial situation has changed and made it tough to provide financial support.
Ryan Sullivan, associate vice-president of enrollment management at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, has been busy figuring out how to keep servicing students’ needs.
“Unfortunately, that scenario is not unique to international students in the sense of summer employment that people may have been counting on may not be available to them, parents and families whose financial situations have changed,” he said. “So all universities are looking at how will we support all of our students.”
PART ONE: International Students Cash-Strapped And Trapped Amidst Covid-19 Crisis
While some international students can access the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, some others don’t. They also don’t qualify for programs specifically aimed at students such as the Canada Emergency Student Benefit. Eligibility information for the Canada Student Service Grant has not been released yet.
They’re calling for more funding support, with the UNB International Students’ Society (UNBISS) saying international students are “facing significant food, housing and financial insecurities, which will only worsen as this crisis endures.”
Sullivan said, unfortunately, the only government financial support available was the provincial government’s Emergency Bridging Fund for Vulnerable Post-Secondary Students, administered by each university or college. This program was also available to students at Mount Allison, NBCC, UNB and other campuses. The program provided a one-time $750 bursary for eligible students.
Any other help available was campus or student organizations’ funds or programs, but they’re all emergency in nature or they’re scholarships that are usually available anyways.
For instance, STU Students Union (STUSU) offered one-time emergency bursaries of $500 for students in need; NBCC helps provide food items to students through a food bank, and Mount Allison University has scholarships based on academic achievement for the upcoming year.
Community groups have stepped up to help students displaced by the closure of residences to find housing, offer drives for grocery runs, and post jobs online, among other things.
UNBISS president Raven-Lee Mills says all of the support so far has helped, it’s not enough.
“People don’t have the money to cover these costs of living in addition to starting another semester of school and having to cover these costs of tuition with no new, or extra, financial aid being offered,” she said, adding that UNBISS supports the position of the UNB Student Union to ask for a roll-back of a scheduled 2 percent increase to tuition fees for next fall.
St. Thomas University Student Union’s former president, Husoni Raymond, an international student who just graduated, agreed with Mills.
“[Emergency funds] might be good relief for someone who needed to pay their rent right away and buy some groceries, but the summer is four months long and there’s so much uncertainty…that the one-time amount would not be enough to sustain someone who’s stuck here for four months,” he said.
Sullivan said one of the things STU staff is focusing on is ensuring that students know what resources are available, including any changes happening to provincial and federal programs.
“From a student recruitment and retention strategy, we want to alleviate financial concerns as best we can for students – recognizing that this is an evolving situation and we don’t know what will come in the weeks and months ahead,” he said.
Despite efforts from staff at universities and colleges to inform students about available programs, some of the seven students Huddle interviewed from STU, UNB and NBCC Moncton weren’t aware that they may qualify for certain programs.
In addition, some international students are also afraid that if they do qualify for the CERB and they access those funds, they could be seen as burdening the government and that could impact their immigration process in the future. But Sullivan said they shouldn’t be afraid to access programs they’re eligible for.
“I would strongly encourage students to take advantage of all the programs that have been made available to them,” he said. “As I understand it, they would not be made eligible for a program that would impact their future status in Canada … So, if they meet the qualifications of a program, if that program’s been designed for them to use, they should use it.”
When asked whether leniency on tuition payment schedules is being considered, Sullivan says “everything is on the table” to support students. He said most universities in the region, including STU, have deferred their budget process. STU would normally have an approved budget by early May but that’s been deferred until at least June.
“Everything is pushed. That will also then dictate what strategies we’ll be able to put to support students,” he said.
At Mount Allison University in Sackville, where about 12 percent of the student body come from abroad, the deadlines for registration, scholarships, and residence fees have been pushed back to allow students – both new and returning – more time to make decisions.
With all the stress piling up due to Covid-19, students are also in need of mental health support.
Sullivan said STU’s full-time on-campus counsellors have moved to video and telephone service, and will also offer online workshops for students throughout the summer. At Mount Allison, services like academic advising and counselling are available online, and the university regularly shares information about government programs and services for students, Dillman said.
A Multi-faceted Impact
Canada is the third most popular destination for international students, with a total of 642,480 valid study permit holders as of December 31, 2019, according to data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC).
The federal government estimates that foreign students contributed $21.6 billion to the country’s economy in 2018 and helped sustain more than 170,000 jobs. But they’re expected to have an even larger impact on the economy as they enter the labour force and become permanent residents.
IRCC data shows 4,360 study permits with New Brunswick as the intended destination were issued in 2019, and 415 were issued in the first three months of 2020. The data doesn’t specify whether this includes students who were already in the province and got their permits renewed. Students enrolled in a program of six months or less don’t need a study visa.
The financial challenges that Covid-19 brought about could lead some of those students to cut their education in Canada short or delay their arrival. Sullivan said that would have a “multi-faceted” impact on the university.
“There’s the more immediate cultural impact that they would have on classrooms and the dynamic within the class,” he said. “Primarily we look at what internationalization does for our Canadian students, by bringing the world to them.”
He’s also concerned about students who have been working hard and making sacrifices to study in Canada, but have to see those efforts stopped.
“If they’ve been working away at a goal and it’s interrupted because of a financial situation, that’s a concern and that’s something anyone would feel empathy for,” he said.
Then there’s the obvious financial impact to the university, which “has its own dominoes,” Sullivan said.
“The reality is we’re going to have a lot of students not just at STU, but the province and the country, who are going to have some tough decisions to make and if that, for some, might mean taking a pause, we’re looking at ways on how can we work to help students continue on their academic journey. That’s the perspective we’re looking at from the university,” he said.
“It’s a tough situation that we’re all trying to work through in a way that we’ve never had to before.”
Challenges For Incoming Foreign Students
According to an April survey of 16,649 prospective international students from 180 countries by Academica Forum and Maple Assist, most students are still determined to study in Canada despite the pandemic. However, the crisis has made them think twice about whether this fall is the right time to start.
If in-person classes aren’t possible, most prospective students plan to stay registered with their university or college of choice. But 52 percent want to delay their classes until in-person services are available, and 41 percent don’t mind starting with online classes.
Sullivan said STU is looking at online and blended-offering options for the upcoming academic year, which includes the pre-arrival and orientation sessions, and the post-arrival support through the first semester.
“That’s a fundamental shift in the way we’ve traditionally done things especially for STU, which prides itself for being a small, intimate, supportive environment. But it’s always been in-person,” he said.
STU is working with other New Brunswick universities and the provincial government on the immigration concerns that could impact incoming students this fall, as well as student attraction for winter and fall of 2021. They’re also looking at how to continue services if the second wave of Covid-19 outbreaks take place.
“Part of that is looking at, from an international border perspective, whether or not international students will be able to join us, but we may be also looking at provincial borders – whether students from other parts of Canada may be able to join us,” Sullivan said.
Those with valid study permits prior to March 18 are eligible to enter Canada, though they’d have to quarantine for 14 days. But with Canadian visa offices in many parts of the world closed, students won’t be able to fulfill biometric requirements for their study permit.
“Even if the borders are opened, it will be a question if they’ll be able to get their study permits in time,” he said.
Mount Allison has so far not seen a change in the number of deferrals from international students, with some online courses set to be offered to those who can’t come to campus, media relations officer Laura Dillman said.
The university’s spring and summer courses are already offered exclusively online and unscheduled, to allow flexibility for students. Student services, including mental health and the international centre, were also moved online in March and are available through the summer.
Starting in the fall, the university plans to offer a blend of on-campus and online or alternate delivery classes. Residences, food services and the dining hall will also reopen in the fall with public health guidelines in place.
“Classrooms, labs, and studios will undergo a number of adjustments consistent with public health guidelines, and the continuing need for physical distancing,” Dillman said.
Information on Covid-19 support available for STU students can be found here, UNB students here, Mount Allison students here, and NBCC students here.
PART ONE: International Students Cash-Strapped And Trapped Amidst Covid-19 Crisis