Visa delays affecting would-be ACC students
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 03/09/2022 (1266 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Some international students planning to attend Assiniboine Community College are among those caught up in a student visa processing delay that puts them at risk of missing the start of the school year.
The college reports that about 20 per cent of first-year international students who were accepted to attend this fall, about 35, haven’t yet received their study permit. Although, international enrolment could rebound if some of those students attend programs that start later in the year.
“For the academic year in its entirety, we do still expect a slight increase,” Anya McNabb, ACC director of communications and marketing said Friday afternoon.
The Globe and Mail has reported that the federal Immigration Department is struggling to keep up with a surge in applications. Students from outside Canada often pay two to three times the tuition paid by domestic students, making for an important source of revenue for colleges and universities.
As of this week, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada had processed more than 360,000 student visas (a 17 per cent increase over the same period in 2021).
And, as of the end of July, 34 per cent of pending international student visa applications were taking longer to process than government standards. The number of affected students is estimated to be in the thousands, The Globe and Mail reported.
At ACC more than 170 first-year international students have been accepted into programs that begin next week, McNabb said, but about 20 per cent of those haven’t received their study permit.
That 170 would be a slight increase over last fall’s number of 150, if not for the delay. McNabb said the college may still see an increase in first-year international students if some of those delayed students are enrolled in programs that start later in the fall or January and their permits arrive in the meantime.
For any affected students enrolled for the fall semester who can’t make it in time, McNabb said the college will work with them to see if they can take the same or a similar program at a later date. She said the college is also in contact with the provincial and federal governments, and advocating for improvements to the international student visa system with other groups such as Colleges and Institutes Canada.
Meanwhile, Brandon University reports that it doesn’t seem to be impacted by the study permit issue.
“At this point, we’re not seeing the same impact from deferrals as other schools are reporting,” BU director of marketing and communications Grant Hamilton said.
» ihitchen@brandonsun.com