The federal government recently announced it will lift the 20-hour off-campus work cap on international students. Yet it’s only a temporary pilot program that is in place until December 2023.
This is a step in the right direction, but this move should be made permanent to be able to better support international students as they face unaffordable housing, rising cost of living and galactic tuition fees.
International students pay on average $14,306 in tuition fees compared to an average domestic fee of $3,228, Ontario’s auditor general reported last year. Also, 68 per cent of college tuition fee revenue, of $1.7 billion, in the province now comes from international students.
Canada’s inflation rate has been rapidly increasing, hitting a 39-year high in July, with the rate only slightly decreasing to a seven per cent rate in August. These high rates have taken a toll on all residents, both permanent and temporary.
The latest U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for September was released on Oct. 13 and according to those numbers, prices rose 8.2 per cent over the prior year and 0.4 per cent over the previous month. The core consumer price index, which excludes things like food and energy, rose by more than 6.5 per cent, the highest number since 1982.
A recent survey from Dalhousie University found that 23.6 per cent of Canadians have been cutting back on the food they’ve purchased. Among those Canadians, 8.2 per cent said they had changed their diets in order to save money on food and 7.1 per cent said that they’ve skipped meals due to the rising cost of groceries.
The lifting of the 20-hour work week for international students will allow them to be better able to afford groceries among rising costs at grocery stores.
Students often pay a higher rent than the average renter in Canada, according to a recent study by Unité de travail pour l’implantation de logement étudiant (UTILE), a Quebec non-profit organization focused on affordable housing for students.
The study found students often pay up to 225 per cent higher than the average Canadian renter, largely due to post-secondary institutions being located in high-population areas often surrounded by unaffordable neighbourhoods.
Unaffordable housing rates are highest within these population-dense areas, with the number of renters in these areas spending more than 30 per cent of their income on rent in 2021 was above the national average.
Alongside high living costs and an unaffordable renters market, pressure on international students’ wallets are also largely caused due to expensive fees put in place by their schools.
According to Statistics Canada, in 2022-2023, international undergraduate students will pay 429 per cent more than Canadian students, with international graduate students paying 184 per cent more than Canadian students. These inflated expenses are exclusive to international students, and Canada should do more to be aware and accommodating of these fees.
All of these high expenses require deep pockets or huge debt for international students, and the 20-hour work week will not be able to support them.
While Canada’s motivation for removing the cap on the work week was due to labour shortages, making this move temporary isn’t enough for international students.
The cap of 20-hours for international students wasn’t viable for Canada’s current living and educational costs, and it’s time to stop pretending like it was.