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Number of international students

As noted in Section 2, Data sources and methodology, a comprehensive data set representing “internationally mobile students” in Canada cannot be found in existing data sources. Therefore, we sought an alternate data set: the number of “international students” from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) as a proxy to represent international students in Canada.

IRCC defines international students as follows:

Temporary residents who are in Canada on a study permit in the observed calendar year. International students have been issued a document that allows them to study in Canada and does not imply that they may or may not also be a permit holder of another type at the same time. Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, a study permit is not needed for any program of study that is six months or less.

There are three broad levels of study for international students.

1. Secondary or less: secondary school and elementary school
2. Post-Secondary: which is further divided into college and university programs
3. Other studies.

The IRCC data therefore allows us to use the number of study permit holders as a proxy for the number of international students at a given time in a year. It also allows for a distinction to be made between broad levels of study.

One limitation of using the IRCC data set to represent the number of international students is that the actual number of permit holders registered at a Canadian institution may be smaller than the number of permits issued due to the fact that some permit holders may not be able to, or have chosen not to, enrol in an education program (after they are in Canada).^[1]

One of the adjustments we have made includes removing a portion of student permit holders in the “secondary or less” category, who are assumed to be children whose parents are enrolled in a post-secondary education program. The adjustment is based on industry information, as reported in the 2015 ICG report for CAPS-I.

These students have been further allocated to studying in public or independent K-12 school systems based on industry intelligence.

The allocation of student permit holders in the post-secondary system to finer categories of trade, college, under-graduate, master’s, PhD and other type of programs is based on IRCC information and data in Statistics Canada’s data series (Table 37-10-0018-01 Postsecondary enrolments, by registration status, institution type, status of student in Canada and gender).

Further allocation of registration status in full-time and part-time study for each type of students has been based on Statistics Canada’s data (same Table 37-10-0018-01).

Finally, another important source of international students that is not covered in the IRCC data is the number of students who study in Canada for periods of less than six months, as they do not require a study permit to enter the country. In this regard, we rely on data from Languages Canada which collects data that is useful for our purposes.

Languages Canada administers an annual survey with its member schools to collect data on such topics as the source of students, immigration status, the length of study, the students’ average weekly spending and other variables. On Languages Canada’s advice, we sought data related to international students studying in its private membership schools only, as the number of those studying in its public membership schools would have been represented in IRCC’s dataset. ^[2]

We made further adjustments to calculate the average number of student weeks‑ for students studying for up to six months in each province and territory.

Student expenditures

Tuition and fees

For tuition and other fees at the K-12 level, we relied on information published in the and . Note that these are based on tuition and fees in a school year (10 months). Tuition and fees in private schools can be substantially higher. In this regard, we also used information available from the CAPS-I report to calculate the average annual tuition and fees for international students in private schools.

Detailed information on tuition and fees for full-time university-level international students in each province is available in Statistics Canada’s annual Tuition and Living Accommodation Costs (TLAC) survey. Note that the TLAC does not provide any data for the territories.

When deriving student tuition and fees for the other levels of study other than “secondary or less” (i.e., post-secondary, which is further divided into trade/college and university; and other), we made the following assumptions:

• University – We applied separate undergraduate and graduate tuition values from the TLAC to full-time undergraduate students and students in master’s/PhD programs.^[3]

Part-time students were assumed to take a 50% course load for the purposes of calculation.

In addition to tuition, we have included “additional fees,” which represent the compulsory fees the universities impose on both domestic and international students, such as facility fees, society fees, health and dental fees (for international students only), student pass fees in some cases, and others. We also made an allowance of $1,200 per academic year for books/tools/materials.

Tuition and fees are for an academic year (i.e., eight months) in the TLAC data, and we have assumed that 100% of students study eight months of the year.

• College – For full-time tuition, we applied a factor of 75% to the average university undergraduate tuition in each province. The 75% is an approximation based on web research conducted for select college programs in each province to see how they compare to the full-time tuition for an undergraduate program. The exception to this 75% ratio is with tuition of college students in Ontario – for this province, weighted average tuition for full-time undergraduate was $42,890 for the 2022 calendar year. We have searched College Ontario’s website to look for information pertaining to tuition and fees for international students and found that most fees were lower than $20,000 in an academic year. Consequently, for Ontario, the ratio applied was 45%.

For part-time students, we assumed a 50% course load.

We also assumed that international students in “college” level of study pay on average the same percentage (75%) of “additional fees” as university-level international students. We also made the same allowance for books/equipment requirement ($1,200) in a year.

For international college students in the territories, tuition and fees information was derived from colleges’ websites.

• Other – since we did not have any detailed information on the nature of their study, we assumed the following: that these students may pay tuition and fees equivalent to the average paid by K-12 and college students. Students in this category were also assumed to incur living expenses equivalent to those in part-time college studies.

For short-term international students, estimates of tuition and fees on a weekly basis were derived from information in Languages Canada’s 2022 annual report.

Living expenses

• Secondary or less – we relied on information published in the and . A student in the public school system pays an average homestay cost of $1,000 per month (in 2022) for a 10-month period. Essentially, we assumed that students return to their home countries for summer vacation. For those in the private, independent school system, we assumed that three quarters of these students pay an average homestay cost of $1,000 per month, and one quarter of these students board with the school they attend.
• University – for full-time students, we use Statistics Canada’s annual Tuition and Living Accommodation Costs (TLAC) survey data (to calculate the average costs of on-campus room and meal expenses for an eight-month period for students in the undergraduate, master’s and PhD programs).^[4] Then, values were scaled up to full-year (12 months) values. That is, we assumed that international students in the university category stay in the country for 12 months, even though they may only take courses for two semesters.

For part-time students, we assumed a monthly homestay cost of $950 in 2022 for 12 months in a year.

We also made allowances for transportation costs for students staying in different provinces and territories. We applied data from Statistics Canada’s Survey of Household Spending (SHS), which details household spending on public transportation, by province and territory, in 2019.^[5] The values we used refer to the average expenditure per household on public transportation (households that did or did not use public transit). Values in 2019 dollars were adjusted for inflation between 2019 and 2022.

• For students in non-university study (college as well as those in the “other” category), we assumed that they spend the equivalent of what university students have to pay during an academic year (average room, meal and transportation costs).

The average costs for meals and accommodation at colleges in the territories were derived in the same way as they were in the provinces. Estimates of transportation costs were calculated as the average for provincial transportation costs.

In addition to basic living costs, as presented above, we made an allowance of $3,750 per student per year ($1,000 for K-12 students) for discretionary expenses (such as eating out, recreational activities and entertaining), in 2022.

For each province and territory, for each level of study, the formula to calculate gross expenditures was as follows:

Estimated number of students in that level of study multiplied by the sum of (average tuition and additional fees, books, average room and meal costs, average transportation costs, average discretionary spending) per year = gross expenditures in one year for international students in the level of study

Scholarships and awards

In this study, in order to calculate the net economic benefits that international students brought to the host country, we took into account any financial assistance that international students received from Canadian federal or provincial governments, and from institutions.

We conducted extensive web research on the financial statements of universities and colleges across all provinces in order to find such information, but to little avail. We estimated that the support universities and colleges provide to international students is probably no more than 1% of the student tuition collected.^[6]

We were also informed that the federal government annually grants $27 million to support international students.^[7] As such, we used a factor equivalent to 1% of international student tuition and fees, plus $27 million to represent the deduction. This reduction factor of 1% was applied to students in the trade/college, undergraduate, master’s and PhD programs only.

Additional tourism benefits from visiting friends and family members

One additional benefit of international education is increased tourism activities, due to family and friends visiting the host country while students remain in the country.

Unfortunately, this area is still a challenge with respect to data availability. We do not have a good handle on the number of family and friends who visit international students during their stay in Canada. For the purposes of this estimation, we applied a similar methodology to the one used in an Australian study to derive the estimated number of international students’ family and friends who participate in tourism activities.

The methodology in the Australian Council for Private Education and Training’s (ACPET’s) 2013 study was based on research conducted by Tourism Research Australia. The study shows that for every 10 formal visiting students (defined as those whose main purpose for visiting Australia is education), an additional five family members or friends visit the country. For every 10 informal visiting students (defined as those whose main purpose for visiting Australia was not education but still studied a course while on their trip), there are an additional 2 visitors.

In our current study, we assumed that for every 10 long-term international students, five family members and/or friends visited Canada during the year, and that for every 10 short-term‑ international students, two family members and/or friends visited Canada during the year.

The average expenditure of these visiting family or friends has been derived from Destination Canada’s reports on U.S. and international arrivals and expenditure by type.^[8],[9]