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Originally Posted by casper
Those questionable college and career college simple should have not been accredited by provincial authorities in the first place.
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You mean virtually every public college in the country and some universities? Did you forget that some of the biggest beneficiaries / abusers were institutions like Conestoga College and Cape Breton University? Or the schools who opened GTA campuses with private career colleges just to get in on the racket, like Sault College. These schools reacted logically to the federal government putting serving up a cash cow as a buffet item to them.
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Originally Posted by casper
Student visas are temporary. If you graduated from a "real college" or university in a legitimate program I think it is reasonable that there is a path to permanent status.
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The vast majority of these students do graduate from "real" schools in "real" programs. The problem is that, in responding to federal policy, these schools all created 1 year (8-12 month) programs of questionable value as a path to residency. It's seen as such by those who enroll. Many of them arrive with undergraduate degrees and simply take the most generic and easy college program they can, that will let them work while studying and get residency. For example, sign up for a marketing diploma while having an undergraduate business degree, work at Tim Hortons or retail part time and then look for qualifying office work once they have a work permit.
We aren't getting IIT and IIM grads from India. They go to Silicon Valley and Wall Street. We're getting the people who would never have qualified for immigration normally, even if they had completed a degree in India. The government created a way to let them buy their way into Canada.
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Originally Posted by casper
What was happening was nonsense and undermining the credibility of our immigration and education systems.
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And it's still happening. With the change in policy, all the government has done is change the programs that need to be offered. Instead of diplomas, now they have to call them Master's degrees, since graduate studies are exempt from limits. Can't wait to hear about Conestoga and Sault College's executive MBA programs.
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Originally Posted by casper
The feds have cracked down and now require a letter from the province with their applicants. I think the provinces also need to crack down and suspend the accreditation of some of these schools. In BC that has started to do that. Have the other more conservative provinces done the same?
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No crackdown will really solve what is a fundamentally broken policy as I described above. And I say this as somebody who really believes that students make the best immigrants. If the government was sincere they would institute these changes immediately:
1) Minimum 2 yrs of study for college and undergraduate programs and 1 yr for postgraduate programs.
2) Graduate work permits restricted to areas of study where we face known shortages. Healthcare, engineering/tech, construction, etc. You can study marketing at Conestoga if you want. You won't be staying in Canada after graduation.
3) Full program duration housing requirements for international students. Institution has to offer housing placement with admission to all internationals. We probably need to impose a cost limit too to stop bad faith offers here.
4) I would suggest a reduced work requirement to 20 hrs. Though I'm not sure how enforceable this is with under the table work.
5) Higher monetary requirements. Students should be required to show funds equal to the first year of tuition and living expenses for the institution they are attending and city they are living in up front.
The above requirements could be implemented immediately and would eliminate most of the scrubs you see taking advantage of the system. That would definitely mean fewer students of higher quality. But then the schools would actually have to offer relevant (and expensive) programs and actually start housing students instead of imposing externalities on their communities while they get fat. And the federal government would probably see notable drops in numbers nationally, less wage suppression (higher inflation), reduced housing pressure and lower GDP growth immediately (better in the long run). It's doubtful whether this government wants that.