Tag: Fall
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Nvidia, Microsoft Stock Fall in Wake of New AI Model From DeepSeek (Bloomberg Podcasts)
Higher Education Inquirer : Nvidia, Microsoft Stock Fall in Wake of New AI Model From DeepSeek (Bloomberg Podcasts)
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Canadian study permit approvals fall far below cap targets
Canadian study permit approvals are on track to fall by 45% in 2024, rather than the 35% planned reduction of last year’s controversial international student caps, new IRCC data analysed by ApplyBoard has revealed.
“The caps’ impact was significantly underestimated,” ApplyBoard founder Meti Basiri told The PIE News. “Rapidly introduced policy changes created confusion and had an immense impact on student sentiment and institutional operations.
“While aiming to manage student numbers, these changes failed to account for the perspectives of students, and their importance to Canada’s future economy and communities,” he continued.
The report reveals the far-reaching impact of Canada’s study permit caps, which were announced in January 2024 and followed by a tumultuous year of policy changes that expanded restrictions and set new rules for post-graduate work permit eligibility, among other changes.
For the first 10 months of 2024, Canada’s study permit approval rate hovered just above 50%, resulting in an estimated maximum of 280,000 approvals from K-12 to postgraduate levels. This represents the lowest number of approvals in a non-pandemic year since 2019.
Source: IRCC. Disclaimer: Data for 2021-Oct 2024 is sourced from IRCC. Full-year 2024 figures are estimates extrapolated from Jan-Oct 2024 and full-year 2021-2023 IRCC data. Projections may be subject to change based on changing conditions and source data. “Even from the early days of the caps, decreased student interest outpaced government estimates,” noted the report, with stakeholders highlighting the reputational damage to Canada as a study destination.
“Approvals for capped programs fell by 60%, but even cap-exempt programs declined by 27%. Major source countries like India, Nigeria, and Nepal saw over 50% declines, showing how policies have disrupted demand across all study levels,” said Basiri.
Following major PGWP and study permit changes announced by the IRCC in September 2024, four out of five international student counsellors surveyed by ApplyBoard agreed that Canada’s caps had made it a less desirable study destination.
Though stakeholders across Canada recognised the need to address fraud and student housing issues, many had urged the federal government to wait until the impact of the initial caps was clear before going ahead with seemingly endless policy changes.
At the CBIE conference in November 2024, immigration minister Marc Miller said he “profoundly disagreed” with the prevailing sector view that the caps and subsequent PGWP and permanent residency restrictions had been an “overcorrection”.
Post-secondary programs, which were the primary focus of the 2024 caps, were hit hardest by the restrictions, with new international enrolments at colleges estimated to have dropped by 60% as a result of the policies.
While Canada’s largest source destinations saw major declines, the caps were not felt evenly across sending countries. Senegal, Guinea and Vietnam maintained year-over-year growth, signalling potential sources of diversity for Canada’s cap era.
The report also highlighted Ghana’s potential as a source destination, where approval ratings – though declining from last year – remain 175% higher than figures from 2022.
Rapidly introduced policy changes created confusion and had an immense impact on student sentiment
Meti Basiri, ApplyBoard
The significant drop in study permit approvals was felt across all provinces, but Ontario – which accounted for over half of all study permit approvals in 2023 – and Nova Scotia have seen the largest impact, falling by 55% and 54.5% respectively.
Notably, the number of study permits processed by the IRCC dropped by a projected 35% in 2024, in line with the government’s targets, but approval rates have not kept pace.
When setting last year’s targets, minister Miller only had the power to limit the number of applications processed by the IRCC, not the number of study permits that are approved.
The initial target of 360,000 approved study permits was based on an estimated approval rate of 60%, resulting in a 605,000 cap on the number of applications processed.
Following new policies such as the inclusion of postgraduate programs in the 2025 cap, Basiri said he anticipated that study permit approvals would remain below pre-cap levels.
“While overall student numbers may align with IRCC’s targets, the broader impact on institutional readiness and Canada’s reputation will be key areas to watch in 2025,” he added.
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First-year student enrollment spiked 5.5% in fall 2024
This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.Dive Brief:
- Enrollment of first-year students grew 5.5% in fall 2024 compared to the year before, representing an increase of about 130,000 students, according to a final tally from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
- The figure is a striking reversal from the clearinghouse’s preliminary findings in October, which erroneously reported a decline in first-year students. Earlier this month, the clearinghouse said the early data contained a research error and suspended its preliminary enrollment reports, which use different methodologies to determine first-year student counts than the research center’s reports on final enrollment figures.
- College enrollment overall grew 4.5% in fall 2024 compared to the year before, according to the final data, rebounding to levels seen before the coronavirus pandemic caused widespread declines.
Dive Insight:
The new data is promising for higher education institutions, many of which have weathered steep enrollment declines in the wake of the pandemic.
“It is encouraging to see the total number of postsecondary students rising above the pre-pandemic level for the first time this fall,” Doug Shapiro, the research center’s executive director, said in a Wednesday statement.
Undergraduate enrollment surged 4.7% this fall, representing an increase of about 716,000 students. Graduate enrollment likewise spiked 3.3%, representing an uptick of about 100,000 students.
All sectors enjoyed enrollment increases. For-profit, four-year institutions had the largest enrollment growth, with headcounts rising 7.5% in fall 2024 compared to the year before. Public two-year institutions and public primarily associate-degree granting baccalaureate institutions, or PABs, saw similar levels of growth — 5.8% and 6.3%, respectively.
Enrollment also increased at four-year nonprofits. Overall headcounts grew 3.8% at private colleges and 3.1% at public institutions.
Older students largely drove the growth in first-year students. Enrollment of first-year students from ages 21 to 24 surged 16.7% in fall 2024, while headcounts of students 25 and older spiked by a whopping 19.7%.
Enrollment of younger first-year students also increased, though the growth was more muted.
Headcounts of 18-year-old students grew 3.4%. However, this group of first-year students has still not recovered to pre-pandemic levels, Shapiro said in a statement.
Similarly, enrollment of first-year students ages 19 to 20 increased 4.5%.
Two-year public colleges and public PABs enjoyed strong increases in their first-year student population, with 6.8% and 8.4% growth, respectively. However, for-profit, four-year colleges saw the largest increase, 26.1%, according to the new data.
Headcounts of first-year students also spiked at four-year nonprofits, rising 3.3% at public institutions and 2.8% at private colleges.
Shapiro addressed the research center’s methodological error during a call Wednesday with reporters. The erroneous preliminary report found that first-year enrollment had declined by 5% — over 10 percentage points lower than what the final data showed.
“I think our sensitivity to abnormally large changes was somewhat reduced because we had a host of kind of ready explanations for why we might be seeing these declines,” Shapiro said, citing issues with the federal student aid form, growing concerns with student debt and changes in the labor market.
The research center staff has been investigating its other publications to see if the issue crept into them.
So far, they discovered that the flawed methodology also impacted a February 2024 report on transfer students. The clearinghouse will correct that data when it issues its next transfer report in February.
The research center previously announced that the error affected other reports in its “Stay Informed” series, which shares preliminary enrollment data. It has halted those reports — which launched at the height of the pandemic — until it vets a new methodology.
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Freshman enrollment up this fall; data error led to miscount
Freshman enrollment did not decline this fall, as previously reported in the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s annual enrollment report in October. On Monday, the NSC acknowledged that a methodological error led to a major misrepresentation of first-year enrollment trends, and that first-year enrollment appears to have increased.
The October report showed first-year enrollments fell by 5 percent, in what would have been the largest decline since the COVID-19 pandemic—and appeared to confirm fears that last year’s bungled rollout of a new federal aid form would curtail college access. Inside Higher Ed reported on that data across multiple articles, and it was featured prominently in major news outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post.
According to the clearinghouse, the error was a methodological one, caused by mislabeling many first-year students as dual-enrolled high school students. This also led to artificially inflated numbers on dual enrollment; the October report said the population of dually enrolled students grew by 7.2 percent.
“The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center acknowledges the importance and significance of its role in providing accurate and reliable research to the higher education community,” Doug Shapiro, the center’s executive director, wrote in a statement. “We deeply regret this error and are conducting a thorough review to understand the root cause and implement measures to prevent such occurrences in the future.”
On Jan. 23, the clearinghouse will release another annual enrollment report based on current term estimates that use different research methodologies.
The Education Department had flagged a potential issue in the data this fall when its financial aid data showed a 5 percent increase in students receiving federal aid. In a statement, Under Secretary James Kvaal said the department was “encouraged and relieved” by the clearinghouse’s correction.
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Fall and Rise | HESA
Fall and Rise
The question I am getting more often than any other these days is: “what are you hearing about cuts at colleges and universities?” And my answer for the most part has been: “damned if I know.”
The reason for my confusion is that publicly available details are few and far between. The HESA Towers team has been scouring the public record for details on institutional budget announcements; by our count, only 34 universities or colleges have so far announced anything concrete about their 25-26 budget plans and/or any planned cuts as a result of changing international student numbers. It’s possible more have been announced internally but just not caught the notice of the local press; we’ll be doing a lot more digging over the next couple of weeks. My guess is that many institutions are trying to avoid bad headlines by simply not going public about any plans to cut…but of course in the process, they are making it harder to convey to the public the magnitude of the downsizing being forced on the sector.
(This is a really interesting version of the Tragedy of the Commons!).
Some additional problems with the data: such information as one can glean from public sources is often skimpy and inconsistent: sometimes you get a figure for “loss of anticipated revenue,” sometimes you get a “projected deficit” (which sometimes is for 24-25, and other times for 25-26, and whether the figure is for operating budget or total budget take a bit of digging). Sometimes the numbers of programs being cut are announced but the identity of the programs is secret. Often you see that there will be budget cuts of $X million but there is no clarity about where those cuts will come from or the timeframe for the return to budget balance. In terms of job “cuts” as near as we can tell only five institutions have announced specific numbers for layoffs which have actually so far occurred, for a total of 214 lost jobs. You may have seen higher estimates from other sources, but these seem to include data on jobs which “will be affected” and it’s not 100% clear how many of these are permanent jobs which will be eliminated vs. permanent posts which will not be filled, or contract jobs which will not be renewed. All of these nuances may sound petty, but it’s really hard to get meaningful numbers unless you get this stuff right.
The story of how universities and colleges deal with the sudden loss of international student income (and the long-term consequences of provincial disinvestment) is the biggest and most consequential story in Canadian postsecondary education this century. How we deal with this collectively will shape the sector for over a decade, maybe even out to 2050. The HESA Towers team is working hard to document what is happening and help the sector make sense of fast-moving events and respond appropriately. So today I want to tell you about two initiatives we’re launching.
The first is a Retrenchment Watch, which will follow developments in institutional cutbacks not just in Canada, but around the world (albeit with a particular focus on the anglosphere). Higher education probably hit peak public funding around the globe over a decade ago, but what we’re now seeing is an actual contraction of the sector as a whole, happening via an un-coordinated set of decisions made by individual institutions according to local imperatives. Understanding how this is happening is of great importance, not just for posterity but for present-day decision makers. And we’ll be making this information freely available to all via Retrenchment Watch.
For the moment, the Retrenchment Watch is extremely bare bones, but we’ll be filling it out very quickly over the next few weeks, with the Canadian institutions first. If you want regular updates on who is cutting what as well as some basic pattern analysis, please fill out this form, and we’ll get you signed up to our newsletter so you’re always up-to-date.
The second is what we are calling “The Recovery Project.” We know that institutional leaders aren’t just thinking about surviving cuts, they’re also thinking about how to position their organizations to thrive in the aftermath. To help them, we’re launching a subscription research project looking at universities and colleges around the world who have faced serious financial sustainability problems over the past three decades and examining how they turned their fortunes around. In a crisis, there’s no time to re-invent the wheel: with this research institutions can understand better what works, when and why. By spreading the cost of research collectively across many institutions, we can offer this premium product—which involves monthly reports and webinar sessions for all members—at a huge discount to individual schools (and if your school is a member of the University Vice-President’s Network, we’ll be offering an even bigger discount).
If you’re interested in joining this project, my colleague Tiffany MacLennan has been working to bring this information together. Email her at [email protected] and we’ll get back to you ASAP with a prospectus.
There’s no disguising how the sector is taking a beating right now. It will recover. The only question is how quickly, and which institutions will be at the forefront.