International students who graduate from the University of Waterloo earn more, on average, than their Canadian-born counterparts, according to a new study, and transitioned to permanent residency at nearly twice the national rate.
The number of international students in Canada tripled in a little more than a decade to more than a million in 2024, a shift that brought billions in new revenue to universities and colleges. But in January, the federal government slammed the brakes,For their study, Prof. Skuterud and his co-authors were granted remarkable access to data that linked Waterloo student files, including grades, to immigration records and income tax filings over 17 years.
About 70 per cent of the former Waterloo students in the study became permanent residents, much higher than Statistics Canada’s national data, which shows that only about 30 to 40 per cent of international students with a bachelor’s degree attain PR status within a decade of receiving their first study permit.
He believes Canada should focus on selecting permanent residents based on the comprehensive ranking system, which awards points based on education, language ability, work experience and other factors, although he suggested some additional categories should be added to the matrix.Average T4 earnings conditional on positive T4 earningsAt the moment, the ranking system doesn’t award points based on field of study. A visual arts degree and a computer science degree are similarly rewarded, Prof.