{"id":12741,"date":"2019-09-20T03:54:55","date_gmt":"2019-09-20T03:54:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.educli.com\/blog\/?p=12741"},"modified":"2026-03-01T01:28:37","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T01:28:37","slug":"4-in-10-international-students-turned-away-by-canadian-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.educli.com\/resources\/4-in-10-international-students-turned-away-by-canadian-immigration\/","title":{"rendered":"4 in 10 international students turned away by Canadian immigration"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>More than half the international students headed to undergraduate programs in Canada were turned away this year by immigration officials.<br \/>\nBetween January and May, officers rejected 53 per cent of the study permit applications filed by foreign students hoping to begin a bachelor program in Canada, according to data provided by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.<br \/>\nThe record refusal rate is part of a trend that has seen immigration officials refuse a higher proportion of applications every year as international demand for Canadian education has soared. The overall refusal rate \u2013 including study permit applications to attend primary, secondary, post-secondary and language programs \u2013 was 39 per cent in the first five months of the year.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12742 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/educli.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/111.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"941\" height=\"567\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.educli.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/111.png 941w, https:\/\/www.educli.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/111-600x362.png 600w, https:\/\/www.educli.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/111-300x181.png 300w, https:\/\/www.educli.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/111-768x463.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 941px) 100vw, 941px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Reasons for refusal: fraud, danger, doubtful intentions<\/strong><br \/>\nTwenty-eight per cent of all study permit applications were rejected by immigration officials in 2014. Four years later, in 2018, the overall rejection rate had climbed to 34 per cent. Demand for education boomed in that same period, with total applications almost doubling to more than 340,000 in 2018.<\/p>\n<p>Robert Summerby-Murray is president of Saint Mary\u2019s University, where 34 per cent of all students come from outside Canada. He is also chair of the Canadian Bureau for International Education, which promotes international education on behalf of more than 100 Canadian colleges, universities, schools and institutions.<\/p>\n<p>He said study permit approvals have been improving for his students and he hasn\u2019t heard of problems from other institutions.<br \/>\n\u201cIn some markets now, approvals are over 90 per cent,\u201d he said of the experience of his own university this year. \u201cWe don\u2019t see a 40 per cent refusal rate. That\u2019s not our experience at all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Officials can refuse a study permit for many reasons: if they suspect the student may not return to their home country after graduation; if the student doesn\u2019t have sufficient funds to pay for tuition and living costs while in Canada; if the student poses a health or security threat to Canada; if the officer doesn\u2019t think the student\u2019s academic plan makes sense; if the application is incomplete or inaccurate or if there is evidence of fraud in the application.<\/p>\n<p>Harpreet Kochhar, assistant deputy minister of immigration, warned that fraud had become a significant problem in study permit applications. He told a conference of the Canadian Bureau of International Education that a sample audit found that 10% of the admission letters attached to study permit applications were false. In one case, he said, a supposed admission letter from Dalhousie University did not even spell the name of the university correctly.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-12743 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/educli.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/222.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"941\" height=\"567\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.educli.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/222.png 941w, https:\/\/www.educli.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/222-600x362.png 600w, https:\/\/www.educli.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/222-300x181.png 300w, https:\/\/www.educli.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/222-768x463.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 941px) 100vw, 941px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>More than half the international students headed to undergraduate programs in Canada were turned away this year by immigration officials. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":12793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,126],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-educli-os","category-visa-immigration"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>4 in 10 international students turned away by Canadian immigration - Resources<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.educli.com\/resources\/4-in-10-international-students-turned-away-by-canadian-immigration\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"4 in 10 international students turned away by Canadian immigration - Resources\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"More than half the international students headed to undergraduate programs in Canada were turned away this year by immigration officials. 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