Canada Rankings

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Andy6

Yes, that is what I'm thinking as well ... domestic students are being streamed into glorified community colleges that have been renamed "universities", with the result that the overall percentage attending university is quite high. So that "diamond in the rough" student who might have just made it into a "real" university a generation ago, is now at the Orillia campus of Lakehead University (which I just discovered existed a few days ago), with a diploma waiting at the end, for sure, but less opportunity to grow and be discovered in a more genuine academic environment.

When it comes to lower-level regional universities, I suppose the situation you described is balanced at least to some extent by the fact that they provide post-secondary opportunities to people who might not otherwise carry on beyond high school.

I'm not sure what kinds of promises Lakehead University's Orillia campus makes to its students (the fact that it exists is news to me), but in my experience a place like University College of the North in Northern Manitoba is pretty straight-up with students. They admit you won't go there to launch a prestigious academic career, but you can go there to improve your own employment prospects and do something useful for your community.

[SaskScraper]

Originally Posted by YusufChowdhury

You know what I find peculiar? If you look at the times higher education rankings, the more prestigious universities tend to have a higher proportion of international students. Compared with the top 50 universities, U of T at rank 18 actually has a lower than average international student percentage.

Edit: Here's a link to the list

U of T has 22% International students which puts it about the same as U of Saskatchewan even though U of T has twice as many students. 66% of University of Saskatchewan students come directly from the province it's self. I was surprised to see Ryerson has only 5% International students!

https://healthsciences.usask.ca/news...-in-201819.php

U of Regina with 2/3rds as many students as U of S but has 24% International students. It hasn't always been this way, the number of International students at U of R has quadrupled in the last ten years.

https://www.uregina.ca/orp/statistic...headcount.html


http://www.shanghairanking.com/World-University-Rankings-2020/Canada.html

Originally Posted by Brizzy82

Manitoba and Nova Scotia have the highest percentage of international students per capita according to these stats

https://www.cicnews.com/2020/02/6420...n-0213763.html

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At first glance I would have guessed Prince Edward Island currently would have a higher per capita International students than Manitoba or Nova Scotia.

[ssiguy]

Contrary to what some of you like to espouse, I actually agree with international students coming to Canada. It adds to our skilled labour force and the different cultures, backgrounds, and perspectives enrich the university experience.

Conversely, a near doubling of international students in just 4 years is outrageous. Canada's total university population has not doubled in 4 years which means their percentage of the student body is increasing very fast and that means fewer Canadian students. Australia has made international education an industry and now some of the top schools in the country are well over 40% international students.

There should be a clear limit {ie 10% undergrad, 15% grad} for international students and if that results in a revenue loss then they can damn well increase international tuition because clearly these students are going to come regardless. Remember kids, all these foreign students have one thing in common no matter where they came from................they are exceptionally wealthy. For the majority of the kids, an extra $5k a year is nothing more than petty cash.

[jamincan]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Contrary to what some of you like to espouse, I actually agree with international students coming to Canada. It adds to our skilled labour force and the different cultures, backgrounds, and perspectives enrich the university experience.

Conversely, a near doubling of international students in just 4 years is outrageous. Canada's total university population has not doubled in 4 years which means their percentage of the student body is increasing very fast and that means fewer Canadian students. Australia has made international education an industry and now some of the top schools in the country are well over 40% international students.

There should be a clear limit {ie 10% undergrad, 15% grad} for international students and if that results in a revenue loss then they can damn well increase international tuition because clearly these students are going to come regardless. Remember kids, all these foreign students have one thing in common no matter where they came from................they are exceptionally wealthy. For the majority of the kids, an extra $5k a year is nothing more than petty cash.

This argument is just completely wrong (doubling of international students does not mean the university population also needs to double in order to not displace Canadians). Others have already pointed out that the number of Canadian university students has increased which is completely contrary to your thesis here.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

Remember kids, all these foreign students have one thing in common no matter where they came from................they are exceptionally wealthy. For the majority of the kids, an extra $5k a year is nothing more than petty cash.

This is also incorrect. Where I am based, there are many foreign students from Africa, China, India, Pakistan, and beyond that are not wealthy. We have many stories of foreign students experiencing financial distress due to some unforeseen happenstance, such as having to suddenly fly back to Congo or Indonesia for the funeral of a parent. To be sure, the average foreign student comes from families with above-average incomes, but not all of them do. Likewise for domestic students. The bulk of the undergrad students that I get at Western are from the GTA. Many of them come from upper-crust families in Oakville, the plush parts of Toronto, etc. (there is a joke that UWO stands for "University of Wealthy Ontarians", and it is partially borne out by the nice cars in the student parking lots). But there are plenty of kids that work part-time, from middle-class and even working class families, that need to work and/or collect OSAP to make it through university.

I ask again, where do you get your information?

[esquire]

Maybe not all are wealthy, but it's apparent that many are. I mean, the kinds of cars you occasionally see cruising around the University of Manitoba campus would have been absolutely unfathomable back when I was a student there in the late 90s/early 00s. Of course, for every foreign student you see driving a 911 or R8 to class, there's probably a few dozen other foreign students piling on the bus.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by esquire

Of course, for every foreign student you see driving a 911 or R8 to class, there's probably a few dozen other foreign students piling on the bus.

They're there in both categories, it's just easier to pinpoint the wealthier ones.

When I played intramural soccer at university the teams would usually split between wealthy and...not so wealthy, and man were those games nasty. All the rich Saudis thought they were Ronaldo and all the poor(er) Nigerians would play barefoot.

[Pavlov]

Originally Posted by esquire

Maybe not all are wealthy, but it's apparent that many are. I mean, the kinds of cars you occasionally see cruising around the University of Manitoba campus would have been absolutely unfathomable back when I was a student there in the late 90s/early 00s. Of course, for every foreign student you see driving a 911 or R8 to class, there's probably a few dozen other foreign students piling on the bus.

How can you determine if the driver of passing car is a foreign student or a domestic student?

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by Pavlov

How can you determine if the driver of passing car is a foreign student or a domestic student?

Depends on how swarthy they look.

I joke, I joke. No hate responses please!!

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Pavlov

How can you determine if the driver of passing car is a foreign student or a domestic student?

By appearance.

[Acajack]

I don't think I could tell a foreign student vs. a locally-sourced () one simply by their appearance behind the wheel of a car, but even if you're living in a middle or upper middle class area in Canada, almost no families are sending their kids off to university in luxury sports cars.

That simply does not exist to any noticeable degree among the Canadian resident population.

[Acajack]

Foreign students are also a huge net benefit for Canada as (regardless of the initial plans) a significant chunk of them end up staying here post-graduation, put down roots and almost always end up being productive members of society.

That actually kinda sucks a lot of the time for their home countries, who often invest a lot of money to send their best and brightest to study abroad, in the hopes that they will come back and contribute to improving their homeland.

In many, many cases they never do. We're the ones who benefit from their brain power.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I don't think I could tell a foreign student vs. a locally-sourced () one simply by their appearance behind the wheel of a car, but even if you're living in a middle or upper middle class area in Canada, almost no families are sending their kids off to university in luxury sports cars.

That simply does not exist to any noticeable degree among the Canadian resident population.

I know Pavlov is giving me the "you can't judge people by appearance" finger wag but I personally DGAF as I live in the real world. If I'm at Pembina and Bison and I see a 20 year old Chinese kid driving a Porsche toward the U of M campus, I would bet a hundred bucks that he's not Canadian born. And I'd be right.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by esquire

I know Pavlov is giving me the "you can't judge people by appearance" finger wag but I personally DGAF as I live in the real world. If I'm at Pembina and Bison and I see a 20 year old Chinese kid driving a Porsche toward the U of M campus, I would bet a hundred bucks that he's not Canadian born. And I'd be right.

Yeah, I noticed that was what he was doing.

My posts and yours on this have a 97% compatibility I'd say!

[Pavlov]

Originally Posted by esquire

I know Pavlov is giving me the "you can't judge people by appearance" finger wag but I personally DGAF as I live in the real world. If I'm at Pembina and Bison and I see a 20 year old Chinese kid driving a Porsche toward the U of M campus, I would bet a hundred bucks that he's not Canadian born. And I'd be right.

Oh, well, if you'd be right, then that settles it. Look, that wasn't a stereotyping finger wag. It was a crappy-evidence-and-logic finger wag.

Anyway, perhaps its a University of Manitoba thing? If I saw the same thing on Queen's University campus, I wouldn't bet a nickel one way or the other. I note that there are also a shocking number of white student-aged drivers behind the wheels of $60,000 vehicles in or near campus.

[esquire]

Originally Posted by Pavlov

Oh, well, if you'd be right, then that settles it. Look, that wasn't a stereotyping finger wag. It was a crappy-evidence-and-logic finger wag.

Anyway, perhaps its a University of Manitoba thing? If I saw the same thing on Queen's University campus, I wouldn't bet a nickel one way or the other. I note that there are also a shocking number of white student-aged drivers behind the wheels of $60,000 vehicles in or near campus.

I have no idea what's going on at Queen's and I don't claim to. I'm talking about what's going on in Winnipeg.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Acajack

I don't think I could tell a foreign student vs. a locally-sourced () one simply by their appearance behind the wheel of a car, but even if you're living in a middle or upper middle class area in Canada, almost no families are sending their kids off to university in luxury sports cars.

That simply does not exist to any noticeable degree among the Canadian resident population.

you haven't seen some of the students in my classes, many of whom do in fact drive to university in luxury (sports) cars. Of which most are Caucasians. Meanwhile, I am biking, or getting dropped off by my wife (we only have one car, and it is very modest make/model).

Western and Queens get a large share of wealthy GTA students. Both universities are close, but not too close, to home. Both are at about the same rankings in the university standings.

[megadude]

I don't spend a lot of time around campuses anymore, but in my travels to smaller cities and towns, and I happen to be somewhere in a close radius to the school and I see an early 20s Chinese guy driving a Mercedes AMG, I will most likely draw the conclusion that he's foreign student. The biggest giveway is see the parking pass hanging down from the mirror.

Now I'm more likely to do that in places outside the GTHA because if you're around UofT, UTM, Mac, York, etc. you're going to have a harder time determining if that's a foreign student or a local kid who's driving his parents car to school that day or it's his car, but his rich parents landed in Canada years ago and that's his car.

And of course sometimes the Chinese or Indian kid lives in town with a fancy car becuase one of his parents is a doctor at a loca practice. Though I find it's more common in those cases for the parents to provide more conservative nice cars and not flashy sports cars.

My two second cousins went to Queens and their dad was a surgeon. He had a big house in Cornwall, but he was a modest guy who spent 1/4 of every year doing eye surgeries all around the Third World. He drove a Volvo and so both his kids had Volvo SUVs. Not fancy luxury, but still as expensive as some fancier cars out there. They are mixed kids. Perhaps people thought they were international students but they were as Cornwallian as it gets.

[rousseau]

Originally Posted by Pavlov

Oh, well, if you'd be right, then that settles it. Look, that wasn't a stereotyping finger wag. It was a crappy-evidence-and-logic finger wag.

Anyway, perhaps its a University of Manitoba thing? If I saw the same thing on Queen's University campus, I wouldn't bet a nickel one way or the other. I note that there are also a shocking number of white student-aged drivers behind the wheels of $60,000 vehicles in or near campus.

Interesting. Around Waterloo the $80,000 supercars are strictly the province of Chinese international students. You can tell because they have Chinese bumper stickers, and when they get out of their cars they are speaking Chinese.

Undoubtedly there must be some, but I've personally never seen a student-aged non-Chinese kid driving a flashy new BMW or Audi along University Avenue in Waterloo.

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by rousseau

Interesting. Around Waterloo the $80,000 supercars are strictly the province of Chinese international students. You can tell because they have Chinese bumper stickers, and when they get out of their cars they are speaking Chinese.

To play devil's advocate for a second, just because someone has a Chinese bumper sticker and speaks Chinese doesn't mean they aren't Canadian-born.

I don't disagree with the sentiment that wealthy foreign students are the ones driving expensive sports cars, but these sorts of indicators don't exclude Canadians, either. It was pretty common when I was in uni to have Saudi students arrive in Canada and buy Dodge Chargers in cash their first week in Canada. It was also possible to see white Canadian students going to school in equally-as-expensive pickup trucks...they're just not as obvious about their wealth.