Structural Incentives to Attract Foreign Students to Canada’s Postsecondary Educational System: A Comparative Analysis

The idea that countries are competing for the world’s top student talent has become a focus—and the source of some hype—in the globalization debate. As the number of foreign students enrolled in higher education fell for the first time in 2003/2004, leading figures in the scientific community in the United States worried that the country would lose its lead in cutting edge industries (National Science Board 2004a, 2004b). Observers look to the rapidly increasing graduate population in China and India— and the increasing competition for students from other countries—and worry that the United States is losing its status as the “world’s greatest talent magnet” (Florida 2005).² In the United Kingdom, universities now depend on foreign students for roughly one-tenth of their revenues, and leading institutions such as the London School of Economics stay competitive for top research faculty by recruiting full-fee-paying students from outside the European Union (EU). In Australia, the number of foreign students increased more than sixfold since 1990.