THE gushing of the billion-dollar international education market to the five DestiNations is sweet music to the ears of the government, universities and the general population as well.Classical, pop?After all, the tuition and funds for studies that each international student brings not only contribute to the country's coffers but create jobs as well.International students contributed $43.8 billion to the US economy in 2023/2024 and supported 378,175 jobs, ICEF reported last month.International education was worth $36.4 billion to the Australian economy: $21.8 billion paid as goods and services and $14.6 billion paid as tuition for the financial year 2022-2023, according to Australia's Department of Education.Global Affairs Canada, reporting for the Canadian government, said the 'total annual expenditures of international students, including their visiting families and friends, contributed $37.3 billion to economic activities in Canada in 2022 and created 361,230 jobs.After earning NZ$2.2 billion in 2022, Education New Zealand, on Aug. 5, set a target of an 'economic contribution' of NZ$4.4 billion from international education by 2027.UK's international students in the 2021/2022 academic year contributed a huge £41.9 billion to the economy. On average, international students make a £58 million net economic contribution per constituency, equivalent to approximately £560 per citizen. So, why the sour note of restricting the entry of international students and the threat of turning off the spigot?It is a knee-jerk reaction from being doused by a torrent of complaints about students adding to the country's migration numbers, 'causing housing shortage and threat to wages and working conditions by saturating the job market.'In 2023, Statistics Canada reported that investment in housing tumbled 17.9 percent in December. The multi-unit housing 'is worse for millions of families. New construction is needed even faster.A magazine for Sheffield (Now Then) reported on March 5 that 'the situation is so dire some prisoners in Canada are choosing to extend their stay in jail rather than go out and face the Trudeau housing market.'Much like OFWs staying in the Middle East to work despite the dangers of war rather than face unemployment back home,While confirming the fact that 'Canadians are in the grip of a deepening housing crisis,' Tracy Walsh in 'The Conversation US' observes that 'not everyone agrees on what exactly the housing crisis is. The common narrative focuses on an affordability crisis for homeownership, attributed to either excessive demand from immigrants and foreign buyers or a lack of supply.'Overpopulation?Canada's population jumped 3.2 percent from 2023 to 2024, the biggest annual rise since 1957, and now stands at 41 million — a rise fueled mainly by a wave of new arrivals.Faced with the triple threat of the housing crisis, immigration and the US president-elect calling Trudeau 'the governor of the 51st state of the US,' Trudeau reshuffled his Cabinet, adding eight new cabinet ministers last week.After welcoming immigrants and gaining stature as a global leader in refugee resettlement in the last 50 years, Trudeau said the 'time has come for 'adjustments.'''We will reduce the number of immigrants over the next three years, which will result in a pause in the population growth, allowing all levels of government to catch up, make the necessary investments in health care, in housing, [and] in social services to accommodate more people in the future.'But how and when to turn off the faucet?Right now, with the tariff threat from Donald Trump and an unpopular administration, Trudeau's answer is a big counterclockwise turn of the valve, allowing drip, drip, flow of successive measures without turning off the water supply:– Reduce the number of temporary residents to 5 percent of Canada's total population by 2026.– Limit admission of permanent residents to only 395,000 in 2025, 380,000 in 2026, and 365,000 in 2027.– Shrink Canada's housing gap by 45 percent by 2030.Drip, drip, flowing also an Australian optionAware of the significant contributions of international students and temporary workers to the Australian economy, the federal government gave immigration control a new name: prioritization.After announcing a 270,000 enrolment cap for 2025, the Australian government — under Ministerial Instructions 111 — intends to manage the number of international students by 'prioritizing student visa applications for all institutions, until they near the individual caps the government proposed for them earlier this year, an informal cap after the Coalition and Greens parties blocked Labor's attempt to pass an international student caps bill in November.'Instead of processing applications of students intending to go to lower-risk institutions, priority processing will be adopted for those enrolling in university-level courses, particularly in regional and outer metropolitan universities.The government says the new approach will manage international student numbers in a 'fairer way,' particularly for regional and outer metropolitan universities and TAFEs.Although recent data shows net overseas migration not falling fast enough to meet government targets, there are signs the 'go slow' approaches are working, at least with international students whose arrival numbers in Australia are beginning to trend downwards.The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data on overseas migration last week, showed there were 207,000 international student arrivals in 2023-2024, a decrease from 278,000 in 2022-2023 and well below Labor's proposed cap.Clearly, the government is not seeking to 'cut the overall number of international students studying in Australia. Instead, it wants to limit the rate of growth to pre-pandemic levels.'Just let it drip, drip, flow.There is no sense in cutting off the international education faucet, which contributes $51 billion to the Australian economy almost $16 billion in tuition from international students.The outliers are the US and New Zealand — the countries with the highest and lowest number of international students, respectively.With 1,126,690 international students at US colleges and universities in the 2023/2024 academic year (2024 Open Doors Report) contributing $43.8 billion to the economy, the US is awash with cold cash.New Zealand welcomed 73,535 foreign students between January and August 2024, a 6 percent increase over the full-year numbers for 2023, according to Tertiary Education and Skills Minister Penny Simmonds.The music of dripping, flowing water pretty much sounds like 'Rock, Enroll' to me.
