VANCOUVER — Laughter lights up the gathering twilight at Langara College in Vancouver, where first-year health science student Jagiit Singh is chatting with friends next to the school's fountain.
But his smile fades when he's asked about the cost of living in Canada since moving from India last year.
Students and social advocates say international students face a particularly high burden from soaring inflation because of a series of exacerbating factors — fixed budgets, rules that limit how much paid work they can do, and exchange rate woes.Tuition fees, meanwhile, are up about eight per cent in 2022-23, rising to an average of $36,123 annually for an international undergraduate student. That's slightly higher than the seven per cent inflation rate in August.
Her family's income became unstable during the COVID-19 pandemic, Jani said, forcing them to dig into savings to pay for her tuition of around $9,000 per semester. Boulter was speaking before the recent slump in the Canadian dollar. But before that, the Canadian dollar had been steadily rising against a raft of countries' currencies.
"There was a student from Ukraine who was finding the cost of living here and the exchange rate to be so difficult, and she has burned through her savings much more quickly than she anticipated … with the changes in the dollar, with inflation and interest rates, people's savings aren't lasting as long as they thought, so they're quite relieved to find us because their money is running out.
In 2021, there were 184,350 international students in B.C., according to the Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Training. Rahil Adeli is an organizer and co-founder of Simon Fraser University's Migrant Students United, a group of former and current international students who seek fair rules and equal rights for all migrants.
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