Foreign students are squeezing out domestic applicants at UBC: paper
But vice-provost insists the idea that locals get displaced is ‘a myth’
The University of B.C. is displacing domestic students while allowing international students with lower qualifications into some academic programs, a University of B.C. economist and University of Alberta law student say.
UBC Okanagan associate professor Peter Wylie and law student Shaun Campbell presented a research paper at two different academic events this month in which they argue some Canadian-raised students are failing to gain entry into in-demand career programs that are in some cases being filled by full-fee-paying foreign students.
“I hope the new B.C. government will look into the issue of UBC’s differential admission standards for domestic and international students,” said Wylie, who has presented the contentious research data to economists, faculty, administrators and university senators.
“I find it hard to justify that a B.C. high school grad living, say, on UBC Vancouver’s doorstep and with an 85 per cent average, is denied admission to the university campus down his street and instead offered a place at UBC Okanagan, or having to go out of province, when an international student with the same average living in, say, Beijing is accepted.”
However, UBC vice-provost Pamela Ratner, who oversees enrolment, said Monday that “it is a myth that international students displace domestic students.”
After being sent a copy of the 23page paper by Wylie and Campbell, Ratner said, “International and domestic students do not compete with each other when UBC is reviewing student applications; they are adjudicated in separate pools.”
Ratner said that “each year, the provincial government funds UBC for a set number of students and UBC consistently exceeds those targets. In 2016-17, UBC was funded to enrol 42,418 full-time domestic students and we enrolled 45,503 — that’s 3,085 more students than funded provincially …
“Last year, 63 per cent of domestic high school applicants who met UBC’s published admission criteria were offered their preferred choice of program ( between both campuses), compared with 60 per cent of international undergraduate applicants.”
Wylie said he’s aware officials at UBC and elsewhere have consistently said foreign students never displace domestic students.
Higher education officials also generally maintain that increasing the proportion of full-fee-paying foreign students leads to the hiring of more professors and greater course selection for domestic students, Wylie said.
But Wylie and Campbell say their data indicates average UBC class sizes are generally not decreasing and course selection is generally not expanding, including in economics, philosophy and political science, the fields Wylie said he knows best.
The number of professors at UBC Vancouver, Wylie and Campbell report, has risen only marginally in the past six years, from 2,326 in 2010 to 2,424 in 2016.
The problem of access for domestic students is acute, Wylie said, in many of the programs most popular with foreign students, such as economics, as well as business and engineering.
UBC’s Ratner took issue with the analysis of Wylie and Campbell.
“The claim that course selection is not expanding is erroneous. Having international students at UBC allows us to attract outstanding faculty and expand our programs,” she said.
“Since 2010, engineering, economics and commerce course sections have increased by 29 per cent. At the Vancouver School of Economics, for example, the number of tenure-stream faculty has increased by 33 per cent since 2006.”
UBC firmly believes that “international engagement benefits both domestic and international participants in post-secondary education,” she said. “The diversity of opinion, perspective and circumstance improves the educational experience for all engaged in the exchange of ideas.”
B.C. currently hosts 130,000 international students, compared to 90,000 in 2010, Wylie said, citing the B.C. Council for International Education. Four out of five are housed in Metro Vancouver. Two of five now come from China.
B.C. is home to 31 per cent of all foreign students in Canada, while B.C.’s population makes up 13 per cent of the nation, the council said.
Twenty-four per cent of UBC Vancouver’s 54,238 students this year were foreign nationals, Wylie and Campbell said, citing UBC’s annual enrolment report.
Wylie, the former head of the economics department at UBC’s Okanagan campus, said he’s seen foreign students become the majority in his own classrooms.
“Meanwhile, many domestic students are on waiting lists to get into these courses. So international students definitely do displace (local) students,” Wylie said.
The paper by Wylie and Campbell provides statistics showing UBC Okanagan has consistently fallen short of its own enrolment targets for domestic students.
Following the ethical approach of Oxford University economist Paul Collier, author of Exodus: How Migration is Changing Our World, Wylie said he believes it’s important to weigh the needs of foreign students against the rights of domestic students and taxpaying parents.
Saying that international student programs are generally a positive concept, he said the challenge for B.C. is to find the optimal “equilibrium” of foreign and domestic students.
Wylie is particularly concerned about a 2014 UBC policy change that “allows different admission standards for domestic and international students.”
UBC expects to bring in roughly $277 million in the 2017-18 academic year from foreign students, more than the $227 million it will receive from domestic students, Wylie said, citing UBC documents.
UBC can “maximize revenue” by not turning away international students, Wylie said, even if they fail to meet the “very high” gradepoint averages expected of domestic students.
Three years ago, UBC’s administration softened its standards for foreign students, Wylie said.
International students no longer have to “meet or exceed” the averages of domestic students to gain entry into undergraduate programs, Wylie said, citing minutes of a UBC Senate meeting.
Instead, UBC simply asks its administrators to assess whether applying foreign students, regardless of their grades, appear capable of being as “successful” as UBC domestic students at passing courses or graduating, he said.
“International students are now able to get into UBC with lower grades than those needed of domestic students in many, perhaps all, programs,” the report said.
However, in a telephone interview, Ratner said international and domestic students must have “comparable” qualifications to get into UBC Vancouver or Okanagan.
When drawing up the separate lists for domestic and foreign applicants, Ratner said grade-point averages “must be comparable,” even though they may differ from program to program.
Wylie said foreign-student numbers are set to grow dramatically in Canada since the federal government recently became one of the few in the world to make an “integrated offer” to international students.
The integrated welcome to foreign students promises them the chance to work during their time in school and for three years after they graduate, as well as apply for citizenship.
The B.C. Council on Admissions and Transfers reports that two of three foreign students in the province hope to stay in Canada.
Wylie presented his paper in Victoria on May 1 to 30 people responsible for academic standards at economics departments in B.C., a committee of the B.C. Council on Admissions and Transfers.