The Conflicting Aims of Higher Education Admission and Immigration Selection Criteria in Canadian ‘Edugration’

In higher education-migration, or edugration, immigrant-dependent countries attempt to retain international post-secondary students as ‘skilled’ foreign workers and ‘ideal’ economic immigrants. However, higher education’s role as an immigrant selection actor in this process has been largely overlooked. In this paper, we use Bourdieu’s conception of capital to consider the relationship between Canadian (1) higher education institutions’ international student admission criteria, and (2) criteria of key economic immigrant programs which subsequently target these pre-selected international students. Our findings indicate a misalignment between the two selection processes, highlighting a potentially exploitative and relatively unregulated policy arena governing international students as they attempt to acquire the necessary capital to qualify for permanent residency.