The University of Sydney. Taken by Me © Mar 2017

While perusing Quora, I came across international students asking about the post-study work opportunities in countries like Australia, Canada, and the UK.

For many, it’s because they are from countries with limited chances for work or are looking to move their entire family abroad.

Unfortunately, earning a post-graduate qualification no longer guarantees better salary jobs, work experience related to their course, and the chance for permanent residence.

As a student in any one of these countries, foreigners can work 20 hours a week in part-time jobs with their student visa. On one Quora thread for international students in Melbourne, a user asks how much they can earn and sustain a lifestyle with minimum wage.

Kim Hyunh, a Vietnamese woman residing in Melbourne, answers:

The national minimum wage is currently $17.29 per hour (before tax), and as a student you cannot work for more than 20 hours per week. Income tax is, what, 30%? So after tax you get roughly $276.64 per week. Super is 9% or more, depending on the employer, so that’s $251.74 per week. Assuming that you work all 20 hours, no more, no less. Assuming your employer pays at the exact minimum wage mark, which they usually don’t. That being said, most international students don’t stick to the 20 hours mark.

Despite this, many foreigners choose to go to Australia because of the post-graduate work visa which enables students, who have graduated from any Australian University, to reside sponsor-free for 18 months after graduation. A far cry from the UK’s 4-months, and Canada’s more extensive requirements.

The country’s Group of Eight Universities (Go8)* show the highest admissions for non-English speakers in their 2 year post-graduate degree programs, while charging 400% more for these students than their local counterparts.

International students want to become migrant workers for the country they are residing in. When they look at the 2018 university rankings, it’s easy to say they can easily choose to go to Australia to earn a “world-class” degree.

Unfortunately, employers don’t attribute global rankings to the quality of graduates produced when they look into entry-level work opportunities for foreign nationals. Many graduates of who have graduated from Go8 universities have complained online about still getting paid less than their degree’s worth.

Add this to the additional costs non-residents have, many opt to work for more hours and with less than minimum wage to survive. Reddit user zephyrus17 explains in a recent subreddit thread:

It’s not that simple. I’m an international student and many of my friends work in Chinatown or for Asian bosses. If you don’t want the work for $8/h, many, many others will. The demand keeps the prices low. It’s so common that we’ve gotten used to it. It’s the way it is. It’s easy for locals to say, “Oh, report the boss to the authorities”. But think of the mindset they’re in: I’ve just arrived in a foreign country, my English isn’t that great so they’ll probably ignore me, the locals will definitely back the locals so it’s pointless, all the immigration people make it sound like my visa could be cancelled in an instant. I guess I better lie low, just blend in and accept it.

Compared to their Southern counterpart, the UK shows a tougher admission process for foreign nationals — especially since it has been the 2nd most popular student destination for decades. With an education system that caters to subject-specific degrees (i.e. MA Interactive Journalism at City, University of London), graduates are tied to very niche markets around the world.

Gaining admission to their many Universities is also gruelling for international students who want to study at the best in their field. For example: City, University of London, and Cardiff University are both world renowned for their Journalism programs. They’re considered the OxBridge for media companies in the UK, and reject more than half of their applicants.

In both institutions, UK/EU students pay 10,000 GBP for City, and 9,000 GBP for Cardiff, while foreigners pay 20,000 GBP and 15,750 GBP respectively for the same taught degree program.**

International students who have spent millions to study in any of these institutions often look for means to earn back what they have spent by applying for high-ranking jobs in their chosen industries.

Responders on Quora come back with mixed answers about their job situations. Sthitapragnya Deshpande, an Indian who previously took his master’s degree in the country, explains:

The job scenario is a big zero = zilch = nada. It is so for UK students and it is even more so for international students. After ten years of corporate experience, I did my higher studies in the UK with the aim of being able to work there. I was luckier than my co-students.

I found work soon after I completed my studies, and switched over to being a lecturer (that was easier since there are few contenders for lowly paying jobs like lecturers). The environment at the workplace is excellent in the UK, but jobs are extremely scarce. Most of my students also found it difficult to find a decent job. They defined decent as anything that paid 20k per year. Nearly all my International (non EU, non UK) students found work that did not pay sufficient for them to even rent a small house or did not find work at all. Again — this was not for a want of trying. There simply are no jobs in the UK.

Much like Australia, they don’t only find work that pays exact minimum wage but others also have difficulty landing salaries equivalent to workers who don’t need a visa. Reality is, they’re graduating into the UK’s workforce where unemployment rate is as high as 4.5% (Mar 2017).

Abhyank Srinet advises on Quora:

Now the difficult part for the visa process and the harsh truth is that, the employers prefer to hire someone who doesn’t need a sponsorship for a visa, such as European Nationals or UK residents, this is because of the application for a work visa can be complicated, time & resource consuming depending on the type of work visa and the position one is applying for. They would like to avoid the hectic sponsorship visa process that companies needs to follow just to get the visa for the applicant. Here another questions arises that why would they hire someone who will be needing sponsorship if they can get the same employee without this cumbersome process? So the fact which will spell out an answer to your question you posed, is that UK companies would prefer to hire people who are outstanding at their work & have relevant job skills in todays competitive market. Hence, you have to be good enough to stand out.

Ayesha Goyal, a previous student of The University of Nottingham and founder of Leap Beyond, answers in a more positive note:

I was an international student in the UK — studied in the University of Nottingham- and worked for 2 years as a business consultant at Ernst & Young London — After that I launched my own company which specialises in helping international students in securing a full time job offer in the UK after their studies. Most of the answers below either present wrong facts or are overly pessimistic. To clear the one point I saw recurring in most of the answers — no you don’t just get 4 months to look for a job. The job vacancies open up more than a year in advance for students to make applications even before they graduate — that’s how most students secure jobs in the UK — In fact if someone waits till they graduate to apply for graduate job, most vacancies for the upcoming year will most likely be filled up.

Although minimum wage is lower in the UK (6.75 GBP/hr) than Australia, there’s been little to no media coverage about international students working below floor pay.** *

Since 2012, there’s been a steady decrease of students going to the UK for further studies and post-graduate opportunities. When the Guardian released an article about international students getting “the raw deal”, they stated a study by NUS (2013) about 19% of Indian students who wouldn’t recommend the UK as a place to stay.

Instead, many students — particularly those from Asia — have been turning over to post-graduate studies in Canada. On May 2017, The Globe and Mail reported on a 25% increase for admissions of foreign nationals in their high-ranking Universities.

Even though their economy has been stable for the past half decade, many foreigners still wonder whether they’ll have a shot in building a career here. Gilberto de Melo on Quora, says:

I think it really depends on what you are studying and where you live. If you have a degree in Petroleum Engineering and you live in either Calgary or Edmonton, it’s extremely easy. If you have a degree in Sociology and you live in Fredericton, it will be really hard.

With this in mind, many foreigners do find more work in provinces as they do cities. Since the local government has regaled to expecting wage on where you reside, many students have the same amount of value as their local counterparts. James Linn, a local Canadian contractor, on Quora explains:

The labor laws in Canada are specific to each province, as are minimum wages. There is nothing specific about international students, you get paid according to the same rules as everyone else. Typically someone in a minimum wage job will not see big wage increases. Promotion is the way to get increases and part time workers rarely get that opportunity.

Unlike their neighbours in the USA, UK, and far-off Australia, Canadian Universities don’t have a specific group name for their top-tier institutions.

McGill University leads the pack (ranked 30th in the world for Times Higher Education), with post-graduate students earning CA$55,000 a year.

However, a subreddit thread about living expenses for international students have shown many locals differing in opinions about financial success statistics. User WindHero explains:

I have heard that finding a job can be difficult if you do not have Canadian experience. If you do not have a job after you graduate, you will have to leave. A high proportion of locals go to university and universities here attract tons of foreign students. There are too many graduates and they cannot find work at their level. If there is a labor shortage in Canada, it is for low level jobs that the locals do not want. These are the jobs that a lot of immigrants end up filling, even if they are overqualified.

There have been stories circulating around sites like Quora, and Reddit about international students who graduate with degrees like marketing, and IT from high-ranking universities around the world. Yet, a high number of them find post-graduate work opportunities in that pay low, and find maintaining a good lifestyle, difficult.

I decided to ask questions on Quora about the value of their degree, in an attempt to prove whether recruitment agents or other employers prefer looking at global rankings for a degree’s value.

Ray Roman, a graduate from the UK, answers:

Not in Australia. My Oxbridge degree was worthless in the job market. Also, I’m not white so that probably has something to do with it as people from my ethnicity aren’t allowed to hold certain senior positions. Baffling but that’s how it works there. Strangely enough my degrees were what gave me the points that afforded me the permanent residency! What an utter failure of policy!

Whereas if you asked Human Resource Managers from either the UK, Australia, or Canada, you’d find a similar response to Gaurav Metha (International Education’s Business Head):

Employers are equal opportunity providers and will look into your past credentials, leadership skills, innovation skills and many other aspects of your profile while considering you for recruitment. It doesn’t matter if you graduated from US/Australia/UK. All that needed is your hardwork, good grades, good participation in activities, knowledge about your target domain.

The question foreign students have to ask is: What will their job-specific outcomes be like? Would the monetary value of your world-class degree be worth your future income?

If you have opinions, questions, and suggestions… I’d really love to know! Also, if you feel you have something to add to the conversation, it would be a great idea to chat over it via email.

“Education Matters” is a series of articles I’m writing which relate to educational systems and realities many international students face.

For the next debate, we’ll be talking about the difference in post-graduate degree worth and methods of teaching in higher education between the UK, USA, Canada, and Australia.

For other shenanigans, you can find me on Twitter.

Note: I didn’t include the USA in this article on purpose. I feel that it would have been a really long debate in terms of work, studies, and opportunities for migrants.

*Australia’s equivalent to the Ivy League and Russell Group

** These are only for post-graduate degree taught programs. They don’t relate to research programs, undergrad, and PhD

*** I’ve checked news articles, quora, and reddit. Please let me know if you know anyone who is!