Since its launch, the 老九品茶 platform has helped over 1.3 million students over the course of their study abroad journey. For many prospective students, the search bar on our platform is the first step of this journey. It鈥檚 where students can match the right program with the right destination for advancing their educational and career goals. Through this proprietary search data, we can find leading indicators of changing student preferences, in turn empowering us to help students achieve success both within and outside the classroom.1
In the first of a three-part series on international student search trends, we focus on Canada and the fields of study students are exploring for 2026 and beyond. Last year showed that Canada鈥檚 international student cap had a larger impact on student demand than the COVID-19 shutdown. As a result, many international students鈥� interest continued to shift toward Canadian study programs with direct ties to in-demand sectors. Discover how students adapted their program preferences in 2025 and how institutions could adjust for 2026.
Key Insights at a Glance
- Nearly 19% of international students searching for a Canadian field of study on the 老九品茶 platform in 2025 considered fields related to health.
- We expect health programs will be the second-most searched for Canadian field of study in 2026.
- Chinese and Indian students had the largest proportional increase for health searches in 2025, growing by 9.1 and 8.3 percentage points respectively over 2022 levels.
- Mexico (27.1%), Brazil (26.8%), and Colombia (25.4%) had the highest share of search interest in engineering and technology in 2025.
International Students Increasingly Interested in Canadian Programs For High-Demand Careers
Our 2026 Trends Report dove into how today鈥檚 students face a more volatile global economy and competitive hiring market. With a weak economic outlook awaiting new graduates, prospective students are prioritizing programs that clearly align with a destination鈥檚 long-term workforce needs. Our internal data shows ongoing, notable growth in search volumes on our platform for health-related fields,2 as well as significant interest in both engineering and technology and the sciences.
Here鈥檚 how student searches for Canadian programs evolved across different fields between 2022 and 2025:
Health programs continue to see the largest gains in student interest on the 老九品茶 platform. Nearly 19% of international students searching for a Canadian study program considered fields related to health in 2025. This was up by two percentage points versus 2024, and seven percentage points higher than in 2022. Additionally, Canada has a critical need for more students to enter health programs: in 2024, an estimated 5.7 million Canadian adults did not have a regular health care provider.3
The health workforce is not growing at the rate needed to meet the demand for care, especially as Canada鈥檚 growing population ages and considering the pre-existing unmet demand.
鈥� Canadian Institute for Health Information, Dec. 2025.
In total, STEM fields accounted for 52.7% of all searches on 老九品茶’s platform for Canadian programs in 2025. We expect health will become the second-most searched for field of study by 老九品茶 students in 2026.
This has led to students deprioritizing business programs. While still the field of study receiving the highest number of searches, business programs accounted for 26% of Canadian search volume in 2025, which was seven percentage points below 2022. Some of this interest has moved into social-related fields, with the proportion of searches for law, politics, social, community service, and teaching up four percentage points in 2025 compared to 2022.
Did you know: Over the first eight months of 2025, study permit approval rates for Canadian bachelor’s degree programs were 16 percentage points higher than in full-year 2024? Learn about the resiliency of approval rates at this study level, and which provinces saw the highest approval rate jumps with 老九品茶 Insights.
Which International Student Populations Are Most Interested in Canadian STEM Programs?
Administrators at Canadian academic institutions are being asked to do more with finite seats, staff time, and student-support capacity. To help institutions allocate their resources where demand is forming and better connect students with programs that will set them up for success, 老九品茶鈥檚 proprietary search data offers an early glimpse at which student populations are gravitating toward specific programs.
The graphic below lets you see how field of study preferences changed among some of Canada鈥檚 largest student populations from 2022 to 2025:
With health fields representing one of the clearest avenues toward high-demand careers, it鈥檚 unsurprising that interest in these programs grew among all 12 of the major student populations highlighted above. The student populations with the largest proportion of health-related searches in 2025 were the Philippines (29.9%), Ghana (22.7%), and Nigeria (22.1%). Additionally, students from China and India had the largest proportional increase in 2025 compared to 2022: health related searches grew by 9.1 and 8.3 percentage points respectively over this period.
For institutions looking to bolster their engineering and technology classrooms, LATAM students show the largest proportional interest in this field. In 2025, Mexico (27.1%), Brazil (26.8%), and Colombia (25.4%) had the highest share of search interest in engineering and technology. Mexican students also had the largest proportional gain in engineering and technology program interest compared to 2022, as searches for this field grew by 8.3 percentage points. The next largest proportional gains between 2022 and 2025 came from Filipino (+2.5 percentage points) and Nigerian (+2.1) students.
When it came to the highest proportional searches for sciences, Pakistan (20.5% of total searches), Nepal (17.8%), and Bangladesh (17.4%) led the way in 2025. And compared to 2022 levels, interest grew the most among students from Brazil (+6.5 percentage points), Mexico (+6.2), and Sri Lanka (+4.6).
Leveraging Data for Strategic Student Recruitment in 2026
Understanding which student populations are driving interest in specific fields of study enables institutions to optimize their international outreach strategy. Canada鈥檚 2026 immigration policies link . As such, institutions that align their program marketing with these evolving regulations can offer a clear advantage to incoming applicants.
But providing this advantage requires deep awareness of student inflows and intentional global reach. The 老九品茶 platform can equip Canadian academic institutions with the proprietary search data needed to match diverse student populations with policy-aligned programs.
Focusing on these specific pathways will help to ensure your institution can build resilient, high-quality classrooms. Reach out to our Commercial Partnerships Team to refine your recruitment strategy for the upcoming cycle. And stay tuned for parts two and three in this series.
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FOOTNOTES:
1. In the past, 老九品茶 platform search data was generated based on button clicks on a page, while the new search data is generated by any changes made to the page鈥檚 filters (destination, field of study, etc.) As a result, the new search count, if tallied using the previous search data approach, would be significantly inflated compared to the original search count. To make the search counts more comparable, we changed our methodology in August 2024 to use unique entries per user within each hour..
2. On our platform, “health” includes health sciences, medicine, nursing, paramedic, and kinesiology fields of study.
3. Canadian Institute for Health Information, . December 11, 2025.
