 What can you do if you really want to leave your country? What if you want to become a permanent resident abroad or even become a citizen of another country? Can you use a student visa to help you start a new life abroad? It's time for a score update. We're going into Canada again because news recently has been talking about Canada's amazing policy change that's going to allow for tens of thousands of students to stay there. And it has a lot of people wondering is it possible to stay after you graduate? We're going to answer all those questions and more. So let's start with the Canada issue because a couple of months ago I published the video How to Study in Canada. But one thing that we didn't talk about was whether you could stay long after you graduate. And the news that was released recently this last couple of weeks has been saying something pretty radical that not only can you stay in Canada after you graduate, but you qualify immediately for permanent residency in the country. To understand why that's such a big deal I think it helps to just quickly explain the different kinds of visas that you get when you decide to immigrate to another country. Right off the bat you have tourist visas that are just for temporary visitors, but for people who want to stay in a country there's typically two types of visas. Temporary residence permits and permanent residency visas. A temporary residence permit is for a specific amount of time, but once that time is up you're out. Permanent residency then is the option to actually live in that country to have a proper life there. You can work or start a business. Permanent residency is sort of like the holy grail of visas for most people who want to immigrate. And after having permanent residency for a while you can usually get citizenship. Of course that depends on whether the country allows dual citizenship or not, but in most cases if a country allows dual citizenship the time you spent studying counts towards the requirements. Now Canada's new rule isn't exactly a rule so much as it is a temporary exception to the rules. Canada has always allowed people to stay after graduation in order to look for a job and maybe get permanent residency after. But it required a few extra steps. You had to go through the post-graduation work permit which only gave you a certain amount of time that was proportional to the time of your studies so if you did a one-year program you might get nine months to stay and look for work, but if you did a four-year degree it might give you three years. But this new rule bypasses all of that. You do not have to go through any of the other middle steps. You just go straight to permanent residency if you've graduated in the last four years. So it's important to talk about who this actually applies to. Don't think right now that oh I'm going to go study in Canada because I'll definitely get permanent residency when I graduate. Slow down. This is only for people who have graduated since 2017 and there's only going to be 40,000 potential visas given. Right now it's a mad rush for all of the recent graduates to try to get these permanent residencies from the government. What about everybody else? This is part of Canada's 2021 to 2023 immigration plan. We'll have to see what happens in the next couple years. Maybe Canada will do this again once they see that 40,000 isn't enough. They need more immigrants. Or maybe they'll say we're good. We got our people. Go back to using the regularly scheduled method of getting a permanent resident visa. I think it's important to note the timing of this announcement too. The government announced this special visa scheme right around the time when people are about to graduate university in Canada, but conveniently right after the deadline for admissions for this year. So they didn't want to create a mad rush for admissions. They wanted to give the people who are graduating right now an opportunity to become permanent residents. But what about the other countries that we've covered? Is it possible for you to do the same thing there? Well, other countries like Germany, Netherlands, and even Italy and Spain have options for you to stay after you graduate if you want to look for work in the country. However, whether or not you can turn that into citizenship depends largely on the country. For example, if we talk about just the Netherlands, they have a very long time requirement for you to get citizenship. It's at least five years in the country as a resident, which includes your time as a student. However, they also frequently expect you to renounce your current citizenship. You have to ask yourself if that trade is worth it. Similarly, Germany does not allow dual citizenship except for exceptional circumstances. Spain and Italy are a lot more convenient with dual citizenship. It's not that difficult to get. In fact, in Spain, you can accelerate the process considerably if you were born in a country like Peru or Colombia or any other country with cultural ties to Spain. So in many cases, there is a possibility for you to go to a country as a student, stay there to work, and then get permanent residency or citizenship later. But there's no guarantees. You also have to remember that you're thinking now possibly 10 years into the future, policies change, governments change. There's no guarantee that you're still going to have those opportunities later. That's why we don't really advise students to choose countries solely on the basis of getting permanent residency. Definitely it's a plus, but if you're looking to emigrate from your country and you're trying to use the student visa route to get in, remember that there's some countries that will crack down hard on that. That's all for today. We're going to keep it kind of short and sweet. I want to go into this topic a little bit deeper though. I'm going to be preparing something a little more complex that gives us a little better of an idea of maybe how long it takes to become a permanent resident or where it's possible to graduate and then stay. Subscribe to the channel and find out. Join the road to 1 billion subscribers. Head over to prepwithscore.com if you want help with your college applications or you need some advice about which countries will let you stay and work after you graduate. And you can also check us out on Instagram at prepwithscore. Next week you're going to be seeing me taking the dual lingo English test. So you want to subscribe to the channel for sure to see that. Make sure that you do and I will see you next week.