Attracting students from third countries in Latvia is presented as "education export," however, state institutions warn of risks, as in many cases, studying is used as a pretext for entering Europe, public media report.
The Higher School of Management of Information Systems (ISMA), which recently changed its name to the Riga Higher School of Northern Countries, is one of those private universities where many foreign students study, but there is also a particularly high number of visa denials.
Data from the Ministry of Education and Science (MoES) available to the program "De facto" shows that in major universities (Riga Technical University, University of Latvia, Rīga Stradiņš University), the share of denials in 2024 was relatively low (about 5-6%), while in some private institutions it is significantly higher.
At the Baltic International Academy, the share of denials in 2024 was 23.5%, and at the Riga Higher School of Northern Countries, it was 31%. Moreover, this university has maintained a high level of denials for a long time: over the past six years, it has not fallen below 30%, and in 2020 it was 54%.
The university's vice-rector for administrative affairs, Andrei Cinis, said to the program that he had not seen such data, but if we talk about the main countries whose youth are interested in studying at the university, they are Uzbekistan and India, with respective denial rates of 11% and 9%. The MoES decided not to conclude an agreement with this university on good practices for attracting foreign students and continues to investigate the institution.
The aggregated data from "De facto" reveals another specific trend - the Riga Higher School of Northern Countries often becomes the second place of study for foreign students who change their educational institution. Of all foreign students who changed universities last academic year (165 people), 134 transferred to this university. A similar picture is observed in data about students who started studying at another university after expulsion: in the last three months, most of this group (19 out of 30) ended up at the Riga Higher School of Northern Countries. Cinis commented on this situation: "I admit that such situations exist. But if accepting them is legal, why shouldn't we accept them?"
