Canada: Education Destination? Sitting in college and university class

Canada: Education Destination 

Sitting in college and university classes are some very motivated young people. Until they speak up, in English flavored with accents from all over the world, they seem no different from their classmates, a bit more serious, perhaps, but just students all the same. What casual observers—their peers and even their instructors—do not see are their histories and the journeys they have undertaken to reach the classrooms where they sit now. The decision to leave home, for the 150,000 international students who come to Canada each year is an expensive and life-changing one. The reasons they leave home to study are sometimes strikingly similar; independence, educational opportunities, and ____________________ are some of the most common ones.