Draw cutoffs and category demand shift constantly — the trade-offs below are the durable part, not any specific score.A 33-year-old with IELTS 8777, 9 years of healthcare-analytics/IT experience, a spouse with similar experience, and a 3.5-year-old asked whether the study route made sense once age points made Express Entry draws unreachable. Group experience:
- Study route is the default fallback when your NOC isn't in demand. Multiple members called it the option with the fewest uncertainties for sub-cutoff profiles: Canadian education adds CRS points, and it puts you in-country for PGWP and provincial streams.
- French is the other lever. A family with an almost identical profile (including a young child) saw the age problem coming and had one spouse start French 1.5 years ahead — French-language draws/points can substitute for the study investment if you have the lead time.
- If you study, pick a program with co-op or internship built in. Members stressed choosing courses with work-integrated learning: it eases the transition to a well-paid job afterward, which is what actually converts a study permit into PR.
- Going with a young child is common but plan the finances. No one in the thread treated the child as a blocker; the caution was about program cost vs payoff — don't sink money into a program without a job-market case.
- One spouse studies, the other can work. (Raised in similar threads and implied here:) a spouse of a full-time student in an eligible program could get an open work permit, keeping family income alive during the study period.