I want to switch an ARC to a student visa

Maybe. I’m looking into taking chinese classes in september, but I am having trouble figuring out if that is possible. I also can’t find any information on how to apply for a student visa. I have asked my job to hold off on my ARC application for the time being. I may not be able to afford to take the classes just yet. If I get an ARC in the meantime, would I have to leave the country to get a student visa later? If so, maybe i’d be better off extending my visitor visa for now, until I can get the student visa?

Go figure. After trying to find a post answering this question for an hour, I post this and then go type in the search ‘student visa health insurance’ and one of the first results is ‘I want to switch an ARC to a student visa’. It’s a little old though: from what I glean, it doesn’t matter what kind of visa I have now, if I want a student visa I have to do a visa run??

Yes, as it stood last year, you could not change an ARC for work purposes to a student visa. They consider it a “different purpose” so you have to make a waste of time and money trip to Hong Kong, Philippines, or Japan etc… to get a new visa for that purpose, unless of course you wanted to make that trip in the first place to check out the country.

You would need to get the school to admit you and give you a certificate of admission that you would bring to the TECO office in the country you will do the visa run in.
I also think you will require proof of finances (at least they required this in Canada when I applied), please check on that.

But your first question, no changing of purposes on visas/arc

There seem to be details that are missing from your post.

Work ARC > Student ARC (unless you have some major details that aren’t known)

a) you are working illegally if you are on a student visa
b) to get a student visa (and then ARC) you need to sign up for the 15 hour class option (additional cost and BS) but if you’re on a ARC thru work then you can take only the 10 hour class