Are international students shrinking?

 

Growth in the overall number of international students has been gradually slowing in recent years: COVID-19 has catalysed this trend, a Brand Education research finds out.

Most borders remained opened to international students with visa arrangements in place during 2020 (some, such as Australia, were a bit tougher).

The prospect of quarantine and lockdown, however, certainly has made international study a less enticing proposition. The slow responses of certain host nations to the virus threat won’t have helped.

We can add paying top-rate tuition fees for now mostly online courses, after having travelled halfway across the world for the pleasure. Online migration has been identified as a pain point in student recruitment.

While we can hope that campus life will be restored, many are likely to feel less confident about studying abroad. Studyportals figures from May 2020 found 36% of prospective international students were changing their study abroad plans.383% of institutions surveyed by the same source anticipated a decrease in international
enrolments. Three out of four learners around the world believe HE will never be the same.

This is beginning to bite. In the US, international enrolments fell by 16% in 2020, coming on the back of a 2% pre-pandemic decline. In the UK, a 12% decline is anticipated. This represents an acceleration of established trends.

The Biden administration is hoping to attract tens of thousands of international students who stayed away from U.S. campuses during the pandemic. Foreign enrollment plummeted by 20% last year costing nearly $10 billion dollars in lost revenue. Though some students are starting to return, recovery might not be so easy. Even before the pandemic, international students were already turning away from the U.S.

In 2018, the British Council forecasted that annual growth in international student numbers would slow to 1.7%. This compares to a 5.7% average in 2000-2015. It is predicted that internationally mobile students will settle at 7-8 million by 2025, up from a current 5.5 million.

This will have consequences: increased competition on price, with new lower-cost, regional hubs of higher education emerging to compete on this basis. Traditional Anglophone HE suppliers will face increased competition. Malaysia is targeting 250,000 international students by 2025, France 470,000, and Russia a terrifying 710,000.

This may create a squeezed middle of host countries and institutions. Study destinations that can’t compete on prestige or price will need to offer strong post-study work pathways. Non-elite institutions, forced to compete on price may reconsider whether it is worth it.

It is estimated there will be 800 million underserved learners around the world by 2030. Many live-in countries will struggle to provide suitable provisions. New, lower-cost options may bring these students into the fold.

 

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