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Return to Bulletin Home - June 2010 |
FEATURE Competition Intensifies to Woo International Students
"Something big is happening…Making the most of human
capital—a key to competitiveness and prosperity—is more and more
the work of globalized universities competing for the best
thinkers and the best ideas."
The world's population of international students grew dramatically over the last ten years. And the forecasts are for continuing, strong growth in the years ahead. At the same time, the competition to recruit those students is heating up—to the point that global student mobility patterns are being affected. New competitors are emerging and students are going to a wider range of study destinations than in the past.
The UNESCO Institute of Statistics reports the number of students studying outside of their home countries increased by 57% between 1999 and 2009. UNESCO currently estimates there are now three million international students worldwide. Even more impressive: these figures count tertiary, or higher education, enrolments only—meaning that the total international student population is considerably larger (likely double again or more) once vocational, secondary, and language programmes are factored in. What is behind this dramatic growth? In his recently published book The Great Brain Race, US expert Ben Wildavsky argues that the global drive to build knowledge-based economies is a major factor as is "the financial attraction for many Western universities of overseas students who pay full freight."
To date, accredited universities and business schools from the Americas, Asia, and Europe—including the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona—have registered for the ICEF Higher Education Workshop in Paris from September 10–12. The Higher Education Workshop is a unique networking event for universities and carefully selected agencies specialising in higher education and this year features higher education institutions from a number of emerging study destinations, including Hungary, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia, Turkey, Thailand, Ukraine, and the Czech Republic. The Paris workshop is filling quickly and promises to be the largest-ever Higher Education Workshop. (Above: A view of Barcelona at dawn.) It will surprise no one that the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and Canada are the historical—and current--market leaders among the world's study destinations. The cultural and economic impacts in each of these countries are profound—in the US alone, international student enrolments contribute US$18 billion to the national economy every year. Meanwhile, major moves are afoot outside of this leadership group as new competitors assert themselves in the global education market. China, in particular, has presided over the largest expansion of post-secondary education in the history of the world (see "Keeping Up With China" from the January 2009 ICEF Bulletin). Similarly, both India and Saudi Arabia have made multi-billion dollar investments in their domestic education system in recent years. Investments on this scale have the effect both of boosting the capacity of these countries to serve their domestic students and to attract international students.
His Majesty King Abdullah provides opening remarks at the groundbreaking ceremony for the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia. Other countries, Hong Kong and Japan among them, have publicly announced bold plans to dramatically increase their international student numbers. Hong Kong, for example, is moving away from its traditional British-influenced system of three-year degrees to four-year degrees more commonly found in the US. This shift, and further accompanying changes in both secondary and post-secondary systems in Hong Kong, is part of a larger goal to nearly double the territory's global share of the international student market. With all of these moves afoot, it should come as no surprise that the world's population of international students is now spread among a larger number of countries than it was ten years ago. "Students today," reports UNESCO, "Are expanding their range of destinations. In 1999, one in four students chose to study in the United States while this was true for only one in five students in 2007…Meanwhile, Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Japan and South Africa not only remained popular destinations but saw their shares of mobile students grow. Countries that have emerged among the top host countries include China, the Republic of Korea and New Zealand."
The University of Hong Kong There is also increasing evidence that international students are staying within their home regions to a greater extent than in the past. The percentage of Latin American students, for example, remaining within the region increased from 11% in 1999 to 23% in 2007. Similarly, the percentage of mobile East Asian students studying within the region rose from 36% to 42% over the same period. These values are significant in part as both regions—Asia in particular—are major sources of international students. China continues to account for the largest number of students studying abroad (more than 420,000 in 2007), with India, Korea, Germany, France, and Russia also among the top ten source countries. There are some clear implications of these changing mobility patterns for both educators and agents. The competitive field is changing and expanding worldwide and traditional destinations will now have to compete harder, particularly against emerging regional hubs that are successfully drawing larger numbers of students today and positioning themselves for aggressive growth in the future. This is a marketplace that increasingly relies on imaginative new strategies and tactics and—as always—on strong working relationships with effective partners worldwide. Industry observers predict that these patterns will persist in the years ahead. As national economies continue to recover from the recent financial crisis, governments are struggling with mounting debt loads and the need to balance budgets. This in turn places additional funding pressure on universities and colleges and helps to fuel their interest in international student recruitment. Whether driven by financial imperatives or otherwise, it seems clear that competition for international students will likely continue to intensify for the foreseeable future. SIDEBAR European Educators Step Up Efforts to Attract Non-EU Students In a further indication of the increasing competition for international students, it is becoming ever more common for European countries to charge differential tuition fees for non-EU (European Union) students. In recent years, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, and Malta have all implemented international student fees, and Sweden has also introduced legislation to establish differential fees by 2011. In the case of Sweden, the move to fees for non-EU students is part of a larger programme to attract an increasing number of international students. The Swedish government has also taken steps to revise its immigration policy—making it easier for students to settle in Sweden after completing their studies there—and has launched two new scholarship programmes targeted to international students.
Earlier this month, ICEF organised a special agent forum in Stockholm in cooperation with the Swedish Institute— government agency charged with promoting Sweden abroad. The Stockholm Agent Meeting featured an intensive two-day schedule of presentations and one-to-one meetings between 16 participating Swedish universities and a field of carefully selected education agents from China, India, and Russia. Given that agencies are already sending students to Sweden outside of the context of formal working relationships with universities there, the Stockholm meeting was in many respects a move to formalise and professionalise those linkages. Participating agencies were determined on the basis of their professional qualifications and their focus on higher education. Prasanna Rasiklal Acharya of the Educationworld agency (India) said after the meeting, "It is very helpful to understand Sweden and the needs of Swedish universities. I feel it was a rare opportunity to develop a new study destination." "The Stockholm Agent Meeting marks a new era in international marketing for Swedish universities," remarked Niklas Tranaeus, Manager for Study in Sweden at the Swedish Institute. "Scandinavia has become an increasingly popular destination for international students and now, with the introduction of differential fees in Sweden as of 2011, it makes sense to engage with quality agents to increase international student recruitment for our higher education institutions." |
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