The changing face of international student mobility
The following article is adapted from the 2026 edition of ICEF Insights magazine, which is freely available to download now.
The twenty years between 1990 and 2010 saw a rapid expansion of student mobility. The number of students pursuing higher education credentials abroad increased by 5.4–5.9% per year, on average – a much higher rate of growth than in the previous two decades. The reason, in a word, was China.
China was the main contributor to student mobility growth from 1970 until about 2015 on the back of its roaring economy, burgeoning middle class, and massive gaps between student demand for higher education and capacity at reputable Chinese universities. These factors propelled large numbers of Chinese students abroad for many years. Most of them were self-funded, and many of them were just as likely to return home after their studies as they were to stay on in their host destination to work.
Chinese students shaped educators’ understanding of international students in general. Their priorities were assumed to be foreign students’ priorities…until fairly recently.
Evolving needs
Now, students’ top-of-mind concerns centre on the costs of study abroad. This manifests in several ways, including interest in work opportunities during and after study abroad, greater price sensitivity in the marketplace, and the growing popularity of affordable study destinations.
Chinese students are no exception. China’s economy has cooled in recent years and its youth face historically high unemployment rates. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, Chinese families became more hesitant about study abroad, more worried about safety, and less convinced that investing in a foreign degree will provide the same benefits as it used to.
New expectations
The composition of foreign enrolment in many destinations has changed substantially over the past 10 years. There is a far greater diversity of students coming from all over the world and much greater outbound flows from South Asia and Africa.
Tens of thousands of students are now from lower-middle-income countries in which the Gross National Income (GNI) per capita is between US$1,136 and $4,495. These dynamic sending markets include Cameroon, Ghana, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Nepal, Vietnam, and at least a dozen others. In Nepal, fully one in five students now chooses to leave their country for tertiary education.
Considering the low GNI in those countries, there is an associated need among many students to work during and after studies; to carefully examine the costs of study and living in various study destinations; and to choose programmes most strongly linked to positive career outcomes.
Inside the numbers
In 2010, there were just over four million students abroad in higher education. Roughly 1.3 million – almost 31% of the total – were from China, and in that year alone, the number of Chinese outbound students surged by 24%.
That same year, there were just over 330,000 students from South Asia studying abroad, with most coming from India. The number of African students was about the same.
By 2019, the global total of international students rose to six million. Nearly three in ten (28%) were from China, but roughly as many were from key markets in South Asia – including over a million from India. Meanwhile, the number of African students abroad reached nearly half a million.
By 2024, student mobility had rebounded from the pandemic, and almost seven million students were abroad. However, a much greater range of countries contributed to that outbound trend than in 2010 and 2019. The number of Chinese students dipped to just over one million (or about 14% of the total) while the number of Indian students climbed to an estimated 1.3 million, representing nearly 19% of the total in 2024. Other South Asian markets – notably Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka – also registered very strong growth.
Buffeted by economic headwinds at home, the number of African students did not grow significantly in the five years between 2019 and 2024. However, given its massive college-aged population, Africa is expected to figure much more prominently in global mobility trends going forward. To highlight just one indicator of that potential, the United Nations has projected that by 2030, one of every four people on the planet aged 15-24 will live in Africa.
Implications
We have entered an era in which global student flows are heavily shaped by students from South Asia, Africa, and Southeast Asia.
This accelerating trend means that the historical understanding of international students – largely informed by the Chinese students who once greatly outnumbered students from other countries – is outdated. The reality is that the world’s mobile students are more heterogeneous than ever – from varied backgrounds and with unique as
well as common needs.
It is time to double down on brainstorming about how to enhance the study abroad experience for a more diverse range of students. This means creating more detailed student personas; conducting more market intelligence research; reaching out to current international students for insights; examining the range of student services on offer; prioritising integration services; tailoring the website to address concerns and aspirations in top target markets; providing better guidance on immigration rules and visas; and more. It also involves recognising that work rights, career services, and career outcomes have joined quality of education as dominant drivers of student decision-making.
The international students of today – and of the future – will be shopping the market for value and measurable outcomes more carefully than ever before. The most competitive institutions will deliver that ROI in every facet of their offer to students.
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