Diversified enrolment beyond the Big Four

By Karl Baldacchino with Ameena Ali

The global movement of students seeking education abroad has a long and storied history, significantly impacting the sectors of their chosen destinations. International students contribute to the prestige of higher education institutions, foster cultural exchanges, stimulate economic growth, and drive technological innovation. Consequently, it is crucial for higher education institutions and study destinations to closely monitor the trends and developments in international student mobility.?

Studyportals own data on international student enrolments reveals that while traditional destinations like the UK, the US, and Canada lead in total international enrolments, several European countries also rank in the top 10. This contrasts with UNESCO data, which places the Netherlands, Italy, and Spain at 15th, 21st, and 14th, respectively.??

This difference arises because Studyportals captures the study destination choices of students enrolling abroad online, with a particular focus on trends in English-taught programmes. Consequently, Studyportals offers a fresh perspective on global student mobility, enabling institutions to assess their success in promoting internationalised portfolios and identifying key origin countries for potential students navigating the online information landscape.?

Using this data, this article will explore some of the trends our team of experts have noticed for sending and receiving markets, spot opportunities based on these trends, and highlight the importance of data-driven insights from international enrolments.?

Broadening Source Markets?

Although India by far sends the largest share of students to study abroad, there is a diverse set of source markets from which students are mobilising to pursue their academic goals abroad. If we compare these origin countries against the top 10 origin countries that instead produced the most student interest, in terms of pageviews on Studyportals’ websites, for on-campus Bachelor's or Master's programmes in the last 24 months, then this reveals a near similarity in the top sending markets.?

Spotting opportunities for study destinations?

Considering the trend of international enrolments within the top 5 destinations between 2019 and 2023, it is intriguing to note that the UK, the US, and Canada have seen their shares of total enrolments grow since 2019. However, while Canada's market share continued to rise rapidly, the UK's has declined. Given the evolving landscape of higher education due to domestic policies aimed at reducing international student numbers, Canada's trend is expected to change course as well, whereas the UK's trend may worsen. As a result, this opens up opportunities for other destinations to attract international students seeking alternative destinations for their studies abroad.?

Focusing on enrolment trends from the top five sending markets highlights the significance of Indian students, who make up a large share of those studying abroad. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, Indian enrolments have increased by 55.1% since 2019, further widening the gap.??

Beyond this, even though Nigerian enrolments dipped in 2023, the share of enrolments from this market rose by an astounding 110% compared to 2019, alongside the share of Pakistani enrolments which rose by 56.3%. In stark contrast to this, although the US and Germany each send a credible number of students abroad, the share from each market has declined by 52.5% and 53.1%.?

Destination diversity from top origin countries?

Lastly, it is also worth observing the top-5 origin countries for each top destination, and vice versa for the top-5 destinations per top origin country. The table below highlights that there is very little difference in terms of where enrolments are coming from with regard to destinations.??

However, in terms of where the top origin countries are sending their students, there are some interesting differences. For instance, while students from each origin country largely choose to study in the UK, the US, and Germany, we see that Indian and Pakistani students also choose to study in Australia, Nigerians going to Ireland, and German students going to the Netherlands, Spain, and Türkiye.?

Utilising data driven insights

This shows that although the top study destinations remain appealing to similar and crucial markets for international recruitment, at the origin country level our data highlights how international students are increasingly looking at various study destinations beyond those that are typically considered traditional. As more destinations cultivate an international education strategy, whether at the institutional or national level, it is more important that higher education institutions monitor data on international student enrolments and mobility to assess opportunities that give them an edge in a competitive landscape.?

For more information on how your institution can utilise such data to broaden their appeal to international students, then please reach out regarding our new product, the Student Potential module. This product aims to provide higher education institutions with detailed insights into the mobility and characteristics of enrolled students by both destination and origin, utilising a proprietary dataset by Studyportals which contains enrolment data of over 1 million international students globally matched with median tuition fees, entry requirements, and the ranking of the hosting universities.?

?