International Student Recruitment: What’s Ahead for 2023 and Beyond?

Today’s prospective students have an abundance of choices regarding quality study options, both at home and abroad. How can institutions stand out and attract bestfit students for their institution? A 2022 global survey of 9,635 prospective graduate students from more than 55 countries revealed the following:

Motivations and Challenges

Top motivations to study abroad:

1. Achieve my career goals (55%)

2. Develop myself personally (46%)

3. Access higher quality teaching (37%)

4. Experience a new culture or lifestyle (36%)

5. Attend a top-ranked program or university (20%)

Top challenges for studying abroad:

1. Tuition fees and living expenses (83.5%)

2. Visa requirements and immigration (42.7%)

3. Finding housing and accommodation (40%)

Study Intentions and Key Factors

• Funding: n Traditional sources of scholarships and loans are shrinking. n Self-reliance, working to self-fund is growing. n Students from China are looking for less funding while India and Africa are looking for more.

• Students mostly want to study on campus, but there is lots of interest in hybrid.

• Preferred subject areas are #1 healthcare and medicine, #2 business and administration, #3 computer science and IT.

• When deciding where to study, students start with a program, then country, then school. And when asked “What’s important in a program?” 65% said “practical curriculum and a focus on course content.”

Early Trends for 2022 vs. 2023

• The pipeline is getting shorter for the start of study options research with 85% of students starting to look for a program a year or less before applying.

• Students who responded that they planned to study “this year” increased from 48% in 2022 to 64% in 2023.

• Preferred study destinations are 21% UK (steady), 14.4% Canada (up slightly), 14.3% USA (up slightly).

• Students’ preferred means of communication with a university is email (79%), followed distantly by instant messaging (8%) and video call (5%).

Suggestions for Programs

• It needs to be easy to find you and SEO is important.

• Students are getting more savvy about finding information, and coming to your site when they are ready to apply. It needs to be easy for them.

• Be transparent about real costs, including cost of living. To meet student communication expectations, find ways to automate. Use “snippets” and personalize. When asking for information, students expect to receive a response within the following timeframe: n 7% within a week n 36% within a few days n 30% within 24 hours n 19% within a few hours n 9% immediately

Note: Suggestions/comments from the audience: Build a landing page for markets you want to target. Admissions doesn’t have control over websites. WhatsApp is helpful. n