Visa curbs drive ‘historic change’ in global student flows

Visa restrictions across major anglophone sectors are driving a “historic change” in international student mobility, with many would-be mobile learners opting to enrol closer to home.

Recent weeks have confirmed a major slowdown in student flows to the “big four” recruiting nations. The annual Open Doors survey estimates a 5 per cent drop in international enrolments at US universities this year, while the number of student visa applications in the UK is down 16 per cent year-on-year.

Although Australia’s plan to cap international student numbers now appears to have been blocked by parliamentary opposition, visa applications there are down 36 per cent for the year to August, and Canada’s system of caps is estimated to lead to a drop in approved study permits approaching 50 per cent by the end of the year.

Janet Ilieva, founder of the consultancy Education Insight, said that students were being put off by restrictive government policies and problems obtaining visas across the major recruiting nations.

“There is a strong indication that international student demand is slowing down,” she told Times Higher Education.

Simon Marginson, professor of higher education at the University of Oxford, agreed.

“It’s a big historic change – it’s on the scale of the globalisation of the 1990s. This is deglobalisation and it’s happening in trade, the economy, international relations…we’re now seeing all this play out in higher education,” he said.

What was less clear was whether would-be international students had simply put their travel plans on hold or had enrolled elsewhere. A survey of 365 institutions across 66 countries published last week by online university directory Studyportals offered early clues, with Asian universities reporting a 12 per cent increase in international postgraduate enrolments, and European institutions claiming smaller rises at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Dr Ilieva said that intra-regional mobility will accelerate – with many Chinese students potentially opting to study at home or nearer home, such as in Hong Kong or Malaysia. But she highlighted that Western branch campuses across Asia, often seen as an attractive alternative, had “limited capacity” to absorb demand.

Professor Marginson said that these alternatives were not necessarily interchangeable for students because they lacked the “prestige factor” of the US or the UK. Early indications were of a “sea change” in China, where more students were being encouraged not to go abroad, he added.

Miguel Lim, senior lecturer in international education at the University of Manchester, said there was evidence of increased interest in other European destinations, regional hubs in East and South-east Asia and the Gulf, and the improvement of universities inside the two biggest markets – India and China.

“However, in my view, there continues to be robust demand for international higher education,” he said. “I do not think that the bubble of international higher education has burst.”

Mirka Martel, head of research, evaluation and learning at the Institute of International Education, agreed, pointing to demographic trends across south and central Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

“[Their] tertiary age population is going to continue to grow and very realistically they do not have higher education systems that are prepared for that growth, so…going outside of their countries to study will be the only viable option,” said Dr Martel.

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