International student migration

Nearly 5 million students around the world are now studying outside their own country, creating one of the largest waves of human migration in history. Since 2000, when 2.1 million students studied outside their home countries, this number has grown by as much as 140% at an average rate of 10% per year.

According to the latest available statistics (2011), the US attracts the largest number of international students - 16.5% of the total. Next comes the UK - 13%, Germany - 6.3%, France - 6.2% and Australia - 6.1%. These five countries accounted for approximately half of all international students in the world in 2011. However, as the total number of foreign students in the world grows rapidly, the share of those who choose the United States to study, on the contrary, is declining: from 23% (475 thousand students) in 2000 to the current 16.5% (710 thousand).

As one might expect, the majority of foreign students in the world are from China (723 thousand), almost one in six of this growing flow of internationally mobile youth. Next come India - 223 thousand (5.2% of all foreign students), South Korea - 138 thousand (3.2%), Germany - 132 thousand (3.1%) and France - 79.6 thousand. (1.9%). These five countries thus supply more than 30% (or 1.3 million) of the world's foreign students.

One in four Chinese students choose the United States for higher education abroad, 13% choose Japan, 12.5% ​​choose Australia, 10% choose the UK and 6.6% choose South Korea.

The largest proportion of students leaving to study abroad is in small European countries: Iceland - 19%, Slovakia - 14%, Ireland - 13%, Estonia - 7.7% and Norway - 7.1%. On the other hand, the smallest proportion of students who decide to go abroad for education are in the USA, Great Britain, Japan and Australia. (Data for Russia, unfortunately, are not available.)

There are serious imbalances in European international student flows. Thus, the UK accepts 150 thousand more foreign students to study than the number of Britons leaving to study elsewhere in the country. As a result, for every British student who leaves, 19 students arrive from elsewhere in Europe. Other European “importers” of students are Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland. At the same time, the main “exporting countries” - Turkey, Romania, Cyprus and Slovakia - together send 100 thousand more students to study abroad than study at their own universities.

Such growing imbalances also force measures to control international student flows. Thus, Austria and Belgium achieved the support of the European Court to limit the admission of foreign students in their countries to 25% and 30%, respectively. This applies to such popular specialties as medicine, psychology, veterinary medicine and psychotherapy. The court's 2006 decision was recently extended to 2016 based on evidence that strong competition from international students is preventing these countries from training enough specialists for their own health care systems.

At many universities in Switzerland, more than 50% of graduate students are foreigners, adding urgency to the ongoing debate about restricting immigration.

At the same time, the Dutch Ministry of Education commissioned the Netherlands Organization for International Cooperation in Higher Education (Nuffic) to develop a strategic action plan to attract international students to work in the country after graduation. Denmark is also working on a similar plan. The Danish Ministry of Finance recently published a memorandum stating that every foreign student who graduates from a Danish university and stays to work in the country for five years adds up to a significant profit for the state treasury.

A.K.,
based on materials from University World New