Keystone Education Group’s 2025 data reveals a dynamic year for international student mobility, with some sharp declines across traditional powerhouses alongside rapid growth in emerging destinations.

The data, drawn from millions of annual student search indicators and enrolment data, shows that international student mobility is increasingly being shaped by a combination of supply-side policies and demand-side preferences among students.

Fredrik Högemark, CEO of Keystone Education Group, said: “This year has been one of the most volatile we’ve tracked in our data. Students are weighing affordability and safety more than ever, and as return on investment becomes a necessity, this is leveling the playing field beyond the ‘Big Four’.”

“Policy changes announced mid-cycle in 2025 forced students to rapidly adjust their plans, while we have also observed numerous anti-globalisation measures that have inadvertently affected international education.”

Since fall 2023, international interest in the US across Keystone’s platforms dropped by -47%.
However, the growth of post-study work opportunities and OPT continues to influence enrolments in the US, particularly with the two largest source markets – India and China.

And, when we look at the second half of 2025 in isolation, interest in the US is showing signs of stability again and it remains the most searched destination across Keystone sites.

The decline in US interest, while extreme, is not the steepest globally. Canada and Australia also experienced similar drops in interest over the same period.

For Australia, this trend also might be starting to turn for 2026, with early indications in Keystone’s Q3 2025 data showing a more positive outlook – with search interest up +8% compared to Q2 in 2025.

The UK was Keystone’s second leading study destination in 2025, recognised globally for its academic reputation. Beyond its reputation, Keystone’s 2025 State of Student Recruitment Report found the UK also ranks highest for reputation and safety of the Big Four.

Fredrik added:

“We have seen very strong trends for UK study across Keystone’s platforms this year and data from September 2025 also showed study visa applications are up 7% over 2024, so the environment had been looking stable for 2026. However, the news in October of a shorter post-study-work entitlement in the UK will likely have an impact on interest there. The question is how much impact?”

Europe as a collective also continued to amass student interest, particularly at the end of 2025, with five of the top 10 searched destinations in November in Europe.

Spain, Italy, Germany, and France all recorded more student search interest than Canada and Australia, with Spain’s search volume rivalling the UK’s popularity.

Nordic destinations have also experienced an upward trend, with a +33% rise in interest as of April 2025. Meanwhile, the UAE continues to build its profile as a global education hub, with Keystone data showing a near +90% increase in search interest for UAE study opportunities in June 2025.

It has also been a breakthrough year for the Asian Tigers – Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and South Korea.

Malaysia led the surge with a +64% increase in student searches from March to May on Keystone sites, followed by Singapore with +51%. Japan’s popularity also grew in this period, while South Korea entered the top 10 study destinations for the first time.

Fredrik added: “It is no surprise South Korea and Japan are growing in popularity. Japan has a very pro-international policy – it is launching more and more English-taught programmes and the good collaboration between higher education and the government is evident. South Korea is in a similar situation. Both have been fully embracing and supporting international education.”

West Africa was an unlikely player in 2025 but saw a surge in searches from international students, with a +25% increase in interest in the region on Keystone’s sites between May and July this year.

For additional background, please see:

• “Global trends in international enrolments and policies as we head into 2026”
• “Canada and the US are losing international student enrolments to Europe and Asia”
• “The changing face of international student mobility”

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Today, our focus is on three alternative destinations that have – relatively quietly – been attracting considerably more student interest than in the past.

These destinations are Thailand, Poland, and the Philippines, countries that are all attractive in terms of affordability as well as strengths unique to their location and education system.

Please note: Cost of living and study costs change fairly regularly, as do visa requirements. It’s important to check with individual institutions and government officials for the most current information in these respects.

THAILAND

Increased demand from China

According to Thailand’s Office of the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research, and Innovation, were enrolled in Thai universities in in 2022, up from 25,100 in 2019. Since 2009, foreign enrolments in Thai universities have grown by about 2,000 per year thanks largely to increased demand from China.

The number of Chinese students studying in Thailand has doubled within the past five years to over 20,000, and reports that 60% of foreign students in Thailand (as well as Malaysia) are Chinese. Myanmar and Cambodia are the next largest senders of students to Thailand, but they sent less than 5,000 students each in 2022.

The affordability advantage

Thailand has a compelling competitive advantage in 2024: affordability.

Thailand is not only more affordable than the Big Four destinations of Australia, Canada, the UK, and US, but it is also less expensive – in terms of tuition and living costs – than the top Southeast Asian destinations of Malaysia and Singapore. Students need only to prove they have savings of US$360 when applying for a Thai student visa – an indication of just how affordable the country is to live and study in. (By contrast, students need savings of at least US$20,000 to cover tuition and living when applying for a visa for study in Australia, Canada, and US).

In terms of programme costs, bachelor’s degrees in Thailand range from about US$1,775 to $1,900 a semester, while master’s run from about US$2,320 to $2,500. provides the following table showing average tuition.

Students can live on a much smaller budget in Thailand than in many destinations. :

“Those on a tight student budget will be able to live on 650 baht (US$20) a day, covering food, transport and accommodation. For those looking to do some travelling and exploring while undertaking study in Thailand, you will likely need to budget around 1500 baht (US$46) per day.”

QS cautions, however, that living costs are higher in major cities like Bangkok.

Quality education offerings

Thailand isn’t just competitive on the basis of cost: it also has some very good universities and highly ranked programmes. For example, two Thai universities are ranked in the Top 100 in the QS Asia University Rankings 2024: Chulalongkorn University (#44) and Mahidol University (#51). Chiang Mai University also ranks highly at #102.

On the global QS 2024 rankings, these are the Thai universities in the top 1,000:

• Chulalongkorn University: #211
• Mahidol University: #382
• Chiang Mai University: #571
• Thammasat University: #600
• Kasetsart University: #751-760
• Prince of Songkla University: #901-950
• Khon Kaen University: #901-950
• King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi: #951-1000

Beyond those overall rankings, the following chart shows that several Thai universities perform well in specific subject areas.

Overflow from students failing China’s ultra-competitive exams

Studying in Thailand is part of a larger trend of Chinese students choosing to study in Asia if they fail their very competitive postgraduate exams. has reported that:

“Yangyang Study Abroad Private education consultancy surveys in China put the proportion of applicants who fail the postgraduate exam and then apply to universities in Asia at between 40% (estimated by the agency) and 66% (estimated by other lesser-known agencies).”

Transnational Education (TNE) is part of Thailand’s plan to become a regional education hub

Over the past five years, TNE activity has been intense in Thailand, and the Thai government sees foreign partnerships and the establishment of branch campuses in Thailand to be a key means of attracting more international students from the region. The UK is particularly active in this regard in Thailand, and there now more than 120 active collaborative agreements between British and Thai universities.

Thousands of Thai students are abroad but high costs are dampening demand

At the same time as Thailand is attracting more inbound students, it is also sending out tens of thousands (more than 30,000 in 2022). However, agents are noticing more hesitancy this year among Thai students considering study abroad. Speaking during StudyTravel’s Alphe Asia conference in February 2024, Sethaphol Rutrakool, president of the Thai education consultancy TIECA, said:

“I think that since the pandemic, the market in Thailand has recovered, but in 2024 it is not so good. Because of inflation, the costs of everything have gone up – the costs of homestays, tuition fees and everything while the purchasing power of the students and parents is not fully back yet. So, I think it’s kind of a tough situation right now. It’s going [to] slow down from what I’ve seen for the remainder of this year and maybe next year as well.”

POLAND

Over the course of the past decade, the number of international students in Poland has tripled and last year reached a record-high of over 100,000 according to the education magazine . A total of 102,200 international students were registered in the education ministry database for the 2022/23 academic year and about 9% of all students in Poland’s universities are now foreign.

Poland offers , an advantage that appeals to a large segment of international students.

Steep rise in Ukrainians

A key reason for the increase is a significant rise in the number of Ukrainian students, many of whom have left their country due to Russia’s invasion. Nearly 50,000 Ukrainians are studying in Poland and account for nearly half of all foreign students.

But as reported in , Poland is also attracting students from a wide range of other countries, including Belarus (12,000), Turkey (3,800), Zimbabwe (3,600), India (2,700), Azerbaijan (2,500), Uzbekistan (2,100), China (1,800), Kazakhstan (1,700), and Nigeria (1,600).

The presence of so many Zimbabweans is interesting – there are more Zimbabwean students in Poland than in Canada (1,425), the US (1,790), or Australia (1,665), despite these destinations’ more intense recruiting in Zimbabwe over the past couple of years.

Of the 100,000+ international students in 2022/23, Perspektywy magazine notes: “This reflects the huge amount of work done by Polish higher education in the last 19 years … when Poland joined the EU in 2004 it had only 8,800 foreign students … just 0.5% of all students at the time and the lowest relative figure in Europe.”

Affordability

Poland is an affordable destination compared to many in Europe. provides the following illustrative chart showing tuition fees at several major Polish universities:

The Polish government says that international students can expect a cost of living of about €330 (US$350) a month, though living in cities can be more expensive. More information can be viewed .

The fee for a student visa application is €80 (US$85). In terms of proof of funds, a student must show they have 776 PLN (US$190) plus tuition for each month of their stay in Poland plus enough for return travel back to their country. They must also show they can pay for accommodation.

12 unis in the Top 1,000

There are close to 400 state and private universities in Poland. Two Polish universities are in the top 500 in QS’s 2024 World University Rankings: University of Warsaw (#262) and Jagiellonian University (#304). Overall, these are the Polish universities in the top 1,000:

• University of Warsaw: #262
• Jagiellonian University: #304
• Warsaw University of Technology: #571
• Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań: #731-740
• Poznan University of Life Sciences: #801-850
• Gdańsk University of Technology: #851-900
• AGH University of Krakow: #901-950
• Nicolaus Copernicus University: #901-950
• University of Wroclaw: #901-950
• Wroclaw University of Science and Technology: #901-950
• University of Gdańsk: #951-1000
• University of Lodz: #951-1000

PHILIPPINES

The Philippines is a crucial source of students for many destinations. It is now Canada’s third largest market behind only India and China, sending 48,870 students in 2023, 50% more than in 2022. It is Australia’s fourth largest market after China, India, and Nepal, with 48,300 students enrolled in 2024. Australia has been expanding its Filipino student population even faster than Canada has – the total for 2024 is up 194% over 2023 and represents a massive jump of 469% since 2019.

But the Philippines is also an attractive destination for a growing number of students, even though international students make up only 1% of the total student population. In 2022, the Philippines hosted 22,250 international students according to ApplyBoard, 53% more than in 2021. (This number may be an underestimation – the reported this month that Rommel Banlaoi, director of the Philippine Institute for Peace, Violence and Terrorism Research, says there are as many as 20,000 Chinese students were in the Philippines that same year.) As in Poland, international students have many English-taught programmes to consider in the Philippines.

STEM programmes draw the most students

Interestingly, the Philippines is enrolling most of its international students to STEM programmes. As you can see from the chart below, STEM students make up a larger proportion of the overall student population in the Philippines than they do in any other destination represented in the data.

Indian students’ growing interest in the Philippines

The Philippines’ international enrolment growth has been largely driven by Indian students. In 2022, these were the top five markets for universities in the Philippines:

• India: 16,010
• China: 4,460 (but this number could much higher according to the )
• Nigeria: 1,930
• South Korea: 144
• Thailand: 137

notes: “While traditional destinations like the UK, US, Australia and Canada remain popular [for Indian students], other countries like Uzbekistan, Philippines, Russia, Ireland, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan are gaining interest.”

ApplyBoard points out that once a destination attracts a critical mass of Indian students, it tends to expand its international student population at an increasingly rapid rate:

“Once Indian students penetrate a market, history tells us that the market will skyrocket in popularity. Not just among Indian students, but all international students.

Take the UK for example, which hosted 18,000 Indian students in 2017. Today, the UK is projected to welcome over 100,000 new Indian international students next year, which will make India the UK’s number one source market.

We will be watching the Philippines closely to see if this spike in Indian interest is the catalyst of quick growth.”

Affordability

International students can expect to pay €500–€2,000 (US$530–$2,030) per year in tuition – making the Philippines one of the most affordable study abroad destinations in the world, especially considering that the cost of living ranges from €650–€1,000 per month (US$692–$1,065).

The visa application fee is US$100 plus $40 for a compulsory registration card. There is no set amount required for proof of financial means, but students must present evidence they can afford their course of study, accommodation, and living expenses while in the Philippines.

QS rankings

Five universities in the Philippines feature in :

• University of the Philippines: #404
• Anteneo de Manila University: #563
• De La Salle University: #681-690
• University of Santo Thomas: #801-850
• University of San Carlos: #1201-1400

The allure of alternative destinations

The costs of living and studying – plus hefty requirements for proving sufficient financial resources – are making it impossible for thousands of students to study in the leading English-speaking destinations. But strong demand for study abroad remains, and students are proving themselves quite willing to travel to emerging destinations to earn a foreign degree at a cost that won’t leave them (and their families) desperate for cash.

Thailand, Poland, and the Philippines are just three of the alternative destinations enrolling many more students than in the past on the basis of affordability. Other host countries that have attracted significantly more international students over the past few years include Mexico, the Netherlands, Russia, and Japan.

For additional background, please see:

• “Southeast Asian students increasingly considering “studying abroad” closer to home”
• “The impact of immigration settings, affordability, and job opportunities on international students’ study abroad decisions”
• “Closer to home: Intra-regional mobility in Asia”

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Outbound mobility flows

The report shows that 132,000 Vietnamese students were abroad in 2021/22, representing 37% of the market. Malaysia and Indonesia each sent more than 50,000, while Thailand sent 32,000. 

English-speaking destinations remain popular among Southeast Asian families, but there is now also significant interest in regional alternatives.

According to UNESCO data, Australia hosts the highest number of outbound Indonesian students, followed quite closely by Malaysia; the US, Japan, and UK round out the top five destinations. Malaysian students remain most interested in the UK, Australia, and US but some are also choosing Japan and Jordan. Vietnamese students, meanwhile, are more likely to be studying in Asian destinations than Western ones, as illustrated in the charts below.

China is not captured in UNESCO data but, leading into the pandemic, it was also very competitive in Southeast Asia. The Chinese government has not released international enrolment data for the years 2020–23, but in 2019, China hosted 28,600 Thai students, 15,000 Indonesian students, 11,300 Vietnamese students, and 9,500 Malaysian students – making it the top destination for a very hefty proportion of Southeast Asian students.

The report notes that Western institutions face more competition than before in Southeast Asia given Japan’s drive to increase its foreign enrolment to 400,000, Korea’s target of 300,000 by 2027, and Taiwan’s goal of 320,000 by 2030. These competitors are increasingly tying post-study work opportunities into their offer – a huge selling point for international students.

Asian destinations offer students from the region not only cost savings (due to proximity), but also a robust set of top-ranked universities. For example, 33 Asian universities ranked within the 2024 Times Higher Education top 200, up from 28 in 2023. The US still has a higher number of institutions in that top rank (56), but it also has a very strong currency in 2024 that makes it more expensive to study there.

The allure of TNE

Along with intra-regional mobility, transnational education (TNE) is becoming more entrenched in Southeast Asia not least because it offers even more of a cost benefit (e.g., no travel, no accommodation expenses. The report notes:

“We are seeing significant and sustained interest from international institutions to engage in TNE partnerships in Vietnam, including increased interest from higher ranked universities, as well as from local universities for full in-country delivery of international degrees.”

Acumen’s experts consider Vietnam to be a market where there is solid room for expansion, saying it presents “considerable opportunities for institutions able to offer full in-country delivery, through branch campus, ‘campus within a campus’ models, franchise and other types of 4+0 arrangements.”

Australian providers are deepening their TNE presence in the region, notes the report, and becoming more invested in a niche market: professionals wanting to fast-track their careers through micro-credentials and shorter degrees. Overall, Acumen estimates there are now about 20,000 Vietnamese students enrolled in Australian TNE programmes, with RMIT, Swinburne, and Western Sydney University the market leaders.

Southeast Asian students are increasingly drawn both to both stand-alone programmes and to programmes that transition to a study abroad experience, says the Acumen team, and TNE (including progression agreements) are a highly important recruitment channel in the region, “particularly in Malaysia where financial constraints and post-pandemic travel hesitancy mean this option is becoming increasingly attractive.”

International schools’ popularity

Enrolments are trending upward in bilingual and international schools in the region: 600,000 students were enrolled across 1,905 international schools in 2022 – an increase of almost 25% compared with 2017. Acumen’s executives believe this demonstrates “the growing ability and willingness of families to pay for an international education, at an earlier age” and that higher enrolments will also serve to better prepare Southeast Asian students for study abroad.

There are variations across markets:

“In Vietnam for example, the fastest growing market segment has been premium bilingual schools (rather than full international schools.) In Malaysia, which has a mature international school segment, A-levels are becoming less popular due to a range of factors. This includes the emergence of alternative and more cost-competitive university pathways, as well as the academic rigour of A-levels, which is less attractive to some students seeking a less challenging route to tertiary education.”

Southeast Asian families’ growing interest in international and bilingual schools does present a competitive threat for some providers. The report warns that “foundation pathways are facing intense competition from this market segment,” and that Indonesian families , in particular, perceive “international school qualifications … as offering more flexibility and portability for students than foundation pathways, which are perceived as locking students into a particular institution.”

New directions for agents

Acumen’s experts note that Southeast Asian families’ common use of education agents fits into a larger context of using agents or intermediaries in general, for banking to real estate. Parents’ reliance on agents remains strong amid a prevalent post-pandemic legacy of increased concern about sending children abroad. Parents look for “individualised, humanised service which is difficult for education providers to deliver from a different country and time-zone and without a deep understanding of local cultural preferences.”

Agents may be called on for more specific advice and services, as noted in this passage from the report:

“As consumers sharpen their focus on ROI from international education, agents will become less focused on providing general information to families and will concentrate instead more on specialised advice, pastoral care and graduate outcomes, beyond what institutions may be able to offer directly.”

Shifting patterns in Malaysia

Malaysian demand for foreign education is changing in important ways. For example, Acumen research shows that while the UK remains the top market for Malaysian students, Australia is once again becoming more competitive. In contrast, undergraduate Malaysian enrolments are declining in the US, likely due to the Ringgit’s weakness relative to the US dollar.

The report also charts increasing (1) postgraduate demand among Malaysian students bound for the UK and Australia and (2) interest in TNE delivered in Malaysia. The following charts from the report show how the UK has been able to maintain its dominant position in Malaysia in no small part because of its TNE provision in the market. 

Getting it right in Southeast Asia is a must

Supply/demand dynamics in Southeast Asia make this region a crucial one for many student recruiters. As Acumen points out:

• Supply: “Some local education systems in Southeast Asia face both capacity and quality constraints, opening up further opportunities for international education providers. In 2021/2022 only 550,000 places were available for new enrolments at Vietnamese universities, for 795,000 applicants – a shortfall of almost 250,000 places.”

• Demand: “The region’s economic development has led to a rising middle class with the financial capacity to pursue higher education, including TNE programmes offered by foreign institutions. Southeast Asia is home to some of the fastest growing economies in the world, led by Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.”

Read the for Acumen’s comprehensive review of the region’s potential and advice for recruiting effectively in an ever-more competitive context.

For additional background, please see:

• “Recruiting in the massive – and unique – international student market of Indonesia”
• “Malaysia exceeds target for new international student applications in 2022”
• “South Korea aims to attract 300,000 international students by 2027”
• “Vietnam remains a key growth market in Southeast Asia”
• “UK: Transnational education expands at fastest rate ever”

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We use as our baseline, then factor in more recent data from government sources where available to determine mobility volumes in 2022. That means our outbound count is a combination of the most recent UNESCO data and more updated statistics from various government sources (Australia, Canada, UK, and United States – and sometimes other destinations). Please note: Australian, Canadian, and US data includes enrolments in other sectors as well as higher education.

In brief, outbound mobility from the five countries is up significantly since 2020 – sometimes nearly doubling. When we note increases, these represent year-over-year growth unless otherwise indicated.

Bangladesh

The most recent UNESCO data (2020) counts 49,150 Bangladeshi students abroad in higher education. In 2022, numbers grew to more than 70,000 Bangladeshi students abroad (including other sectors). Canada, the UK, and US are clearly recruiting more intensely in Bangladesh given growth over the past couple of years.

The UK, Canada, and UAE are the top three destinations at the moment for Bangladeshi students.

• UK: 12,700 in 2021/2022 (+90% y-o-y)
• Canada: 12,295 in 2022 (+24.5%)
• UAE: 11,150 in 2020 according to UNESCO
• US: 10,600 in 2021/22 (+23%) according to IIE Open Doors data
• Australia: 7,250 in 2022 (+17%)
• Malaysia: 6,600 in 2021
• Germany: 3,930 in 2020 according to UNESCO
• Japan: 2,800 in 2020
• India: 2,750 in 2020
• South Korea and Saudi Arabia: Roughly 2,500 in 2020 (combined)

Plus smaller volumes in other countries.

Nepal

The most recent UNESCO data (2020) counts 95,270 Nepalese students abroad in higher education. In 2022, Nepal was sending out at least 125,500 students (including enrolments in other sectors). A student survey conducted by Indian think tank IC3 revealed strong demand for study abroad among Nepalese high school students, and this finding seems to have been very much on point.

The top three hosts of Nepalese students are Australia, Japan, and India.

• Australia: 57,190 in 2022 (+25% y-o-y)
• Japan: 24,260 in 2022 according to JASSO (+29%)
• India: 13,575 according to UNESCO and Statista
• US: 11,780 in 2021/22 (+5.5%) according to IIE’s Open Doors data
• Canada: 7,745 in 2022 (+258%)
• UK: 4,920 in 2021/22 according to HESA
• Cyprus, South Korea, Germany: Collectively, over 6,000 in 2020 according to UNESCO

Plus smaller volumes in other countries.

Pakistan

The most recent UNESCO data (2020) counts 64,065 Pakistani students abroad in higher education. Outbound mobility from Pakistan was over 103,190 in 2022 when we consult more recent statistics published by government sources in various destinations. There have been large increases in Pakistani students recorded recently in the UK, Australia, US, Canada, and Germany.

The top three destinations for Pakistani students currently are UAE, UK, and Australia.

• UAE: 24,865 in 2020 according to UNESCO
• UK: 23,075 in 2021/22 (+62% y-o-y)
• Australia: 15,875 in 2022 (+15%)
• US: 8,770 in 2021/22 (+17%)
• Germany: 7,115 in 2021/22 (+22%)
• Canada: 6,405 in 2022 (+38%)
• Kyrgyzstan: 6,000 in 2020 according to UNESCO
• Malaysia: 4,700 in 2021
• Turkey: 2,385 in 2020 according to UNESCO
• Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Sweden, Qatar: At least 4,000 in 2020 according to UNESCO

Plus smaller volumes in other countries.

Philippines

The most recent UNESCO data (2020) counts 26,162 Filipino students abroad in higher education. If we look at total enrolments – very important for this market because of its demand for shorter courses and vocational or college programmes – there are roughly 62,000 Filipino students abroad in 2022, particularly because of a huge flow of Filipino students to Canada.

The top three destinations for Filipino students currently are Canada, Australia, and the US.

• Canada: 32,455 in 2022 (+112%)
• Australia: 17,975 in 2022 (+25%)
• US: 3,270 in 2021/22 (+13%)
• UAE: 2,250 in 2020 according to UNESCO
• UK: 2,000 in 2020 according to UNESCO
• Japan, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand, Jordan: Close to 4,000 collectively according to UNESCO

Plus smaller volumes in other countries

Thailand

The most recent UNESCO data (2020) counts 32,066 Thai students abroad in higher education. The number of Thai students abroad in all sectors has grown moderately to about 40,720 in 2022.

The top three destinations for Thai students currently are Australia, UK, and US.

• Australia: 19,360 in 2022 (+78%)
• UK: 5,405 in 2022 (+21%)
• US: 5,010 in 2021/22 according to IIE’s Open Doors report
• Canada: 2,755 in 2022 (+78%)
• Egypt: 2,955 in 2020 according to UNESCO
• Japan: 2,735 in 2022 (+15% but down from a high of 3,415 in 2020)
• Germany, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand: Collectively over 2,500 in 2020

Notes on China

China’s borders were mostly closed to international students till 2023. As a result, China’s foreign enrolment dropped significantly from the start of the pandemic (2020) to 2023. Still, we will note 2018 figures given that Chinese borders are now open again and China has resumed active recruitment in its top markets – many of which are in Asia.

, there were 10,735 Bangladeshi students, 28,600 Thai students, and 28,025 Pakistani students.

Data Sources

Much of the data for this article comes from the following sources:

• Canadian immigration data (IRCC)
• US immigration data

For additional background, please see:

• “Canada’s foreign enrolment grew by more than 30% in 2022”
• “Foreign enrolment in US rebounded in 2021/22 and is approaching pre-pandemic levels”
• “UK foreign enrolment takes another leap driven by students from China, India, and Nigeria”
• “Surge in new students has ELICOS sector leading Australian growth for 2022”
• “Agent survey tracks key factors for study abroad planning in China and South Asia”

The post Outbound mobility trends for five key sending markets in Asia appeared first on ���Ϲ��� Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.

Thai universities are increasingly looking to China to help offset those declining domestic numbers, and the number of Chinese students in Thai higher education is on the rise as a result.

Drawing on figures from the Asia Research Center for Migration at Chualongkorn University,  reports that nearly 8,500 Chinese students were enrolled in Thai higher education as of 2017, roughly double the number from 2012.

Many of those students are drawn from China’s southern provinces, and for them Thailand represents a chance to pursue a relatively high-quality higher education along with new career opportunities in the bustling Thai economy.

The affordability of Thai universities is a key consideration for Chinese students as well. Average tuitions range around US$3,700 per academic year, but this compares to tuition rates of US$8,000 per year in a more established regional destination such as Singapore, or as much as US$60,000 in the United States.

“If I work here I will have more opportunities than where I came from,” Chinese student Cherry He Ting, who first arrived Thailand as an exchange student several years ago and is now wrapping up a master’s degree in history.

For their part, Thai universities are responding to Chinese demand by laying on additional programmes and services targeted to Chinese students. But some also see the influx of visiting students from China – which has been accompanied as well by growing numbers of Chinese academics taking up post in Thai higher education and even by Chinese investments in private universities in Thailand – as part of a broader effort to expand China’s influence in Southeast Asia.

China’s massive “One Belt One Road” foreign investment framework is squarely aimed at building trade, diplomatic, and academic links between China and Southeast Asia (along with many other markets along the traditional Silk Road trade routes). Among many other initiatives in the region, it has provided for additional scholarship support for Chinese students in Southeast Asia.

For additional background, please see:

• “Thailand’s growing supply-demand gap in higher education”
• “China moving to expand student recruitment in Southeast Asia”
• “Thai demand for higher education cooling as population ages”

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Along with China, Thailand has largest proportion of elderly people among developing countries in East Asia. The percentage of the Thai population that is 65 years or older has more than doubled over the last 20 years, from 5% in 1995 to 11% in 2016. Demographers project that more than a quarter of the population will fall into this oldest age bracket by 2040.

Thailand’s labour force will shrink by about 11% over this same period, from roughly 50 million today to just over 40 million by 2040. As the World Bank notes, “This decline in working age population is higher in Thailand than in all other developing East Asia and Pacific countries, including China.”

These trends are primarily the result of a sharp decline in fertility rates, which fell from 6.2 births per woman in the early 1960s to 1.5 in 2015. Birth rates began trending downward in the late 1960s and have only begun to flatten out in the last ten years or so. Partly this is a function of a growing economy and rising incomes. But it also the product of a very effective National Family Planning Program that was introduced in 1970.

The changing mix of the Thai population now poses a number of challenges for the country, including the need to increase productivity within a labour force that is getting smaller every year, the need to care for a growing elderly population, and, in an education context, the need to match the capacity and capabilities of the education system to a shrinking pool of students.

The university challenge

Thai higher education expanded rapidly in the 1980s (and after) in order to keep pace with the then-growing demand within the country. There are 170 universities and colleges operating in Thailand today, including 71 private universities. Most of the expansion in the Thai system in recent decades has come through the establishment of such private institutions, and, to a lesser extent, a restructuring of some public universities leading to the opening of new, independent campuses.

As the demographic balance in the country continues to shift quickly, the number of students enrolled in Thai universities has also peaked and begun to decline. The high point was in 2010 when just under 2.5 million students were enrolled in tertiary education. Total enrolment has trended downward in the years since and was just over 2.2 million in 2015.

Institutions are reducing capacity and struggling to control costs as a result, but the number of prospective students continues to decline.  reported recently that about 80,000 Thai students applied to sit the national university admissions exam in 2016, down from 100,000 the year before. There are just under 110,000 spaces available via the country’s central university admission system (CUAS) this year, which is also down sharply from the more than 150,000 seats offered just two years ago (a number that is more reflective of the actual capacity of the Thai system).

Those significant downward trends have led some observers to predict that some, perhaps many, Thai universities will have to scale back or even close their doors, and it is the private institutions that are especially vulnerable in this respect. One Thai academic, Arnond Sakworawich of the National Institute of Development Administration, has suggested that the bulk of Thai institutions could be subject to downsizing or closures – a projection that is informed in part by the surprising news that the Thai government has opted to open the market to foreign competition as well.

In a bid to boost the quality and labour market relevance of higher education in the country (and quality remains a persistent issue within domestic institutions), foreign institutions are now being invited to pursue branch campuses that will operate in Special Economic Zones within Thailand. To date, two highly ranked universities have applied to establish operations within the country: Carnegie Mellon University has proposed to provide logistics engineering programmes, while National Taiwan University aims to offer courses in advanced engineering.

The establishment of such satellite campuses is part of a broader government strategy called “Thailand 4.0”. It aims to boost productivity for the country’s shrinking labour force and, in so doing, to move to a more highly skilled, value-added, and technology-oriented economy.

But the arrival of foreign universities is also certain to increase the competition in Thailand’s domestic education market, and to further pressure any institutions that are already struggling to balance their budgets in the face of significant downward pressure on domestic enrolments.

Implications for outbound

In some important respects – most notably the shrinking pool of prospective students and the excess of domestic higher education capacity – Thailand rates poorly as an outbound market, and especially so in terms of its prospects for growth in the medium to long-term.

Even so, outbound numbers have been fairly stable for the past decade, typically hovering around 25,000–26,000 students per year in terms of tertiary enrolment abroad, and mainly to the top destinations of the US, UK, and Australia. In fact, total outbound increased to more than 28,000 in 2015, reflecting in part the strengthening Thai economy, but also likely ongoing concerns regarding political stability and the quality of education at home.

Going forward, those quality concerns are likely to persist. Particularly as the government, industry, and education sectors work to respond to the significant demographic shifts in the country, the fields of study that are most in demand within Thailand will change further. Some of that demand will be addressed by new programmes brought forward within Thai institutions, and perhaps by any foreign branch campuses that take hold. It seems clear as well, however, that the level of outbound mobility will remain fairly steady or even continue to grow as students seek advanced programmes abroad that can play a part in the Thailand 4.0 transition at home.

For additional background, please see:

• “Southeast Asia trading and mobility bloc continues to take shape”
• “Thai demand for higher education cooling as population ages”
• “From the field: Recruiting in Thailand”

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Those ten countries – Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam – have a total population of more than 600 million people. Their combined economies would currently rank as the seventh-largest economy in the world, an economic footprint that is projected to grow to become the fourth-largest in the world by 2050.

The ten member states of ASEAN

Education is a key arena for increasing collaboration across ASEAN, and there are significant efforts afoot now to harmonise curricula and qualifications and to expand intra-regional mobility initiatives.

For example, the ASEAN Qualifications Reference Framework () Committee held its first meeting in Jakarta earlier this year and work is now underway on formalising and implementing the framework in collaboration with participating ASEAN members. The AQRF is designed to support expanded student and labour mobility within the region. It is accompanied by a number of related initiatives, including the ongoing development of the ASEAN Credit Transfer System (). Both efforts are meant to address a widely recognised challenge with respect to intra-regional mobility today: it is still too difficult for students to move from institution to institution within Southeast Asia and to bring credits earned abroad back to their home institutions.

Speaking at a second meeting of the AQRF committee earlier this month, Philippine Department of Education Secretary Leonor Magtolis Briones said, “This effort aims to harmonise our own qualifications framework to those of other ASEAN member countries, enable to promote lifelong learning and to make it possible for our learners and professionals to go from one country to another based on a harmonised framework.”

Mobility within the region was also in focus at The First ASEAN Student Mobility Forum, held 14–15 June 2017 in Manila. The Forum hosted 200 delegates from across ASEAN, and was an opportunity for students and educators to share their experiences of study abroad within the region (presentation decks, videos, and other programme details are now available online).

The Forum was co-organised by the Support to Higher Education in the ASEAN Region (SHARE), an EU-funded organisation with a mandate to “strengthen regional cooperation, enhance the quality, competitiveness and internationalisation of ASEAN higher education institutions and students.” The EU is a long-standing supporter and funder of regional collaboration initiatives in Southeast Asia and, in a mobility context, the EU’s Erasmus+ programme is widely referenced as a model and for best practices in support of greater movement of students within the region.

For the moment, the most prominent regional exchange initiative is the ASEAN International Mobility for Students () programme. AIMS links the government ministries of six participating ASEAN members – Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei, and Philippines – along with South Korea and Japan. The programme extends to 68 universities in those countries and encompasses ten fields of study.

Through AIMS, students can participate in one-semester exchanges abroad with a participating institution. As the following chart illustrates, the programme is still modest in scale, with somewhere around 1,000 regionally mobile students each year.

Annual number of inbound and outbound students on AIMS exchanges, 2010–2016. Please note that the flag icons indicate the years in which the corresponding countries joined the programme. Source: SEAMEO RIHED

However, the numbers also reflect that AIMS is expanding quickly over the last two years.
Programme administrators intend to expand AIMS to all ASEAN countries, and, particularly as credit transfer and qualification frameworks continue to strengthen, we can expect continued strong growth in intra-regional mobility going forward.

A leading global economy

As we noted earlier, if ASEAN were a single country it would safely be counted among the world’s largest economies. Its combined (and youthful!) population of 600 million is larger than that of the European Union or North America, and surpassed only by China and India.

Similarly, real GDP growth over much of the last 15 years has been clipping along at more than 5% per year. Of all world economies, only China and India grew faster during this period.

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“ASEAN has dramatically outpaced the rest of the world on growth in GDP per capita since the late 1970s. Income growth has remained strong since 2000, with average annual real gains of more than 5%. Some member nations have grown at a torrid pace: Vietnam, for example, took just 11 years (from 1995 to 2006) to double its per capita GDP from US$1,300 to US$2,600. Extreme poverty is rapidly receding. In 2000, 14% of the region’s population was below the international poverty line of US$1.25 a day (calculated in purchasing-power-parity terms), but by 2013, that share had fallen to just 3%.

Already some 67 million households in ASEAN states are part of the ‘consuming class,’ with incomes exceeding the level at which they can begin to make significant discretionary purchases. That number could almost double to 125 million households by 2025, making ASEAN a pivotal consumer market of the future.”

From a recruitment point of view, these are all powerful indicators of a regional bloc with considerable potential for outbound mobility. Indeed, skills development and access to advanced education will increasingly be a key determinant of continued economic growth and social development in the decades ahead.

There are, however, considerable variations in market conditions across the region. Indonesia, for example, accounts for about 40% of total economic output among member states and is a G20 member. And Singapore’s highly developed economy is home to some of the top-ranked universities in the world. Myanmar, meanwhile, is really just emerging from a long period of political and economic isolation and so we can still observe significant gaps in educational attainment and income from country to country within the region.

Even so, the ASEAN states are an increasingly integrated global market that includes some of the key emerging markets in the world for outbound mobility, notably Vietnam and Indonesia. There will be considerable momentum in the next decade and more to mobility within the region, and also towards study in neighbouring countries that have also stepped up their own recruitment activity of late, such as China and Japan. But as income levels continue to rise, the region’s very large college-aged populations also represent a significant opportunity for recruiters from further afield – one that also offers the added efficiency of recruiting in a series of diverse markets in close proximity to one another.

For additional background, please see:

• “ASEAN poised to usher in new era of regional student mobility”
• “Indonesia’s growing middle class expected to drive outbound mobility”
• “Malaysian government cools on study abroad but outbound still growing”
• “Growing demand for vocational training in Vietnam”
• “Vietnam: Regulatory change expected to spur international school enrolment”
• “Singapore adopting a more cautious outlook on education hub ambitions”

The post Southeast Asia trading and mobility bloc continues to take shape appeared first on ���Ϲ��� Monitor - Market intelligence for international student recruitment.

Even so, it seems clear that overall growth rates in terms of outbound mobility are modest. UNESCO data indicates that the total number of outbound tertiary students has largely hovered around 25,000 per year for much of the past decade. For some destinations, , Thai enrolment in English Language Teaching (ELT) programmes adds a significant increment to this tertiary base. But education and demographic trends in Thailand suggest that overall growth rates in outbound mobility will remain modest for the foreseeable future.

Thailand is often associated with its ASEAN neighbours for its notable economic growth and burgeoning middle class. There are, however, a couple of important distinctions when it comes to demand for education.

First, the Thai higher education system has expanded considerably through the 1990s and beyond, and there are some important indicators that supply now exceeds domestic demand, particularly in some programme areas.

There are 170 universities in Thailand today, which together offer around 4,100 academic programmes. In a rather stark indication of the emerging supply-demand gap, however, just over 105,000 Thai students sat university entrance exams in 2015 – in a system that can admit more than 156,000 new students per year.

That tens of thousands of university seats will go unused as a result is not lost on institutional leaders who are now considering their options, including gradually shrinking, or even closing outright, undersubscribed programmes. “The numbers are a wake-up call for university administrators to start thinking of changes in the number of students in each department,” says a recent item in the . The macro numbers bear this out as well in that, after a period of significant expansion over the previous two or three decades, total tertiary enrolment in Thailand peaked in 2007 and has been essentially flat since (with modest year-over-year declines for most of the last decade).

Demographic trends are playing an important role here, and in this respect Thailand also sets itself apart from its regional neighbours. In most Southeast Asian countries, growing working age populations are helping to drive GDP growth and improved productivity. Not so in Thailand where the National Economic and Social Development Board projects that school-aged Thais (those 21 years and younger) will fall to 20% of the population by 2040, a dramatic decline from the roughly 62% of the population that they represented in 1980.

The issue has been, and is, the country’s low birth rate. Owing in part to earlier national policies that sought to reduce fertility rates, the population growth rate in Thailand has fallen from from around 3% in the 1960s and 1970s to .3% today.

Annual population growth rates for Thailand, 1960-present. Source: United Nations

“It’s all in the numbers,” says a recent report from Credit Suisse. “While Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam all have population growth rates of at least 1% per year between 2010 and 2015, Thailand’s is only 0.3%. Its total fertility rate of 1.4 children per woman is significantly lower than the Philippines (3.1), Indonesia (2.3) and Malaysia (2.0). Thailand’s labour force growth rate is also the lowest of the six countries, coming in at 0.8% per year compared with 2.4% for the Philippines…Those less-than-desirable demographic trends are hurting the economy. The combination of labour shortages, low investment rates and the scarcity of high-level skills have already become binding constraints on long-term growth rates. As a result, Thailand’s potential GDP growth rate could fall to around 3.5% over the next decade from the range of 4 to 4.5% that has been seen in the past.”

In short, the Thai population is ageing, and it is doing so quickly. “Thailand ranks as the world’s third most rapidly ageing population,” observes a recent opinion piece in the . And analysts project that the country will have one of the world’s fastest-declining populations of 18-to-22-year-olds over the next decade. Drawing in part on UN Population Division data, the British Council expects the college-aged population in Thailand to shrink by about 20% (or roughly 750 million people) between 2012 and 2025.

Even with these overarching trends, we might expect stability, if not growth, in outbound numbers through 2025. Supply-demand gaps notwithstanding, the Thai higher education system is in need of reform to address changing labour market requirements and quality concerns. This process has been delayed by political instability in Thailand in recent years, another factor that has spurred interest in study abroad of late.

For additional background, including important insights from frontline practitioners, please see “From the field: Recruiting in Thailand.”

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