Earlier this month the Department for Business Innovation & Skills Research Paper No. 8 was published. Entitled "Motivations and Experiences of UK Students Studying Abroad" this is the first analysis of the current situation relating to British students and international higher education prepared for the British government.
As recently as 1975, the United Kingdom was the sixth largest country in terms of the number of its students participating in international higher education. International higher education mobility has changed beyond all recognition over the last 35 years but it is worth remembering that British students were once one of the more numerous groupings at universities around the world.
In the first part of the report, the authors of the research paper have collated a wide range of data sources in an attempt to find an accurate indication of the number of outbound "diploma seeking" students. I have previously tried to find the same information and have found it to be an extremely frustrating process; there is no central indication from the UK government as to the numbers of students abroad and indeed the government is rarely involved in the process of assisting diploma seeking students as opposed to credit seeking (exchange) students who regularly take part in officially supported programmes, such as Erasmus. In spite of these difficulties the estimate of British students abroad tallies with my own knowledge; around 1.5-2% of British students seek to gain their degree at international universities. This figure does not include British citizens who have been ordinarily resident in the country where they are studying prior to commencing their studies.
The final part of the report addresses the experiences of British students currently enrolled in international universities. This gives some interesting insights in to the motives and experiences of those students and is worth reading in its entirety. The only comment I would pass on the 560 students interviewed (and it is one mentioned in the report) is that they are mostly studying at elite universities, thus potentially overstating the importance of a university's ranking in the decision-making process of the internationally mobile student. Perhaps unsurprisingly the students interviewed seem to benchmark their choice of international university against a UK equivalent (for example, Trinity College Dublin = Durham or Edinburgh). Our own research still suggests that quality is the single most important factor in choosing an international university.
Where I do feel more capable of passing comment on this report is the second section addressing the intentions of current British students towards applying to international universities. Since 2006 I have prepared an annual survey* of student intentions in the United Kingdom so this aspect of the new report is not unique as its authors claim. The students interviewed for the report are Year 13 students and therefore in their last year at school. The report does not make clear at what time of the school year the students were interviewed but presumably it was after applications had been made to British universities. Our own research concentrates mostly on Year 12 students' intentions because we have found that Year 13 students are far more likely to have overstated their intentions, particularly when asked questions such as whether they had thought about applying to international universities. Previous studies into study abroad intentions amongst undergraduates have also suffered from this bias. With Year 12 students it is easier to ascertain whether they are actually thinking about applying.
The difficulty in interpreting statistics that suggest that approximately 3% of British students have applied to study abroad and that a further 10.7% may have thought about it is that most of these students will not have had access to any information about international education (about 56.5% of respondents indicated this. In our own research, 50% of respondents received no information other than through A Star Future). With access to greater information it is possible that the number of students thinking about international education will increase but the number actually applying may not change at all. It would certainly increase the range of opportunities attracting interest. Students with no further information will naturally tend to consider the USA as the most available alternative. However, we have identified significant interest in countries such as the Netherlands which is only awakened once students are aware that is possible to study in English there and at a greatly reduced cost. I would certainly agree with the authors of the report in saying that the level of interest in international higher education opportunities is higher than many schools career and guidance teachers would expect.
I agree with the overwhelming conclusion of the report that high quality international universities are the most likely to attract British students. As a result the students who are most likely to study abroad are the highest achievers, although the single most important indicator is prior international experience in the family.
The report also addresses concerns of "brain drain" but these are beyond our scope for comment. We are far more interested in the implications on how international universities should promote themselves to British students. We have long been aware that quality is a major factor that international universities cannot ignore in their marketing in the United Kingdom. However, we believe that quality should be seen far more broadly than simple rankings and positions in league tables. Although our market research and the interviews in the report both reveal quality to be the single most important factor, we have also discovered that league tables are very unpopular with British students; perhaps this is a result of their having been measured and ranked from a very young age. There is scope for quality to be presented other than as a simple number in a table.
In conclusion, it is encouraging to see that the British government is now willing to look beyond credit mobility in terms of supporting outbound student mobility. In our opinion there has never been a contradiction between British excellence in higher education and British students seeking their degree abroad; it is fair to say we have encountered other interpretations.
In the current economic climate it seems unlikely that any funding will be made available to make a positive impact on the numbers studying abroad. It would seem far more likely that the unintended consequences of government education policy (for example, shortage of places on popular courses, a further increase in tuition fees, any perceived drop in quality of UK universities resulting from underfunding or overcrowding) will be the main drivers of British outbound student mobility in the short term.
For further information about A Star Future research please contact us.
Monday 25 January 2010
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