Rethinking International Education Policy Amid a Growing Backlash to International Students

 

International education has become a booming business over the last two decades, generating hundreds of billions of dollars annually for universities and local economies and providing a critical human-capital pipeline. Yet there are signs that public and policymaker attitudes toward international students are starting to shift in major destination countries including the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada amid a surge in post-pandemic arrivals and concerns about their impacts on already stressed housing markets. These worries add to longer-standing questions about the integrity of the educational programs offered to international students, as well as whether or how evenly the international student pipeline can deliver on its most optimistic promises to alleviate host-country skill and labor gaps. A new report from the Migration Policy Institute’s Transatlantic Council on Migration examines this crossroads at which policymakers find themselves—juggling the tensions between rising demand for international education, the financial imperatives of maintaining or growing international student admissions and the challenging politics of international migration. The report, by MPI Global Fellow Elizabeth Collett, details the balancing act that governments will have to perform between their immigration, education and workforce development objectives, before concluding with thoughts on aligning policies with future labor market needs. With the Trump administration recently revoking visas for more than 300 international students, citing their political engagement, the increasingly competitive landscape over new students and their tuition fees may evolve in unanticipated ways. Today, the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada are the prime destinations for the world’s 6.4 million international students—triple the number in 2000—with newer destinations such as Germany, Russia, Turkey, Japan, France, Argentina and the Netherlands also attracting growing numbers. While Chinese and Indian nationals are among the largest groups of international students, enrollment is rising from countries as varied as Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Brazil. But as demand for international education grows, Collett writes, “Governments should work with educational institutions to facilitate a multi-stakeholder discussion about what the optimum levels of international students in the long term might be and what balance should be struck between onshore and offshore learning.” The report, International Student Mobility: A Post-Pandemic Reset or a Broader Challenge?, makes clear that managing future demand in international education will involve potentially leveraging one or both of the following routes and sets of tools: Using immigration policy to shape intake demand, manage access to the labor market and permanent stay, and address concerns around the quality and integrity of education, while minimizing local impacts. Leaning into emerging trends in transnational learning and meeting the demand for international education without the need to move, while leaving open the possibility of later migration for work. Tackling the future of international education will require going beyond the demand-led market approach to consider competing priorities, planning ahead for future admissions and effects on local communities, innovating ways to shape demand without creating boom-bust policy cycles and doing so before these questions become politically sensitive. Read the report here: www.migrationpolicy.org/research/international-student-mobility.