At educations.com, we are constantly looking for ways to tap into the international student market in order to understand what inspires students to study abroad. As innovators in the industry, we believe in providing new and interesting data, free of charge, to institutions of higher education.
With a better understanding of the international student market, we know higher education recruitment and marketing teams will be better equipped to reach their target audiences. Likewise, from a student’s perspective, the task of finding the right school at which to study abroad can be daunting, to say the least, so we try and make the process easier.
Therefore, we believe it is mutually beneficial to publish our in-depth, authoritative research and make it available to the public, so that, with a better understanding of prospective international students, schools can make it easier to connect the right students with the right programs.
In our newest development, we surveyed over 20,000 students who are either currently studying abroad or plan to in the coming years, and asked them what is influencing their decisions to take their education overseas. It should come as no surprise that as the world develops into a more digital direction that so too does students’ attention. However, there were several key influencing factors that we were not expecting.
We’ve broken down a brief preview by whether a student is already abroad or not to get you ready for the rest of the coming results.
What Students Already Abroad Are Saying
What better way to get a bird’s eye view of the application journey than to ask the students who have already completed the process?
We started from the beginning and asked students what made them study abroad and what helped them decide. Students from over 100 different countries responded and informed us that, in general, the decision is more personally influenced, and less influenced by a school’s reputation or ranking.
Furthermore, we found that the destination country plays a huge role in the overall decision-making process. We drilled down and asked what aspects of a new country attracted prospective students, the results of which will likely surprise you.
What Prospective Students Are Saying
To complete the overall picture, we also surveyed students who are in the beginning stages of their journey, and thus, have a lot of questions and concerns.
To find the answer to the questions they frequently have, we discovered how students research and where they look to get the best information. From their insights, we were able to gain valuable information on which social media platforms were the best to catch the attention of prospective international students, as well as what was holding students back from making the final decision to apply to schools.
Out of five stars, the majority of students who had previously studied abroad or were currently studying abroad gave their experience a five. So, we know that if we can convince students to overcome their hesitations and commit to an experience abroad, they are going to love it.
That’s where you, as an institution of higher education, step in to provide your recruitment and marketing teams with the information they need to target the right audience and get the best return on investment. By referencing the full report, you will also be able to gather how the decision-making process evolves from when students first start their research compared to when students have already moved abroad and can now reflect on what final factors played the biggest role in their selection.
Want to know more about student trends? Click below to download out 2019 Student Trends Report!
