What International Prospective Students Actually Think

30 April 2013

Today Hobsons the leader in recruitment, communication and student success solutions for higher education announced the key findings of the first survey of international students to the UK; Competing Globally: Understanding Prospective International Student Decision Making.

Duncan Findlater, Director of Product and Client Services said “To date there has been little research and therefore poor data on prospective international student behaviour and decision making. Working with our partner universities we have been able to mobilise a unique data set of prospective international students.”

The competition for international students is becoming increasingly complex and is under the spotlight like never before.

There is a perceived threat to the UK from courses in English in non-English speaking countries and government initiatives in Canada and Australia to attract more international students.

In March 2013 over 70,000 prospective international students who had enquired within the last two years to 15 different UK universities were asked about their perceptions and expectations of study in the UK.

Key findings include:

The primary motivation for students wanting to study in the UK was to improve job prospects in their home country. Only 6% were identified as being primarily interested in moving to their study destination permanently.
78% of students could switch destination country if visa regulations were tightened.
There are seven definable and distinct types of students looking to study in the UK, each of whom weight information they have on the country and the university in different ways.
Students overwhelmingly choose course before country; critically nearly three quarters decide where to go after they apply, meaning that there is still significant scope to influence their final decision post application.
The most important source for information is the university website followed by direct electronic communication; the latter was more than twice as important as social media.
The main countries also considered by students looking to study in the UK were the US, Canada and Australia. Other European countries were considered by less than 1% of students.

Duncan Findlater “This survey has allowed us to put student decision making and expectations of UK study in the spotlight for the first time. The international student recruitment market is one of fine margins and anything that we can do to better understand student decision making, to allay their fears and encourage their hopes will be beneficial for our own institutions and the UK as a whole.”

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