The number of countries sending students overseas to study will continue to grow for the rest of the decade, a new report has found, but that growth will be slower than the previous two decades.
The projection was made possible by a new indicator that has identified the correlation between world gross domestic product (GDP) growth and outbound student numbers per nation.
The report, commissioned by the British Council and conducted by Oxford Economics, found that when a country’s share of global GDP goes up so does its share of global outbound students.
The new measure is shown to have tracked the volume of outbound students accurately since UNESCO records began in 1998. Given this strong historical association, researchers say that the measure provides a strong indication of the future trajectory of global outbound international student numbers.
