According to an article in University World News, “more students than ever before [are] traveling abroad to realize their higher education ambitions (while)…also increasingly gravitating away from traditional educational hotspots in order to do so - and this trend looks set to continue, with competition for international students growing worldwide.”

Also in the University World News article is mention of the Institute of International Education's (IIE) recently published Project Atlas report Student Mobility and the Internationalization of Higher Education. This report states that the number of post-secondary students enrolled in programs outside their home countries has almost doubled over the last decade. The data indicates international students are actually dispersing across more countries, which is a shift from them concentrating only a few countries. The top hot spot for mobile students remained the United States in 2010; however, the percentage of the total U.S. market share is slipping, with an 8 percent decrease since 2001, according to the article. Peggy Blumenthal, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the IIE, identified this trend as an emerging “proliferation of educational hubs.”

Sources:

• Global: International student choices changing, University World News
• Student Mobility and the Internationalization of Higher Education, Institute of International Education