There were 26,911 students in Turkey in the 2010/11 academic year, up from 16,059 in 2005/06 – a rise of more than 67%. The figure was 21,948 in 2009/10 and 18,720 in 2008/9.

Commentators say Turkey’s flourishing economy, growing recruitment from Muslim countries and increased marketing by institutions are behind the growth.

The general director of Edufairs Recruitment Tour Turkey and chairman of the Turkish Educational Agents Group (TEAG), Özdemir İçin, told Zaman newspaper that an improvement in living conditions and the recent success of Turkish foreign policy had been instrumental.

He added that fears over Islamophobia in Europe and the US following al-Qaeda terrorist attacks had driven up Muslim recruitment.

“Turkey’s recent encouragement of the Arab Spring and increasing importance as an example of a predominantly Muslim democratic country have also contributed to the increase in the number of Muslim students in the country,” he told Zaman.

According to the ÖSYM data, the number of students from predominantly Muslim countries climbed from 11,000 in 2000/01 before the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the USA to more than 18,000 in 2010/11.

Associate Professor Savaş Genç from the department of international relations of Fatih University, Istanbul, told Zaman that increased marketing, especially by alumni, had also helped spread the word about the quality of Turkish universities.

In response to the recent increase in state university quotas for international students

He added that private universities had also upped their marketing efforts in response to the recent increase in state university quotas for international students. “This, in turn, has led Turkish private universities to start to promoting themselves abroad by attending international education fairs or discounting their tuition fees,” he said.

Turkey wants to raise its number of international students to 100,000 by 2015, according to the Foreign Economic Relations Board’s (DEİK) Business Education Council. The rise could contribute an extra $4 billion to the economy, said the body.