The company’s research found that the top 1,000 universities, as ranked by Webometrics, offer over 72,500 full-degree study options in English, both at the bachelor’s and the master’s level.

“Our ultimate dream has always been to provide a global comparison platform for students”

Unsurprisingly, the US offers the most ETPs for international students, with 34,200 in 249 universities, followed by the UK with 18,321 in 65 universities. However, the data also highlights the growth in ETPs in Asia.

“Our ultimate dream has always been to provide a global comparison platform for students,” Edwin van Rest, StudyPortals CEO, told The PIE News.

“So if you’re a student from India, you can see what you can study in London and compare that to what you can study in Seattle and in Beijing and in Sydney.”

The data compiled shows that the Netherlands offers the highest number of English taught programmes for a non-native English speaking country, with 1,034 ETPs offered by 12 of the country’s universities in the world’s top 1,000 on the Webometric’s rankings.

Following the UK, as expected, Ireland offers the second-most ETPs in Europe with 1,165. Germany follows the Netherlands with 54 of its universities teaching 835 English programmes.

Completing the top five European countries is Sweden with 550 ETPs from 12 universities.

Research last year by the Academic Cooperation Association found that the Nordic region has the greatest proportion of ETPs in Europe at higher education level, with 61% of all higher education institutions in the region offering ETPs in English, compared with 32% in 2007.

“You have UK, North America, Australia, continental Europe, that was the next wave,” said van Rest.

“Now you see even faster growth coming along within Asia than what we’ve seen in Europe, especially in China.”

Forty-five of China’s universities in the top 1,000 offer a total of 419 ETPs, according to StudyPortals’ research.

Malaysia offers the second highest number of ETPs in Asia, with 239, followed by Taiwan with 216.

Van Rest said that the growth of ETPs is a trend StudyPortals is very closely monitoring.

“We will release an updated version of the data by next year,” he said.