A spate of attacks took place on international students in Australia’s major cities in 2009.
The Indian government, including the prime minister, publicly condemned them, warning students against studying in the country. Applications from Indian students fell by almost 50% in 2010, compared to two years previously.
Some seven years later, Canadian politicians criticised the arrest of a Saudi Arabian civil rights activist by the state. In retaliation, the Saudi government expelled Canada’s ambassador and told its approximately 8,000 students in the country to leave.
Just last month, the Indian government issued a warning to its nationals in Canada, including students, to “exercise utmost caution” after prime minister Justin Trudeau said his government would look into the connection between the death of Canadian citizen and Sikh Khalistani separatist Hardeep Singh and Indian authorities.
Institutions watched these diplomatic spats unfold with bated breath. Over the years, they have learnt the hard way from events like these. Now, scared of putting all their eggs in one basket, diversifying where their international students come from is a pressing matter for the higher education sector in major host countries.
As well as being a priority at institution level, diversification features heavily in the international education strategies of Canada, the UK and Australia, among others, as the perceived risk of geopolitical tensions and economic shock has led politicians to encourage universities and colleges to recruit students from a wider range of countries.
Some 90% of British institutions who responded to a Universities UK survey in February 2023 said they were diversifying their cohorts, but the results have so far been mixed. In the year to June 2023, over half of UK study visas were issued to students from India and China. In 2022, Canada also saw over half of all new study permits granted to Chinese and Indian nationals.
“Although there is definitely an effort being made, the reality is, in most public institutions that the majority of students are still coming from India,” says Gabriela Facchini, manager for international business development and partnerships at Ontario’s Sheridan College. While she is referring to the Canadian context, most host countries are seeing similar patterns.
“The number of students from China has lowered somewhat but not so much because of our efforts to diversify,” she adds, pointing to the demographic changes and economic downturn influencing this trend.
These are the same factors that, in part, influence how many students can be recruited from a new market, leaving a question mark around how far institutions and host governments can actually influence where their students are coming from, despite their best efforts.
Even when a promising market seems to be growing, economic factors can cause sudden shifts. Students flows out of Nigeria have grown rapidly in recent years, but with the devaluation of the naira in June, many institutions are expecting to see a sudden drop in student numbers.
“We also need to understand that geopolitics plays a lot into mobility and we cannot be ignorant of that part of the ecosystem,” says Fanta Aw, chief executive officer of NAFSA.
Wei Lui, an academic and international program administrator at the University of Alberta, argues that the logic behind diversification strategies is misguided. In a 2021 paper, he wrote that institutions “overestimate… the value of recruitment efforts by host countries and universities”, making their diversification efforts “futile and a waste of resources”.
Speaking to The PIE Review two years later, he sticks by his argument. He asserts that macro factors beyond the control of institutions, including economics, demographic trends and domestic education provision – like those seen in China – are far more significant and make up the “major forces” driving patterns of student mobility, at least when it comes to volume.
“We cannot change how many students are coming out of each country”
Wei Lui, University of Alberta
“The number of students coming out of each country [is] determined by much bigger factors than any particular host country or host university can change,” he says.
“We can only influence the distribution, we cannot change how many students are coming out of each particular country.”
The same number of students can only be moved around between countries and institutions, he argues.
“You can get all the Mexican students to go to your university but the capacity of that country to send international students is limited.”
Recruitment from new markets is also limited by the willingness of host country’s immigration departments to grant visas to students from emerging markets – an issue that has been in the spotlight recently.
A report from Shorelight and the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration points out that visa denials are not necessarily a result of students’ failings when applying but may instead simply be down to where they come from.
“Higher education officials who are eager to have these talented students on their campuses share perceptions that it is harder for students in certain countries to acquire a visa than in other countries,” Shorelight reports.
It is something Australia’s vocational sector has also experienced, with grant rates in the second half of 2022 plummeting to 3.8% for Indian students.
Immigration departments appear to be erring on the side of caution when it comes to ensuring students are “genuine”, but this is hampering diversification efforts, say student recruiters.
Shorelight found that US visa denials have grown significantly between 2015 and 2022, more than doubling for South America from 10% to 25%. But the main region of contention is Sub-Saharan Africa, which many believe is a hugely promising source of future international students. It however experienced the highest refusal rates throughout this eight year period.
Analysis found that over half of all African students were denied US student visas in 2022, compared to 36% of Asian students and 9% of European students.
Other countries see similar patterns. In Canada, students from Francophone Africa have faced higher visa refusal rates than students from other countries in recent years.
“Mixed messages” are being sent, says Aw. “Why would I want to invest as much in an area if it’s going to be, at the end of the day, more challenging?” she asks.
NAFSA, alongside the Presidents’ Alliance and Shorelight, met with the US state department in August to discuss the problem of visa denials. At the meeting, officials said they are committed to international students choosing the US as their top choice for higher education and asserted that applicants should have the same opportunity to secure a student visa regardless of where in the world they apply from.
A State Department spokesperson told The PIE News in October that EducationUSA focuses its outreach on “underserved and underrepresented student populations, including in sub-Saharan Africa” and the top-five sending African countries saw “significant increases” in student visas in the 2021-22 academic year.
“EducationUSA continues to engage with industry stakeholders and US higher education, including community colleges, minority-serving institutions and graduate programs, on the recruitment of African students,” they added.
NASFA said it would continue to work with the government to address the issue of visa refusals and advocate for a reduction in visa denial rates. Diversification is, after all, not just about reducing institutional risk, but opening up opportunities for students from all walks of life.
“The problem we have as a society is not a lack of talent, it’s a lack of opportunity,” says Aw. “We really need to open up more the doors of opportunity to incredibly talented students from the Global South.”
While institutions’ diversification efforts may be limited by external factors, they should not be complacent, says Aw. “Institutions, in order to diversify, will have to consider investing more in the international student arena, which means thinking about scholarships,” she adds.
Scholarships are also a priority for Facchini, as well as investing in people on the ground. “We’ve added in-country representatives in the Philippines, in Vietnam, in South Korea, in Mexico, in Brazil and in Egypt. I lose count now how many because it was so quick,” she says.
Aw also advises institutions to draw on alumni networks and not to go for the same countries that everyone else is. “The world is very big,” she points out.
What’s also crucial is continuing to help students once they arrive. “It is incredibly important that when they’re on campus that they have a sense of belonging, that support resources that are available to other students are equally available to them, and that they complete their degrees,” says Aw.
While diversification may help institutions limit their vulnerability to geopolitical and economic events beyond their control, it adds much more beyond this. For this reason, recruiters say, institutions should continue their diversification efforts, whatever external challenges they may face.
“Diversity in a classroom helps all students, both domestic and international. There’s different cultures, different points of view,” says Facchini.
“If you’re sitting in a business class, where you’ve got two or three Indian students, two students from Mexico, one from Columbia, one from Egypt, one from China, and maybe 10 or 15 Canadian domestic students, the range and benefit of knowledge and culture that fosters in that classroom is of immense value to all the participants.”
This article first appeared in The PIE Review.
