How are the trends of study abroad in 2023? What shall stakeholders in this industry pay attention to? Let’s check this article to find out.
Popular destination countries will be more popular
Since the second half of 2022, the overall situation of study abroad has shown a trend of warming up. As a result, the number of students applying in countries such as the United States, Canada and Britain are rebounding.
According to Common App, as of January 1, 2023, 107701 international students had submitted applications for the 2022/2023 season. This has exceeded 100000 for the first time, an increase of 45% compared to 74113 in 2019/2020 before the pandemic.
In September 2022, Australia announced the policy of extending work visas for international students graduating from Australian universities. Right after that, the business of study abroad in Australia has rapidly recovered. The Australian Immigration Bureau has updated its recent student visa approval status. By contrast, the number of visa applications from overseas students in the first quarter of 2022-2023 was 40% higher. As of October 28, 2022, the number of Australian student visa holders has increased by 40.7%. Among them,while China is the country with the largest number of student visas .
According to the Immigration and Immigration Bureau of Canada (IRCC), the number of international students studying in Canada in 2022 has gradually returned to the level of 2019. In 2023, the entire overseas study industry will experience a strong recovery.
Fierce competition among well-known universities
During the 2022-2023 application season, a total of 5346600 university applications were submitted by 1079936 students worldwide. It’s an increase of 24% compared to 4317707 before the pandemic in 2019/2020. In avergage, each student is applying to 5 universities. Of these, 69.3% of students submitted applications at the early application stage. Meanwhile, about 30.7% only submitted applications at the regular round stage.
During the early application stage from 2022 to 2023, most well-known American universities have shown a trend of application growth. As a result, competition among various universities has become increasingly fierce.
For example, Yale University received a total of 7777 early application admissions applications, an increase of 6% compared to the 7313 scores in the previous academic year. This is also a relatively high in the university’s history. 776 students were admitted, with an admission rate of only 10%, a decrease of nearly 1% compared to 10.9% last year, which is the lowest level for in 20 years;
The number of graduate students in the United States is growing
As the younger age of studying abroad matures, the number of graduate students in the academic sector is also increasing simultaneously.
According to the latest data in January 2023, the number of international students in the United States has returned to one million. It’s now approaching the level of three years ago. According to the 2022 Open Doors Report, the number of Chinese Mainland students going to the United States for graduate degrees from 2021-2022 was 123182. It’s accounting for 42.5% of the total number of Chinese Mainland students going to the United States, up 3.6%.
The difficulty of applying to UK universities may decrease
In the first three quarters of 2022, the Home Office issued a total of 476389 student visas, an increase of 77% over the same period in 2019 and 24% over 2021. Among them, the number of Chinese students studying abroad ranks second with 116476 student visas, second only to India. As of January 25, 2023, a total of 596590 people had submitted 2023 UK undergraduate applications through UCAS, down from 610720 (- 2.3%) in 2022. As of January 25, the number of applicants in Chinese Mainland in 2023 totaled 27710, 1220 fewer than that of last year, down 4.2% year on year.
Boosting situation in Eurasia and Hong Kong is new among trends of study abroad in 2023
Singapore, as a country along the “the Belt and Road”, the number of Chinese students studying in Singapore has increased year by year. According to the survey of the White Paper on Studying in China in 2022, the number of applications for studying in Singapore has increased by 21.34% in 2021.
The number of mainland freshmen applying to universities in Hong Kong, China, has reached a new high in recent years. In the new academic year of September 2022, more than 41600 foreign students from the Eighth University of Hong Kong came to Hong Kong for further education, of which 29500 were mainland freshmen, which should be the largest in recent years and will continue to grow in the future.
Deep Digital China will continue reporting on trends of study abroad. Please stay connected with us to learn the latest news.