Tag: mobility

  • The international student levy risks undermining exchange, languages, and outward mobility unless universities speak up now

    The international student levy risks undermining exchange, languages, and outward mobility unless universities speak up now

    The UK government’s proposed international student levy is intended to be a simple mechanism: a flat £925 charge per international student per year, paid by English higher education providers and reinvested into the higher education and skills system. In principle, the policy objective is clear and defensible.

    However, as the technical consultation currently stands, there is a significant unintended consequence that risks undermining international student exchange, outward mobility for UK students, and already fragile subjects such as modern languages. Unless this is addressed now, the levy could inadvertently make reciprocal exchange financially unsustainable for many universities.

    Why exchange students matter and why they are different

    Incoming exchange and study-abroad students are not the same as full-degree international students:

    • they are typically fee-neutral, with tuition waived under reciprocal agreements
    • they are credit-bearing but not registered for a UK award
    • they are essential to maintaining balanced two-way mobility, which in turn enables UK students to study abroad
    • they underpin disciplines such as languages and area studies, where a year or semester abroad is integral to the curriculum

    In many cases, hosting an incoming exchange student already represents a net cost to the institution, absorbed in recognition of the wider academic and strategic benefits.

    Where the levy design creates a problem

    The technical consultation defines international students broadly and excludes only those on a short-term study visa, a route that is used almost exclusively for non-credit English language courses, whereas exchange and study-abroad students enter the UK on either a student visa (for full-year exchange), or a standard visitor visa or ETA (for one-semester study that is still credit-bearing).

    The result is stark: a university could be required to pay £925 to host an incoming exchange student who pays no tuition fees

    As drafted, this means that most incoming exchange students are likely to be counted for levy purposes, despite generating no additional tuition fee income. The result is stark: a university could be required to pay £925 to host an incoming exchange student who pays no tuition fees.

    The knock-on effect on outward mobility and languages

    Exchange is a two-way system. If hosting incoming students becomes a cash cost, universities will face difficult choices:

    • capping or reducing inbound exchange numbers
    • rebalancing or withdrawing from reciprocal partnerships
    • limiting outward mobility opportunities for their own students

    These pressures will be felt first, and hardest, in languages, where outward mobility is central to academic integrity and already under strain across the UK.

    The risk is that a levy designed to support opportunity and access ends up shrinking access to study abroad, particularly for students in less well-resourced disciplines or from less advantaged backgrounds, which would run counter to wider government ambitions around global engagement, skills, and social mobility.

    Almost certainly unintended and eminently fixable

    There is no indication in the consultation documents or impact analysis that these consequences have been explicitly considered. The levy has been modelled as a headcount-based charge, optimised for fee-paying diploma mobility, not for fee-neutral credit mobility.

    The good news is that this is eminently fixable without undermining the core policy objective. Options could include:

    • excluding students registered for credit only and not a UK award
    • excluding reciprocal exchange students where no additional UK tuition fee is charged
    • excluding students studying less than a full academic year, unless enrolled on a full degree

    Any of these would protect exchange and outward mobility while preserving the integrity of the levy.

    A call to action for universities

    The consultation on the international student levy is open until February 18 2026. This is the moment for universities to respond.

    Institutions with: language provision, exchange-reliant programmes, and or strong commitments to outward mobility, should make their voices heard, clearly and constructively, highlighting this risk as an unintended consequence, not an argument against the levy itself.

    If the sector does not raise this now, the danger is that a technically simple policy quietly erodes one of the most valuable, and vulnerable, parts of the UK’s international education ecosystem.

    Respond to the UK government’s proposed international student levy here.

    Vincenzo Raimo will be speaking about the potential impact of the international student levy at The PIE Live Europe in London on March 25. Book your ticket here.

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  • Transfer and Learning Mobility in 2026 and Beyond

    Transfer and Learning Mobility in 2026 and Beyond

    Nearly four in 10 adult Americans have tried to transfer credit toward a college degree or credential. Of those, 58 percent lost credits in the process. For some, the consequences were severe: using up financial aid and repeating classes they’d already passed. Sixteen percent reported giving up on higher education altogether because the transfer process was simply too difficult.

    These aren’t just statistics. They represent learners and workers who lost time, money and faith in a system that promised them opportunity.

    Many have been trying to address these issues, and great work is underway. But the effort to transform transfer and learning mobility still lacks a coordinated and sustained focus at scale. Transfer and learning mobility are still treated as niche issues affecting a small percentage of students, rather than an increasingly common reality for today’s learners that should compel higher education to evolve. We have not yet achieved the fundamental mindset shifts, or built the supportive infrastructure, that are needed to treat all learning fairly, but the pressure is on. And with pressure comes opportunity.

    Year 5 of Connecting With You on ‘Beyond Transfer’

    Welcome to year five of the “Beyond Transfer” column on Inside Higher Ed—a column that seeks to elevate the voices of expert practitioners, researchers, advocates, policymakers, students and others who are seeking to overhaul not just the transfer experience, but the entire ecosystem related to ensuring that all Americans benefit from their hard-earned and hard-learned skills and competencies and receive the economic mobility they deserve.

    Each year, we kick off the column with some reflections on what we’ve learned through listening to and collaborating with all of you. At Sova, we’ve had the privilege of working at multiple levels of the transfer and learning mobility ecosystem (hereafter “transfer”): facilitating national expert groups such as the Beyond Transfer Policy Advisory Board and the Learning Evaluation and Recognition for the Next Generation (LEARN) Commission (co-convened with the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers); advancing state-level work from California’s AB 928 Associate Degree for Transfer Intersegmental Implementation Committee to the Texas Transfer Alliance led by Educate Texas; supporting institutional collaborations such as the Acceleration to Credits Working Group and the CCC-CSU Transfer Collaborative; leveraging AI to transform the learning mobility experience through the AI Transfer and Articulation Infrastructure Network (ATAIN); and elevating student voice through our social media platforms.

    As we look ahead, we are connecting the dots on some insights that, while not new, have been at the forefront of our minds over the last year.

    • Credit loss is prevalent, damaging and unfair. Matt Giani, Lauren Schudde and Tasneem Sultana present a rigorous analysis of credit loss in Texas and describe its damaging consequences. In their study of almost 29,000 community college–to–public university first-time transfers, 83 percent of transfers experienced some credit loss. Perhaps most alarming is that this credit loss was among those who followed the rules and transferred to a discipline-aligned program of study (i.e., maintained the same major after transfer).
    • Transfer of credit is a shared American experience. In these politically divisive times, it’s rare to find a topic where common ground is still possible, but transfer is an issue that resonates across party lines. As referenced earlier, a recent survey of adult Americans conducted by Public Agenda for Sova and the Beyond Transfer Policy Advisory Board illuminates both how prevalent transfer is and how Americans’ experiences with transfer shape their attitudes toward colleges and universities. Not only have four in 10 Americans sought to transfer credit, but it’s also the case that a large majority of Americans across the ideological spectrum agree that colleges and universities should be held accountable for honoring learning and accepting credits.
    • The lack of change in transfer and learning mobility is harming higher ed’s reputation. The survey found that those who tried to transfer credit were more likely to feel that higher education institutions care more about making money than about educating students. At a time of declining public trust in higher ed, this is a dangerous signal. In recent focus groups on public attitudes toward college affordability and value conducted by Sova with support from Lumina Foundation, problems with credit transfer have been raised spontaneously by participants in every focus group conducted thus far (12 focus groups across four states).

    Credit transfer is too often built upon unfair contradictions and expectations. Consider, for example:

    • Students are encouraged and even expected to explore their options and pursue a broad education, and yet they are simultaneously forced to choose a preparatory pathway aligned to a receiving institution’s requirements. Because they cannot know where they will be accepted for transfer, they are forced to bet their credits on a single guess.
    • Learners are expected to accept admissions offers before they know how their prior coursework and other learning experiences will be applied to completion.
    • Courses evaluated for transfer are reviewed to ensure they are equivalent to a receiving institution’s courses, without acknowledgment that a single receiving institution may also have multiple faculty (and graduate students) teaching similar courses in a variety of ways and preparation within the receiving institution is uneven as well.
    • Impressive reform efforts in transfer and learning mobility are underway in many settings, with state policy influencers playing important roles. There is much to celebrate, from the leadership of large transfer-sending institutions such as the Alamo Colleges District and Maricopa Community Colleges, to technology initiatives such as ATAIN and Transfer Explorer, to the individual champions who dedicate their personal time in spaces like Transfer Nation to create knowledge and community.

    The Texas Transfer Alliance, with the generous support of Ascendium Education Philanthropy, is leading statewide work focused on building a single, regional Target Pathway that provides all students—regardless of whether they started in high school dual credit or in community college—with clarity through a 60-credit pathway by program that meets requirements for high school graduation, associate degree and eligibility for transfer to multiple bachelor’s-granting institutions in the region. Texas policies related to funding (e.g., HB 8) and data transparency (e.g., SB 25 and SB 3039) are creating the conditions that urge institutions to initiate reforms such as these.

    • Accreditors are beginning to shift and evolve. Much as most Americans are calling for accountability for credit transfer, accreditors are also calling for change. Writing on behalf of the seven federally recognized accrediting commissions overseeing approximately 3,000 institutions, the Council of Regional Accrediting Commissions (C-RAC) stated:

    “Institutions should commit to a default in learning evaluation that credits are applied to program completion unless there is evidence that the required learning outcomes are not met. Decision-making should not be based upon anecdotes, assumptions about quality, locations where earned, or an unexamined history of ‘how things have always been done.’”

    While this may seem like common sense to a layperson, this represents a significant mindset shift. As the arbiters of quality and gatekeepers for federal financial aid, increased accreditor attention to transfer stands to motivate institutional behavior in meaningful ways.

    • And yet, reform efforts in transfer and learning mobility remain slow and episodic. The field has not yet launched a movement equal in scope and depth to the size of the problem we are facing. Higher ed was built to privilege some learners and types of learning over others. Confronting this bias head-on and committing to a new modus operandi is necessary for higher education to evolve and maintain its relevance with today’s learners.

    The Path Forward

    As we dive headlong into 2026, we’re placing our bets on a few fronts.

    The first front is changing assumptions and mindsets. There are a number of ways we are urging the field to shift the lens on transfer and learning mobility. For example, in vertical transfer, the large majority of students cannot know to which institution they will be accepted and able to transfer. That is how the system is designed. It is therefore no longer acceptable for each receiving institution to consider it fair to impose a slew of differing transfer requirements, as it makes it impossible for a student to choose a 60-credit preparatory pathway that works across potential transfer destinations. The Target Pathways work in Texas is designed to ensure students are eligible for transfer to multiple institutions. That needs to become the gold standard.

    Secondly, we need a mindset shift akin to the goal (not yet fully realized) of developmental education redesign. Traditional prerequisite remediation operates on the assumption that students are not “college-ready” unless they prove they are through placement tests. The corequisite approach—backed by solid evidence of greatly improved student outcomes—begins with the assumption, instead, that the large majority of students are ready to start in college-level courses and institutions have a responsibility to support the success of the students they admit through how they design and teach credit-bearing courses.

    In transfer and learning mobility today, the prevailing mindset sounds a lot like that of traditional prerequisite remediation: Students are assumed to not be “transfer-ready” unless they prove it through a process that interrogates their transfer coursework and other prior learning experiences—often including reviews of textbooks, assignments and other minutiae—to prove similarity to “equivalent” courses at the receiving institution. Similar to the goal of dev ed redesign and aligned to how accreditors are shifting their thinking, what would it look like to shift the mindset to: The large majority of learners have been prepared enough by the sum of their learning experiences to be ready for further education and all institutions have a responsibility to support their success after transfer?

    In addition to work on mindsets, we are focused in a few other key areas:

    • Use tech/AI to leapfrog. AI can’t solve all our problems and we know it comes with many new ones, but learning mobility will be transformed as technology finally allows us to move beyond slow, manual, course-to-course reviews that result in limited credit mobility and confusing and conflicting information for learners. Tech offers opportunities to identify equivalencies at a level that human review will never achieve and provide students with exciting navigation support, blowing open the gates that currently restrict credit transfer, as ATAIN seeks to do.
    • Demand transparency for credential applicability. A combination of policy innovation in states (e.g., SB 3039 in Texas) and advances in technology (e.g., the articulation coverage score) lead us to a moment where we can—and must—focus in on transparency about whether learners and workers are getting credit that accelerates them toward their goals.
    • Give learners real clarity and guarantees. Collaborate across partners to build one Target Pathway for a region (by program) and layer on guaranteed program-level admissions programs with targeted financial aid, dedicated advising and belonging initiatives that create a giant vacuum that pulls students through to completion.
    • Shift incentives through policy. So long as institutions continue to operate in a world that primarily incentivizes enrollment, nothing will change. Policymakers must step in and change the incentive structures that drive institutional behavior—both the financial and reputational incentives. What does it mean to recognize and reward institutions when they not only accept transfer students, but commit to the work of ensuring all credit for prior learning is counted toward credentials so that learners and workers are supported to complete in a timely manner? In its recent report, the LEARN Commission points to the opportunity for policymakers to enhance transparency and create new incentives that accelerate institutional change.

    The question isn’t whether the current transfer credit system is broken. The data makes that clear. The question is whether higher education has the courage to take on this challenge in a coordinated, sustained and scaled way. Too many learners are losing credits, losing money and losing hope. It’s time to do better.

    The authors are members of Sova’s Transfer and Learning Mobility team. Learn more about Beyond Transfer at sova.org/beyond-transfer or follow “Beyond Transfer” on Instagram @beyondtransfer and Transfer Nation California on LinkedIn or Instagram @transfernationca.

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  • MSI funding, institutional priorities, and the coming test of “social mobility” (Glen McGhee)

    MSI funding, institutional priorities, and the coming test of “social mobility” (Glen McGhee)

    A recent opinion from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel declares that federal Minority-Serving Institution (MSI) programs are unlawful because they allocate funding based on the racial composition of enrolled students. The ruling immediately throws hundreds of campuses—and the students they serve—into uncertainty. But beyond the legal debate lies a more revealing institutional reckoning: if MSI grants disappear, will colleges actually fund these programs themselves?

    The short answer, based on decades of evidence, is no.

    For years, colleges and universities have framed MSI grants as proof of their commitment to access, equity, and social mobility. Yet those commitments have always been conditional. They have depended on external federal subsidies rather than first-principles institutional priorities. Now that the funding stream is threatened, the gap between rhetoric and reality is about to widen dramatically.

    The scale of what is being cut is not trivial. Discretionary MSI programs—serving Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander–Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs), Predominantly Black Institutions (PBIs), and others—have collectively provided hundreds of millions of dollars annually for tutoring, advising, counseling, faculty development, and basic academic infrastructure. These grants have often been the difference between persistence and attrition for low-income students, many of whom are first-generation and Pell-eligible.

    Yet MSI funding has also sustained something else: a sprawling administrative apparatus dedicated to grant writing, compliance, reporting, assessment, and “outcomes tracking.” Entire offices exist to chase, manage, and justify these funds. This is the professional-managerial class infrastructure that has come to dominate higher education—highly credentialed, compliance-oriented, and deeply invested in external funding streams.

    Follow the money, and a pattern becomes clear. When federal or state funding declines, colleges do not trim administrative overhead. They cut instruction. They cut tutoring. They cut advising. They cut student-facing programs that lack powerful internal constituencies. Administrative spending, by contrast, is remarkably durable. It rarely shrinks, even in moments of fiscal crisis.

    We have seen this movie before. When state appropriations fell over the past decade, public universities raised tuition and reduced instructional spending rather than dismantling administrative layers. When DEI offices were banned or defunded in several states, institutions eliminated student services and laid off staff, then quietly absorbed the savings into general operations. There was no surge in faculty hiring, no reinvestment in instruction, no serious attempt to replace lost support with institutional dollars.

    MSI grants will follow the same path. Colleges may offer short-term “bridge funding” to manage optics and morale, but that support will be temporary and partial. The language administrators use—“assessing impacts,” “exploring alternatives,” “seeking private donors”—is a familiar signal that programs are being triaged, not saved.

    Could institutions afford to self-fund these programs if they truly wanted to? In most cases, no—or at least not without making choices they refuse to make. Endowments are largely restricted and already used to paper over structural deficits. Tuition increases are politically and economically constrained at campuses serving low-income students. Federal aid flows through institutions but cannot be repurposed for operations. There is no hidden pool of fungible money waiting to be redirected.

    What would replacing MSI funding actually require? Cutting administrative spending. Reducing executive compensation. Scaling back amenities and non-instructional growth. Reprioritizing instruction and academic support over branding and “customer experience.” These are choices institutions have consistently shown they will not make.

    This is why the rhetoric of social mobility rings hollow. Colleges celebrate access and equity when the costs are externalized—when federal grants pay for the work and compliance offices manage the paperwork. But when that funding disappears, so does the institutional courage to sustain the mission.

    The contrast with historically Black colleges and tribal colleges is instructive. Their core federal funding survives precisely because it is tied to historical mission rather than contemporary enrollment metrics, and because these institutions have long-standing political champions. That distinction exposes the truth: what is preserved is not equity, but power.

    The coming months will bring program closures, staff layoffs, and diminished support for the students MSI grants were designed to serve. What we will not see, despite solemn statements and carefully worded emails, is a widespread commitment by colleges to fund these programs themselves.

    The test is simple and unforgiving. If social mobility were truly a foundational principle of higher education, institutions would treat MSI programs as essential—not optional, not grant-contingent, not expendable. They would pay for them out of their own budgets.

    They won’t.

    And in that refusal, the performance ends. The mission statements remain, but the money moves elsewhere.

    Sources

    Inside Higher Ed, “DOJ Report Declares Minority-Serving Institution Programs Unlawful,” December 22, 2025.

    U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel, Opinion on Minority-Serving Institution Grant Programs, 2025.

    U.S. Department of Education, Title III and Title V Program Data, Fiscal Years 2020–2025.

    Government Accountability Office, Higher Education: Trends in Administrative and Instructional Spending, various reports.

    Delta Cost Project / American Institutes for Research, Trends in College Spending, 2003–2021.

    State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO), State Higher Education Finance Reports, 2010–2024.

    University of California Office of the President, California State Auditor Reports on Administrative Spending and Reserves.

    Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board; Florida Board of Governors; UNC System Office, public records and budget documents on DEI office eliminations, 2024–2025.

    Bloomberg News and Associated Press reporting on DEI bans and campus program closures, 2024–2025.

    National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), IPEDS Finance and Enrollment Data.

    American Council on Education, Endowment Spending and Restrictions in Higher Education.

    IRS Form 990 filings and audited financial statements of selected public and private universities.

    Columbia University public statements on federal research funding disruptions, 2025.

    University of Hawaiʻi system communications on federal grant losses and bridge funding, 2025.

    Congressional Budget Justifications, U.S. Department of Education, FY2025–FY2026.

    Ehrenreich, Barbara and John, The Professional-Managerial Class, and subsequent scholarship on administrative growth in higher education.

    Student Borrower Protection Center, Student Debt and Institutional Finance, 2024–2025.

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  • Helping Students Achieve Economic Mobility

    Helping Students Achieve Economic Mobility

    Colleges that help provide economic mobility for first-generation and low-income students are more likely to have recruitment and retention practices that focus on sense of belonging.

    FatCamera/E+/Getty Images

    As college students have become more diverse over the past few decades, a growing focus in education policy has centered on the university’s role in influencing their economic mobility.

    New research from Public Agenda evaluates the promising practices colleges and universities employ to improve the earning potential of students from low-income families and provide a stronger return on investment, compared to other institutions.

    The report outlines three primary themes across policies and practices to advance student success: involving families, creating supportive campus systems, and investing resources in low-income students.

    Survey says: Two in five students said one of their main reasons for attending college is to increase their earnings potential, according to data from Inside Higher Ed’s 2025 Student Voice survey. The most popular response was “to pursue a specific career or profession,” followed by “to gain knowledge and skills.”

    Students aged 25 and older were more likely to signal they enrolled to increase earnings potential (53 percent), as were students working full-time (48 percent) and those attending two-year colleges (44 percent), compared to their traditional-aged peers or four-year counterparts.

    Methodology: Staff at Public Agenda traveled to 10 colleges or universities in Michigan, Texas and California in 2024 to conduct interviews with administrators, faculty and staff; they also held focus groups with students and alumni. In addition to the qualitative research, Public Agenda leveraged data from the Department of Education’s College Scorecard to evaluate trends in socioeconomic mobility by institution type and student persona.

    The research: One of the overarching takeaways Public Agenda staff gleaned from their site visits was that the institutions most effective in boosting students’ economic mobility tended to value and respect student-facing staff and their perspectives on improving systems.

    “Success at the institutions we studied depends on cultivating an environment in which everyone recognizes that the people who interact directly with students possess the most important information and have the clearest ideas about how to fix problems,” according to the report.

    The evaluated colleges prioritized recruiting first-generation students and engaging with their families to help them understand the accessibility and value of higher education, because they were most likely to go straight into the workforce from high school, rather than consider college.

    “When senior leaders and front-line staff at these institutions refer to ‘the competition,’ they are talking about the forces pulling students away from college—not about other colleges,” the report said.

    It also noted that families and local schools are invited to campus for various events to establish familiarity and comfort with the institution. Offering resources in various languages or connecting families with bilingual staff can build trust and demonstrate commitment. Hiring staff who share identities with students, or are alumni themselves, can create a support system that helps first-gen and low-income students feel seen and understood.

    “The baseline of shared experience functions as a lubricant, reducing friction in efforts to achieve commonality of purpose among everyone working at the institution,” according to the report.

    Providing peer-to-peer resources and creating physical spaces on campus that engage learners can also establish a sense of belonging.

    In addition, researchers noted that creating affordable pathways to education can increase students’ overall economic mobility. Each of the states evaluated had some form of state funding for low-income students to enroll in college, and many had institution-level initiatives that bridge funding gaps between the Pell Grant and state dollars.

    In addition to meeting tuition costs, colleges invested dollars in data systems that relieved staff of burdensome administrative duties and increased the number of academic advisers on campus to provide more personalized, one-on-one advice and encouragement for students.

    Other trends: Researchers also underscored the role of financial stability in achieving socioeconomic mobility for low-income students. Financial obstacles and personal challenges are the top reasons students leave college.

    Ensuring students are aware of how to access emergency aid on campus or other social support benefits, such as food pantries or childcare assistance, is also critical, researchers wrote.

    Many low-income students work while enrolled, so creating opportunities for student employment on campus or connecting students to meaningful employment experiences can help them stay on track to graduate and develop career skills.

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  • How social mobility in HE can reproduce inequality – and what to do about it

    How social mobility in HE can reproduce inequality – and what to do about it

    by Anna Mountford-Zimdars, Louise Ashley, Eve Worth, and Chris Playford

    Higher education has become the go-to solution for social inequality over the past three decades. Widening access and enhancing graduate outcomes have been presented as ways to generate upward mobility and ensure fairer life chances for people from all backgrounds. But what if the very ecosystem designed to level the playing field also inadvertently helps sustain the very inequalities we are hoping to overcome? 

    Social mobility agendas appear progressive but are often regressive in practice. By focusing on the movement of individuals rather than structural change, they leave wealth and income disparities intact. A few people may rise, but the wider system remains unfair – but now dressed up with a meritocratic veneer. We explore these issues in our new article in the British Journal of Sociology, ‘Ambivalent Agents: The Social Mobility Industry and Civil Society under Neoliberalism in England’. We examined the role of the UK’s ‘social mobility industry’: charities, foundations, and third-sector organisations primarily working with universities to identify ‘talented’ young people from less advantaged backgrounds and help them access higher education or elite careers. We were curious – are these organisations transforming opportunity structures and delivering genuine change, or do they help stabilise the present system? 

    The answer to this question is of course complex but, in essence, we found the latter. Our analysis of 150 national organisations working in higher education since the early 1990s found that organisations tend to reflect the individualistic approach outlined above and blend critical rhetoric about inequality with delivery models that are funder-compatible, metric-led and institutionally convenient. Thus – and we expect unintentionally on part of the organisations – they often perform inclusion of ‘talent’ without asking too many uncomfortable structural questions about the persistence and reproduction of unequal opportunities. 

    We classified organisations in a five-part typology. Most organisations fell into the category of Pragmatic Progressives: committed to fairness but shaped by funder priorities, accountability metrics, and institutional convenience. A smaller group acted as Structural Resistors, pushing for systemic change. Others were System Conformers, largely reproducing official rhetoric. The Technocratic deliverers were most closely integrated with the state, often functioning as contracted agents with managerial, metrics-focused delivery models.   Finally, Professionalised Reformers seek reform through evidence-based programmes and advocacy, often with a focus on elite education and professions.

    This finding matters beyond higher education. Civil society – the world of charities, voluntary groups, and associations – has long been seen as the sphere where resistance to inequality might flourish. Yet our findings show that many organisations are constrained or co-opted into protecting the status quo by limited budgets, demanding funders, and constant requirements to demonstrate ‘impact’. Our point is not to disparage gains or to criticise the intentions of the charity sector but to push for honest and genuine change. 

    Labour’s new Civil Society Covenant, which promises to strengthen voluntary organisations and reduce short-termism, could create opportunities. But outsourcing responsibility for social goods to arm’s-length actors also risks producing symbolic reforms that celebrate individual success stories without changing the odds for the many. If higher education is to deliver genuine fairness, we must distinguish between performing fairness for a few and redistributing opportunities for the many. We thus want to conclude by suggesting three practical actions for universities, access and participation teams, and regulators such as the Office for Students.

    1. Audit for Ambivalence 

    Using our typology, do you find you are working with a mix of organisations, or mainly those focused on individuals? (Please contact us for accessing our coding framework to support your institutional or regional audits.) 

    • Rebalance activity towards structural levers

    Continue high-quality outreach, but, where possible, shift resources towards systemic interventions such as contextual admissions with meaningful grade floors, strong maintenance support, foundation pathways with guaranteed progression and fair, embedded work placements 

    Ask the regulator to measure structural outcomes as well as individual ones, at sector and regional levels. When commissioning work, ask for participatory governance and community accountability and measure that too.

    We believe civil-society partnerships can play a vital role – but not if they become the sole heavy-lifter or metric of success. Universities are well positioned to embrace structural levers, protect space for critique, and hold themselves accountable for distributional outcomes. If this happens, the crowded charity space around social mobility could become a vibrant counter-movement for genuine change to opportunities and producing fairness rather than a prop for maintaining an unequal status quo. 

    In terms of research, our next step is speaking directly to people working in the ‘social mobility industry.’ Do they/you recognise the tensions we highlight? How do they navigate them? Have we fairly presented their work? We look forward to continuing the discussion on this topic and how to enhance practice for transformative change.

    Anna Mountford-Zimdars is a Professor in Education at the University of Exeter.

    Louise Ashley is Associate Professor in the School of business and management at Queen Mary University London.

    Eve Worth is a Lecturer in History at the University of Exeter.

    Christopher James Playford is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Exeter.

    Author: SRHE News Blog

    An international learned society, concerned with supporting research and researchers into Higher Education

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  • Policy uncertainty emerges as top barrier to student mobility 

    Policy uncertainty emerges as top barrier to student mobility 

    While affordability remains the greatest obstacle for students, IDP Education’s new Emerging Futures survey has revealed the growing impact of sudden and unclear policy changes shaping students’ international study decisions.  

    “Students and families are prepared to make sacrifices to afford their international education dreams. They can adjust budgets, seek scholarships and rely on part-time work. But they cannot plan for uncertainty,” said IDP chief partnerships officer Simon Emmett.  

    “When the rules change, without warning or clarity, trust falls away. Students hesitate, delay, or choose to study elsewhere.” 

    Drawing on the views of nearly 8,000 international students from 134 countries between July and August 2025, the results highlighted the critical importance of study destinations communicating policy changes to sustain trust among students.  

    The US and UK were rated the lowest for providing clear guidance on visas and arrivals processes, while New Zealand was identified as the top communicator in this respect.  

    What’s more, the UK saw the steepest rise in students withdrawing from plans to study there, indicating recent policy changes including plans to shorten the Graduate Route and increase compliance metrics for universities are creating uncertainty among international students. 

    Of the students who said they were pivoting away from major study destinations, over half (51%) indicated tuition fees had become unaffordable and one in five said it was too difficult to obtain a visa.  

    In markets such as Malaysia, the Philippines and the UAE, students reported delaying or redirecting applications almost immediately after unclear announcements by major destinations, the report said. 

    Meanwhile Canada’s share of withdrawals was shown to have eased, indicating messaging is helping to rebuild stability, the authors suggested, though Canadian study permit issuance has fallen dramatically in 2025.

    Without that stability, even the most attractive destinations risk losing trust

    Simon Emmett, IDP

    Despite policy disruptions in Australia over recent years, the country remained the most popular first-choice destination globally, ranked highly for value for money, graduate employment opportunities and post-study work pathways.  

    At the same time, many respondents flagged sensitivities to recent visa and enrolment changes, highlighting the need for consistent and transparent messaging to maintain Australia’s competitiveness, according to IDP.  

    The US saw the largest decline in popularity, dropping to third place behind Australia and the UK. 

    NAFSA CEO Fanta Aw said the findings should serve as a “wake-up call” that policy uncertainty has real human and economic costs, emphasising the need for “clear and consistent” communication from institutions and policymakers.  

    “Students are paying close attention to how the US administration handles student visas and post-study experiential learning opportunities like Optional Practical Training,” said Aw. 

    Visa restrictions and policy hostility have rocked the US under Trump’s second presidency, with global visa appointments suspended for nearly a month this summer, as well as thousands of student visa revocations and travel restrictions on 12 nations.  

    Post-study work opportunities are increasingly fragile in the US with government plans to overhaul the H-1B skilled worker visa to favour better paid jobs and OPT coming under increased scrutiny from policymakers. 

    Emmett highlighted the knock-on effect of these policy shocks, with student journeys being disrupted “not by ambition, but by uncertainty”. 

    “Countries that provide predictability will win the confidence of students and their families. Without that stability, even the most attractive destinations risk losing trust,” he said. 

    Despite financial and political challenges, demand for global study remained strong, with half of all prospective students intending to apply within six months, and a further 29% within a year. 

    South Asia emerged as the main driver of intent, with more than 60% of students surveyed from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh preparing near-term applications, though this region was also the most sensitive to abrupt or confusing policy shifts.  

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  • Strategic Approach to Mobility, Transfer, Academic Partnership

    Strategic Approach to Mobility, Transfer, Academic Partnership

    Serving approximately 100,000 students each year, Maricopa County Community College District is one of the nation’s largest community college districts. Many bachelor’s-granting institutions seek to recruit Maricopa students, but these institutions often fall short in serving them effectively by not applying previously earned coursework, overlooking their specific needs or failing to accept credit for prior learning in transfer. After years of requesting changes from transfer partners without seeing adequate response, Maricopa Community Colleges determined it was time to take action by establishing clear criteria and an evaluation process.

    A Legacy of Transfer

    Since its establishment, university transfer has remained a central pillar of the mission of the MCCCD. Transfer preparation is a chief reason students enroll across the district’s 10 colleges. In fact, 38 percent of students districtwide indicate upon admission that their goal is to transfer to a university.

    A significant portion of these students transition to Arizona’s three public universities under the framework of the Arizona Transfer System. Beyond that, Maricopa maintains formal articulation agreements with over 35 colleges and universities, both in state and across the nation, including private and public institutions.

    Developing Strategic Transfer Partnerships

    Each university partnership is formalized through a memorandum of understanding that outlines the roles, expectations and mutual responsibilities of Maricopa and the partner institution. Recognizing the need for a more strategic and data-informed approach, MCCCD developed a model years ago to ensure that both potential and existing transfer partnerships align with the district’s evolving strategic priorities. The model provides a structured framework for assessing new and continuing partnerships based on institutional relevance, resource capacity and student need.

    A Point of Evolution

    In 2022, the district overhauled its partnership model to better meet the needs of today’s learners, who increasingly seek flexible pathways to a degree. Many students now arrive with a mix of traditional coursework, transfer credit and prior learning assessment, including military service, industry certifications and on-the-job training, creating greater demand for clear, consistent and student-centered transfer pathways. The updated model ensures partner institutions complement, rather than counter, MCCCD’s efforts, particularly in recognizing learning that occurs outside the traditional classroom.

    The new model sets out the following criteria as minimum requirements:

    • Accepts and applies credits earned through prior learning assessment: The integration of PLA and alternative credit was a central focus of the redesign, recognizing the unique advantages these offer transfer students. Many students move between institutions, accumulate credits in segments and work toward credential completion. While some follow the traditional route from a two-year college to a four-year university, others take different paths, transferring from one two-year institution to another, or returning from a four-year institution to a two-year college through reverse-transfer agreements. These varied journeys highlight the need to embed PLA fully into the transfer agenda so that all learning, regardless of where or how it was acquired, is recognized and applied toward students’ goals. By making PLA a built-in component of the revamped model, MCCCD and its university partners can better meet learners where they are in their educational journey.
    • Provides annual enrollment and achievement data: To support this renewed focus, MCCCD asked all university partners to update their MOUs through a new university partnership application. This process gathered key institutional data and ensured alignment with updated partnership criteria and made it mandatory.
    • Accredited with no adverse actions or existing sanctions against the institution: Partner institutions must hold accreditation in good standing, accept both nationally and regionally accredited coursework, and recognize Maricopa-awarded PLA credit.
    • Aims to accept and apply a minimum of 60 credits: They are expected to apply at least 60 applicable Maricopa credits, academic and occupational, and accept Maricopa’s general education core.
    • Has a minimum of 50 students who have transferred at least 12 Maricopa earned credits in the last three years: This requirement is intended to demonstrate need and gauge student interest.
    • Surveys Maricopa transfer students annually: Partners must commit to administering annual transfer surveys and tracking student outcomes using jointly defined metrics.

    Institutions that do not meet this standard are not advanced in the partnership process but are welcome to reapply once they meet the baseline criteria. As a result, more partners are actively engaging and strengthening their policies and processes to gain or maintain eligibility.

    Key Findings

    Several themes emerged from the first year of implementation:

    Since the revamp, MCCCD is seeing promising results. Current and prospective partners have demonstrated strong commitment to the revised partnership model by elevating transfer and PLA practices, expanding pathways that accept 75 to 90 credits and participating in on-campus student support initiatives through goal-oriented action plans. They are using the model to facilitate conversations within their institutions to further advance internal policies and practices.

    Post-COVID, demand for online learning and support services remains strong, particularly among working students and those needing flexible schedules, as reflected in survey results. While participation in past transfer experience surveys was low, the district has made this requirement mandatory and introduced multiple survey options to better capture the student voice and experience. These insights enable MCCCD to collaborate with partners on targeted improvement plans.

    New criteria MCCCD is considering, several of which some partners have already implemented, include reserving course seats for Maricopa transfer students, creating Maricopa-specific scholarships, offering internships and other work opportunities and waiving application fees.

    MCCCD is currently assessing the impact of its revamped partnership model to measure the success of these efforts. Preliminary findings from the three-year review indicate that most, if not all, partner institutions are meeting or exceeding established metrics. These early results reflect a strong commitment to the agreements and reaffirm the value of the updated criteria in fostering more meaningful and impactful partnerships.

    A Model for Intentional Partnerships

    The Maricopa Community College District’s revamped university transfer partnership model is a strategic effort to keep partnerships active, student-centered and aligned with key institutional priorities. Through intentional collaboration, transparent policies and practices and shared responsibility, Maricopa and its university partners are building more effective, forward-thinking transfer pathways.

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  • International Student Mobility Data Sources: A Primer

    International Student Mobility Data Sources: A Primer

    Bryce Loo, Associate Director of Higher Education Research

    Part 1: Understanding the Types of Sources and Their Differences

    There has perhaps never been more of a need for data on globally mobile students than now. In 2024, there were about 6.9 million international students studying outside their home countries, a record high, and the number is projected to grow to more than 10 million by 2030. Nations all around the world count on global student mobility for a number of reasons: Sending nations benefit by sending some of their young people abroad for education, particularly when there is less capacity at home to absorb all demand. Many of those young people return to the benefit of the local job market with new skills and knowledge and with global experience, while others remain abroad and are able to contribute in other ways, including sending remittances. Host nations benefit in numerous ways, from the economic contributions of international students (in everything from tuition payments to spending in the local economy) to social and political benefits, including building soft power.

    At the same time, economic, political, and social trends worldwide challenge the current ecosystem of global educational mobility. Many top destinations of international students, including Canada and the United States, have developed heavily restrictive policies toward such students and toward migrants overall. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that one global challenge can upend international education, even if temporarily.

    Data plays a key role in helping those who work in or touch upon international education. All players in the space—from institutional officials and service providers to policymakers and researchers—can use global and national data sources to see trends in student flows, as well as potential changes and disruptions.

    This article is the first in a two-part series exploring global student mobility data. In this first article, I will delve into considerations that apply in examining any international student data source. In the second, forthcoming article, we will examine some of the major data sources in global student mobility, both global and national, with the latter focused on the “Big Four” host countries: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

    In utilizing any global student mobility data source, it is crucial to understand some basics about each source. Here are some key questions to ask about any source and how to understand what each provides.

    Who collects the data?

    Table displaying major international student mobility data sources for trends around the world and in the "Big Four" countries.

    There are three main types of entities that collect student mobility data at a national level:

    • Government ministries or agencies: These entities are generally mandated by law or statute to collect international student data for specific purposes. Depending on the entity’s purview, such data could include student visa or permit applications and issuances, students arriving at ports of entry (such as an airport or border crossing), enrollment in an educational institution, or students registered as working during or after completing coursework.
    • Non-governmental organizations (NGOs): Non-profit entities focused on international education or related fields such as higher education or immigration may collect international student data, sometimes with funding or support from relevant government ministries. One good example is the Institute of International Education (IIE) in the U.S., which has collected data on international students and scholars since 1948, much of that time with funding and support from the U.S. Department of State.
    • Individual institutions: Of course, individual universities and colleges usually collect data on all their students, usually with specific information on international students, sometimes by government mandate. In countries such as the U.S. and Canada, these institutions must report such data to governmental ministries. They may also choose to report to non-governmental agencies, such as IIE. Such data may or may not otherwise be publicly available.

    At the international level, the main data sources are generally an aggregation of data from national sources. There are three main efforts:

    How are the data collected?

    The method in which mobility data are collected affects the level of accuracy of such data. The sources that collect data internationally or on multiple countries, such as UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) and IIE’s Project Atlas, are primarily aggregators. They collect the data from national sources, either government ministries or international education organizations, such as the British Council or the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE).

    For primary data collection, there are three main methods:

    • Mandatory reporting: Certain government entities collect data by law or regulation. Data are naturally collected as part of processing and granting student visas or permits, as the S. State Department and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) do. In other cases, postsecondary institutions are required to track and report on their international students—from application to graduation and sometimes on to post-graduation work programs. This is the case in the U.S. through SEVIS (the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System), overseen by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), through which deputized institutional officials track all international students. The data from this system are reported regularly by DHS. In other cases, data are collected annually, often through a survey form, as Statistics Canada does through its Postsecondary Student Information System (PSIS).
    • Census: Some non-profit organizations attempt to have all postsecondary institutions report their data, often through an online questionnaire. This is the method by which IIE obtains data for its annual Open Doors Report, which tracks both international students in the U.S. and students enrolled in U.S. institutions studying abroad short-term in other countries.
    • Survey: A survey gathers data from a sample, preferably representative, of the overall population—in this case, higher education institutions—to form inferences about the international student population. (This should not be confused with the “surveys” issued by government agencies, usually referring to a questionnaire form, typically online nowadays, through which institutions are required to report data.) This method is used in IIE’s snapshot surveys in the fall and spring of each year, intended to provide an up-to-date picture of international student enrollment as a complement to Open Doors, which reflects information on international students from the previous academic year.

    When are the data collected and reported?

    Chart showing the data collection and reporting practices of major global, U.S., and Canadian international student datasets.

    In considering data sources, it is important to know when the data were collected and what time periods they reflect. Government data sources are typically the most up-to-date due to their mandatory nature. Data are often collected continuously in real time, such as when a student visa is approved or when an international student officially starts a course of study. However, each ministry releases data at differing intervals. Australia’s Department of Education, for example, is well known for releasing new data almost every month. USCIS and IRCC tend to release data roughly quarterly, though both provide monthly breakdowns of their data in some cases.

    Non-governmental entities generally do not collect data continuously. Instead, they may collect data annually, semiannually, or even less frequently. IIE’s Open Doors collects data annually for the previous academic year on international students and two years prior on U.S. study abroad students. The results for both are released every November.

    The international aggregated sources receive data from national sources at widely varying times. As a result, there can be gaps in data, making comparison between or among countries challenging. Some countries don’t send data at all, often due to lack of resources for doing so. Even major host countries, notably China, send little if any data to UNESCO.

    What type of student mobility data are included in the source?

    Sources collect different types of student mobility data. One such breakdown is between inbound and outbound students—that is, those whom a country hosts versus those who leave the country to go study in other countries. Most government sources, such as IRCC, focus solely on inbound students—the international students hosted within the country— due to the organizations’ mandate and ability to collect data. Non-governmental organizations, such as IIE, often attempt to capture information on outbound (or “study abroad”) students. Many international sources, such as UNESCO UIS, capture both.

    Another important breakdown addresses whether the data included degree-seekers, students studying abroad for credit back home, or those going abroad not explicitly for study but for a related purpose, such as research or internships:

    • Degree mobility: captures data on students coming into a country or going abroad for pursuit of a full degree.
    • Credit mobility: captures information on those abroad studying short-term for academic credit with their home institution, an arrangement often called “study abroad” (particularly in the U.S. and Canada) or “educational exchange.” The length of the study abroad opportunity typically can last anywhere from one year to as little as one week. Short-duration programs, such as faculty-led study tours, have become an increasingly popular option among students looking for an international experience. In most cases, the home institution is in the student’s country of origin, but that is not always the case. For example, a Vietnamese international student might be studying for a full degree in the U.S. but as part of the coursework studies in Costa Rica for one semester.
    • Non-credit mobility: captures information on those who go abroad not for credit-earning coursework but for something highly related to a degree program, such as research, fieldwork, non-credit language study, an internship, or a volunteer opportunity. This may or may not be organized through the student’s education institution, and the parameters around this type of mobility can be blurry.

    It’s important to know what each data source includes. Most governmental data sources will include both degree and credit mobility—students coming to study for a full degree or only as part of a short-term educational exchange. The dataset may or may not distinguish between these students, which is important to know if the distinction between such students is important for the data user’s purposes.

    For outbound (“study abroad”) mobility, it’s easier for organizations to track credit mobility rather than degree mobility. IIE’s Open Doors, for example, examines only credit mobility for outbound students because it collects data through U.S. institutions, which track their outbound study abroad students and help them receive appropriate credits for their work abroad once they return. There is not a similar mechanism for U.S. degree-seekers going to other countries. That said, organizations such as IIE have attempted such research in the past, even if it is not an ongoing effort. Typically, the best way to find numbers on students from a particular country seeking full degrees abroad is to use UNESCO and sort the full global data by country of origin. UNESCO can also be used to find the numbers in a specific host country, or, in some cases, it may be better to go directly to the country’s national data source if available.

    Non-credit mobility has been the least studied form of student mobility, largely because it is difficult to capture due to its amorphous nature. Nevertheless, some organizations, like IIE, have made one-off or periodic attempts to capture it.

    Who is captured in the data source? How is “international student” defined?

    Each data source may define the type of globally mobile student within the dataset differently. Chiefly, it’s important to recognize whether the source captures only data on international students in the strictest sense (based on that specific legal status) or on others who are not citizens of the host country. The latter could include permanent immigrants (such as permanent residents), temporary workers, and refugees or asylum seekers. The terms used can vary, from “foreign student” to a “nonresident” (sometimes “nonresident alien”), as some U.S. government sources use. It’s important to check the specific definition of the students for whom information is captured.

    Most of the major student mobility data sources capture only data on international students as strictly defined by the host country. Here are the definitions of “international student” for the Big Four:

    • United States: A non-immigrant resident holding an F-1, M-1, or certain types of J-1 (The J-1 visa is an exchange visa that includes but is not limited to students and can include individuals working in youth summer programs or working as au pairs, for example.)
    • Canada: A temporary resident holding a study permit from a designated learning institution (DLI)
    • United Kingdom: An individual on a Student visa
    • Australia: An individual who is not an Australian citizen or permanent resident or who is not a citizen of New Zealand, studying in Australia on a temporary visa

    Some countries make a distinction between international students enrolled in academic programs, such as at a university, versus those studying a trade or in a vocational school; there might also be distinct categorization for those attending language training. For example, in the U.S., M-1 visas are for international students studying in vocational education programs and may not be captured in some data sources, notably Open Doors.

    Understanding the terminology used for international students helps in obtaining the right type of data. For example, one of the primary methods of obtaining data on international students in Canada is through IRCC data held on the Government of Canada’s Open Government Portal. But you won’t find any such dataset on “international students.” Instead, you need to search for “study permit holders.”

    Does the data source include students studying online or at a branch campus abroad, or who are otherwise physically residing outside the host country?

    Some universities and colleges have robust online programs that include significant numbers of students studying physically in other countries. (This was also true for many institutions during the pandemic. As a result, in the U.S., IIE temporarily included non-U.S. students studying at a U.S. institution online from elsewhere.) Other institutions have branch campuses or other such transnational programs that blur the line between international and domestic students. So, it’s important to ask: Does the data source include those not physically present in the institution’s country? The terminology for each country can vary. For example, in Australia, where such practices are very prominent, the term usually used to refer to students studying in Australian institutions but not physically in Australia is “offshore students.”

    What levels of study are included in the dataset?

    The focus of this article is postsecondary education, but some data sources do include primary and secondary students (“K-12 students” in the U.S. and Canada). IRCC’s study permit holder data includes students at all levels, including K-12 students. The ministry does provide some data broken down by level of study and other variables, such as country of citizenship and province or territory.

    What about data on international students who are working?

    Many host countries collect data and report on international students who are employed or participating in paid or unpaid internships during or immediately after their coursework. The specifics vary from country to country depending on how such opportunities for international students are structured and which government agencies are charged with overseeing such efforts. For example, in the U.S., the main work opportunities for most international students both during study (under Curricular Practical Training, or CPT) and after study (usually under Optional Practical Training, or OPT) are overseen by the student’s institution and reported via SEVIS. IIE’s Open Doors tracks students specifically for OPT but not CPT. By contrast, the main opportunity for international students to work in Canada after graduating from a Canadian institution is through the post-graduation work permit (PGWP). Students transfer to a new legal status in Canada, in contrast with U.S.-based international students under OPT, who remain on their student visa until their work opportunity ends. As a result, IRCC reports separate data on graduate students working under the PGWP, though data are relatively scant.

    At some point, students who are able to and make the choice to stay and work beyond such opportunities in their new country transition to new legal statuses, such as the H-1B visa (a specialty-occupation temporary work visa) in the U.S., or directly to permanent residency in many countries. The data required to examine these individuals varies.

    What about data beyond demographics?

    While most international student datasets focus on numbers and demographic breakdowns, some datasets and other related research focus on such topics as the contributions of international students to national and local economies. For example, NAFSA: Association of International Educators, the main professional association for international educators in the U.S., maintains the International Student Economic Value Tool, which quantifies the dollar amounts that international students contribute to the U.S. at large, individual states, and congressional districts. Part of the intention behind this is to provide a tool for policy advocacy in Washington, D.C., and in state and local governments.

    How can I contextualize international student numbers within the broader higher education context of a country?

    Many countries collect and publish higher education data and other research. Each country assigns this function to different ministries or agencies. For example, in Canada, most such data are collected and published by Statistics Canada (StatCan), which is charged with data collection and research broadly for the country. In the U.S., this function falls under the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), which runs a major higher education data bank known as IPEDS, the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. StatCan does provide some data on international students, while IPEDS in the U.S. reports numbers of “nonresident” students, defined as “a person who is not a citizen or national of the United States and who is in this country on a visa or temporary basis and does not have the right to remain indefinitely.” This term likely encompasses mostly those on international student visas.

    I will discuss some of these higher education data sources in Part 2 of this series.

    How do I learn what I need to know about each individual dataset?

    Each major data source typically provides a glossary, methodology section, and/or appendix that helps users understand the dataset. In Part 2 of this series, we will examine some of the major international and national data sources, including where to locate further such information for each.

    It’s critical for users of student mobility data sources to understand these nuances in order to accurately and appropriately utilize the data. In the second part of this series, we will examine several prominent data sources.

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  • How Pakistani students are reshaping global mobility

    How Pakistani students are reshaping global mobility

    A new study from ApplyBoard has shown the number of students leaving Pakistan to join universities in countries such as the UK and US has grown exponentially in the past few years, with student visas issued to Pakistani students bound for the ‘big four’ nearly quadrupling from 2019 to 2025.

    “One of the most striking findings is just how rapid and resilient Pakistan’s growth has been across major study destinations,” ApplyBoard CEO Meti Basiri told The PIE News.

    “The rise of Pakistani students is a clear signal that global student mobility is diversifying beyond traditional markets like India and China,” he said.

    The question is, why?

    A large factor is Pakistan’s young population – 59%, or roughly 142.2 million people, are between the ages of five and 24, making it one of the youngest populations in Asia.

    Additionally, due to economic challenges faced by Pakistan, many young people see international education as a necessity in order to succeed financially, even with Pakistan’s economic growth and gradual stabilisation – which has a possibility of slightly decreasing the overall movement between countries in the future.

    The UK has remained the most popular destination for Pakistani students even through Covid-19, with Pakistan rising to become the UK’s third largest source country in 2024.

    Visas issued to Pakistani students have grown from less than 5,500 to projected 31,000 this year, an increase of over 550% from 2019 to 35,501 in 2024.

    Some 83% of students chose postgraduate programs, with the most popular being business courses, but in recent years statistics show a shift towards computing and IT courses.

    This trend aligns with the growth of the UK’s tech sector, which is now worth more than 1.2 trillion pounds, with graduates set to aid further growth in the coming years.

    “In the US, F-1 visas for Pakistani students are on track to hit an all-time high in FY2025,” said Basiri, with STEM subjects the most popular among the cohort.

    This aligns with the US labour market, where STEM jobs have grown 79% in the last 30 years.

    Basiri highlighted the “surprising” insight that postgraduate programs now make up the majority of Pakistani enrolments, particularly in fields of IT, engineering and life sciences. “This reflects a deliberate and career-driven approach to international education,” he said.

    Such an approach is true of students across the world, who are becoming “more intentional, choosing destinations and programs based on affordability, career outcomes, and visa stability, not just brand recognition,” said Basiri.

    The rise of Pakistani students is a clear signal that global student mobility is diversifying beyond traditional markets like India and China

    Meti Basiri, ApplyBoard

    Canada, unlike the US and UK, has welcomed far fewer Pakistani students, most likely due to the introduction of international student caps. ApplyBoard also suspects Pakistani student populations to drop further in the coming years, it warned.

    Similarly, the amount of visas issued to Pakistani students has also dropped in Australia after high demand following the pandemic.

    Germany, however, has experienced rising popularity, a 70% increase in popularity over five years amongst Pakistani students.

    One of the biggest factors for this is their often tuition-free public post secondary education, according to ApplyBoard, as well as the multitude of engineering and technology programs offered in Germany.

    What’s more, though smaller in scale, the UAE has seen a 7% increase in Pakistani students in recent years, thanks, in part to “geographic proximity, cultural familiarity and expanding institutional capacity,” said Basiri.

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  • More comprehensive EDI data makes for a clearer picture of staff social mobility

    More comprehensive EDI data makes for a clearer picture of staff social mobility

    Asking more granular EDI questions of its PGRs and staff should be a sector priority. It would enable universities to assess the diversity of their academic populations in the same manner they have done for our undergraduate bodies – but with the addition of a valuable socio-economic lens.

    It would equip us more effectively to answer basic questions regarding how far the diversity in our undergraduate community leads through to our PGT, PGR and academic populations, as well as see where ethnicity and gender intersect with socio-economic status and caring responsibilities to contribute to individuals falling out of (or choosing to leave) the “leaky” academic pipeline.

    One tool to achieve this is the Diversity and Inclusion Survey (DAISY), a creation of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in Science and Health (EDIS) and the Wellcome Trust. This toolkit outlines how funders and universities can collect more detailed diversity monitoring data of their staff and PGRs as well as individuals involved in research projects.

    DAISY suggests questions regarding socio-economic background and caring responsibilities that nuance or expand upon those already in “equal opportunities”-type application forms that exist in the sector. DAISY asks, for example, whether one has children and/or adult dependents, and how many of each, rather than the usual “yes” or “no” to “do you have caring responsibilities?” Other questions include the occupation of your main household earner when aged 14 (with the option to pick from categories of job type), whether your parents attended university before you were 18, and whether you qualified for free school meals at the age of 14.

    EDI data journeys across the sector

    As part of an evolving data strategy, UCAS already collects several DAISY data points on their applicants, such as school type and eligibility for free school meals, with the latter data point is gaining traction across the university sector and policy bodies as a meaningful indicator for disadvantage.

    Funders are interested in collecting more granular EDI data. The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), for example, invested around £800 million in the creation of Biomedical Research Centres in the early 2020s. The NIHR encouraged the collection of DAISY data specifically on both the researchers each centre would employ and the individuals they would research upon, in the belief (see theme four of their research inclusion strategy) that a diverse researcher workforce will make medical science more robust.

    The diversity monitoring templates attached to recent UKRI funding schemes similarly highlight the sector’s desire for more granular EDI data. UKRI’s Responsive Mode Scheme, for example, requires institutions to benchmark their applicants against a range of protected characteristics, including ethnicity, gender, and disability, set against the percentage of the “researcher population” at the institution holding those characteristics. The direction of travel in the sector is clear.

    What can universities do?

    Given the data journeys of UCAS and funding bodies, it is sensible and proportionate, therefore, that universities ask more granular EDI questions of their PGRs and their staff. Queen Mary began doing so, using the DAISY toolkit as guide, for its staff and PGRs in October 2024, alongside work to capture similar demographic data in the patient population involved in clinical trials supported by Queen Mary and Barts NHS Health Trust.

    While we have excellent diversity in our undergraduate community, we see less in our PGR and staff communities, and embedding more granular data collection into our central HR processes for staff and admissions processes for PGRs allows us to assess (eventually, at least, given adequate disclosure rates) how far the diversity in our undergraduate population leads through to our PGT, PGR and academic population.

    Embedding the collection of more granular EDI data into central HR and admissions systems required collaboration across Queen Mary’s Research Culture, EDI, and HR teams, creating new information forms and systems to collect the data while ensuring it could be linked to other datasets. The process was also quickened by a clinical trials unit in our Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry who had piloted the collection of this data already on a smaller scale, providing a proof of concept for our colleagues in HR.

    EDI data and the PGR pipeline

    Securing the cooperation of our HR and EDI colleagues was made easier thanks to our doctoral college, who had already incorporated the collection of more granular EDI data into an initiative aimed at increasing the representation of Black British students in our PGR community: the STRIDE programme.

    Standing for “Summer Training Research Initiative to Support Diversity and Equity”, STRIDE gives our BAME undergraduate students the opportunity to undertake an eight-week paid research project over the summer, alongside a weekly soft skills programme including presentation and leadership training. Although the programme has run annually since 2020 with excellent outcomes (almost 70 per cent of the first cohort successfully applied to funded research programmes), incorporating more granular EDI questions into the application form for the 2024 cohort of 425 applicants highlighted intersectional barriers to postgraduate study faced by our applicants that would have been obscured had we only collected basic EDI data.

    Among other insights, 47 per cent of applicants to STRIDE had been eligible at some point for free school meals. This contrasts with our broader undergraduate community, 22 per cent of whom were eligible for free school meals. Some 55 per cent of applicants reported that neither of their parents went to university, and 27 per cent reported that their parents had routine or semi-routine manual jobs. Asking questions beyond the usual suite of EDI questions allows us here to picture more clearly the socio-economic and cultural barriers that intersect with ethnicity to make entry into postgraduate study more difficult for members of underrepresented communities.

    The data chimed with internal research we conducted in 2021, where we discovered that many of the key barriers to our undergraduates engaging in postgraduate research were the same as those who were first in family to go to university, namely lack of family understanding of a further degree and lack of understanding regarding the financial benefits of completing a postgraduate research degree.

    Collecting more granular EDI data will allow us to understand and support diversity that is intersectional, while enabling more effective assessment of whether Queen Mary is moving in the right direction in terms of making research degrees (and research careers) accessible to traditionally underrepresented communities at our universities. But collecting such data on our STRIDE applicants makes little sense without equivalent data from our PGR and academic community – hence Queen Mary’s broader decision to embed DAISY data collection into its systems.

    The potential of DAISY

    As Queen Mary’s experience with STRIDE demonstrates, nuancing our collection of EDI data comes with clear potential. Given adequate disclosure rates, collecting more granular EDI data makes possible more effective intersectional analyses of our PGRs and staff across our sector, and helps understand the social mobility of our PGRs and staff with more nuance, leading to a clearer image of the journey that those from less privileged social backgrounds and/or those with caring responsibilities face across our sector.

    More broadly, universities will always be crucial catalysts of social mobility, and collecting more granular data on socio-economic background alongside the personal data they already collect – such as gender, ethnicity, religion and other protected characteristics – is a logical and necessary next step.

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