The past two to three years have changed the perspective of students as well as parents on the demand factors for studying abroad into 2022. COVID pandemic has made lots of changes for a student deciding whether to study abroad. Also, expectations from abroad studies such as scholarships or other financial aid for their university study abroad.

The shift in Demand Factors of students and Parents:

Agents conducted the survey with INTO University’s Partnerships in November 2020, which collected responses from around 1,126 agents worldwide. The survey reflected various significant results from similar research conducted throughout 2021. And as expected, there were shifts in student and parent priorities to study abroad for university studies. Most remarkably, a greater change and emphasis is on affordability and employment outcomes with higher studies abroad. Along with this, inclination towards trends in programme demand and a greater shift towards hybrid programme delivery is noticed from the survey.

Change in financial demand factor:

The financial factor is the most influential factor for studying abroad, and the most important changes in demand factors are seen in this factor only. Over 65% of agents who participated in the survey reflected that students and parents give greater importance to scholarships and other forms of financial aid when considering options for university study abroad. More than 61 per cent of agents said that students and parents are now more determined on career outcomes than they were before the pandemic in the context of studying abroad. Around half of the agents, or precisely, 49 per cent of survey agents, believe that parents and students now have greater expectations of the return on their investment in studying abroad.

What do agents say about demand factors for studying abroad?

Many of the agents also believe that concentration on careers and a clear objective of young people and students can be well-documented and define international education in a much better way. More than 27 per cent of agents feel job opportunities in their destination countries as the factor that creates the greatest impact on the decision of students to study abroad in the next five years. Agents also suggest that more of their clients want to work internationally after university. Furthermore, 21 per cent of agents see that immigration policies in destination countries can be a vital influencing factor that can affect the demand factors for studying abroad

Demand for growth professions:

Nearly half of the agents in the survey reported a certain change of patterns in terms of the student’s field of interest of a study or the course they want to pursue abroad. To be precise, many of the agents reflected a growing interest of students in degree subjects linked to strong labour market demands such as computer science, data science, and other technology specialisations, including robotics and artificial intelligence.

As per the trends observed by survey agents around non-degree credentials, around 66 per cent said that they believed that international students would be more interested in travelling abroad to pursue non-degree qualifications such as micro-credentials, certificate programmes, and many other non-degree courses.

Physical vs online study mode:

Almost 95 per cent of agents expected that demands of students for abroad studies will drop down to in-person teaching and learning as we are still going through the phase of the COVID pandemic. However, more than 72 per cent of agents also reflected that students' interest had increased more towards blended or hybrid delivery programmes since the beginning of COVID.

Research also provides evidence of growing expectations among international educators that a combination of in-person and online instruction will have a greater impact on abroad studies in the coming future.

Change in demand factors for language learning abroad:

The broad trends reflected and what agents in the survey report about student interest for language learning are quite similar. Most agents report a greater interest of students and learners in online language study than before the pandemic, which is like a prediction of return to pre-COVID volumes for language travel.

This strong outlook strengthens a growing expectation that digital delivery will play a larger role in the global market for language learning skills. Along with this, there could be strong demand for language learning travel around the globe. Mobile-first and online tutoring will accelerate more than three times in size in the next five years, will significantly boost and even double the language learning market.