Over the past few months, we’ve placed an emphasis on understanding the intentions and constraints of international students. How have student wants and needs changed in the aftermath of the global pandemic?
We’ve broken down student surveys, interviewed industry experts, and crunched a lot of student visa data in an effort to properly answer that question.
Today, we’re using brand new information to find out what today’s international student wants—ApplyBoard’s own internal data.
Curious about how much tuition budgets have shifted post-pandemic, if there’s recovery in sight, or how willingness to spend differs by market? We get into all that, and more, today.
Key Insights at a Glance
- From January to June 2022, over 50% of searches on the ApplyBoard Platform were for programs with an annual tuition of under 30,000.1
- Nearly 46% of searches for UK schools in 2022 were below £20,000.
- In US searches, Bangladeshi students’ budgets were US$6,500 less than the average annual tuition budget on the ApplyBoard Platform.
ApplyBoard Platform Trends – Tuition
Money. It’s always been a top consideration among international students, but today it’s being magnified more than ever. The economic impact of the pandemic has caused students to not only consider their interests and career opportunities but also what they can afford.
Let’s take a look at the evolution of the student budget over the past four years:
We saw willingness to spend decline each year from 2019 to 2021. The majority of searches in 2019 were for programs with annual tuition higher than 80,000.2 In 2020, the share of searches within the 20,000–49,000 bracket increased by 20 percentage points. 2021 saw 56% of students searching for programs under 25,000 a year.
In 2022, students are willing to spend more than in 2021, but they’re not prepared to spend as much as they were in 2020. So far this year, two out of every three searches were for programs under 50,000.
We’ve seen willingness to spend on tuition slightly increase so far in 2022, indicating student budgets are finally trending in a positive direction. 65% of students want to spend less than 50,000 on tuition annually, compared to 71% of students who fell into that bucket in 2021.
Economies are recovering at different paces. Rising inflation rates around the world are causing prospective students and their families to spend more conservatively. These factors both contribute to shaping what today’s international student budget looks like.
Budgets may slowly increase over the next few years, but the financial impact of the pandemic is going to be felt for a significant amount of time. Schools should keep this in mind when building out their international tuition pricing in the future.
Tuition Budgets by Destination Market
When it comes to budgets, they can vary considerably by market. Here’s a look at what the distribution of tuition searches in the ApplyBoard platform looked like for our top three destination markets in 2022:
When comparing tuition searches across destination markets, it’s important to consider that all tuition rates are listed in the currency charged by the school. Purchasing power for international students has historically been the strongest in Canada, followed by the US, then the UK.
Nearly 46% of searches for UK schools in 2022 were below £20,000, a stark contrast to the 27% of searches in the US and Canadian markets in the same range. This is likely a product of the value of the British pound being higher than the Canadian and US dollars. But that gap is narrowing, with the value of the British pound at an it’s lowest against the US dollar since the onset of the pandemic.
For students, this means that their purchasing power is growing in the UK. Programs that were previously out of budget may now serve as viable options. Look for the share of students searching for tuition programs north of £20,000 to grow over the coming years, and for US budgets to decrease.
International Student Loans
One extremely effective way to combat financial barriers for international students? Loans. But in order to help the right students, schools need to understand which source markets are experiencing the biggest gaps in willingness to spend. We ran an analysis of our US market to figure out which students were most in need of financial aid.
Across all US searches on the ApplyBoard Platform in 2021, the average annual tuition budget of students was $40,485. We compared that figure to the average budget of prospective students from the five fastest-growing US source markets in the 2020/21 academic year.3
Here’s what we found:
Of the fastest-growing US source markets, the country in need of the most financial assistance is Bangladesh. Bangladeshi students were willing to spend an average of $33,908, $6,500 less than the average upper tuition limit on the ApplyBoard Platform in 2022 for students searching for US programs.
Canada, Pakistan, and Colombia hovered around the average, while Nigerian students were willing to spend nearly $5,000 more than the average.
Bangladesh is the fastest-growing US source market, but many Bangladeshi nationals can’t afford to pay US tuition in full. This makes Bangladeshi students perfect candidates for scholarships, loans, or other forms of financial aid. We encourage US schools to target countries like Bangladesh, where students have displayed a clear need for assistance.
Looking Forward
Understanding what students can afford helps us predict what’s coming down the funnel in international education. So far in 2022, we’ve been able to collect a lot of information to answer important questions about what today’s international students are willing to spend in order to study abroad.
As we look toward the future, it will be essential for schools to plan, recruit, and instruct with these trends in mind. Here are a few recommendations to institutions looking to leverage some of the ApplyBoard inside scoop:
- Consider allocating scholarships and financial aid to the source markets that are in need of it most.
- Educate prospective students on how the value of local currency impacts the purchasing power they have in a given country.
- Consider how stagnant, high tuition fees may impact an institution’s ability to achieve diversity within its student body.
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FOOTNOTES:
1. All amounts are listed in the currency charged by the school.
2. All data courtesy of ApplyBoard, unless otherwise stated.
3. “Fastest-growing” metric is based on IIE/Open Doors data. Minimum of 1,000 students in the country during 2020/21.
