The international education sector has faced near-constant change over the past year. Yet despite these shifts, the demand for studying abroad remains high as millions of students choose to pursue an international education every year.
To better understand what future international students are looking for, we launched the first ApplyBoard Student Pulse Survey in 2022. Since then, we’ve heard from over 3,500 students! For the Spring 2025 edition of the Student Pulse Survey, nearly 850 students shared their thoughts on international education.1 Their answers helped to reveal which factors are most likely to shape their study journey, what motivates them, how affordability may be shifting their plans, and a few dreams for their future.
Let’s take a closer look at which study destinations are gaining ground, how policy updates are affecting students’ plans, as well as a few study level trends.
Key Insights at a Glance
- Due to rising costs, just over one in four students are considering different study destinations than they’d initially planned.
- Canada remained the most attractive destination among the students surveyed: 94% of respondents showed some level of interest in studying in Canada.
- When choosing a study program, affordability was the most commonly cited determining factor, with 77% of students noting its importance.
- Denmark, Finland, Nigeria, Italy, and the Netherlands were the most popular emerging study destinations students were considering.
Affordability is Central to Many Future Students’ Plans
International students have many factors to keep in mind as they consider their study journey, including course and visa applications, housing, and travel. As the cost of living continues to rise around the world, we wanted to specifically gauge how this change was affecting their plans and influencing their decisions. Throughout our Spring 2025 Student Pulse Survey, students’ attention to affordability was clear:
Despite rising costs, most students don’t want to wait: only 9% plan to defer their studies due to financial concerns. Instead, 16% are considering different programs than they’d initially planned to pursue, while 11% are looking at shorter programs.
This cost-conscious shift means that institutions which offer accelerated programs or three-year bachelor’s degrees may see more students applying to their programs in the coming months. Additionally, institutions that create and highlight alternate paths for international students may capture an audience who are still interested in studying abroad and building their career, but who are more economical than previous cohorts.
Cost concerns also impact which destination countries students are willing to consider. Students remain curious about more affordable—if less popular—locations, a shift in student behaviour which institutions in top study destinations must wrangle with in 2025 and beyond. In fact, just over one quarter of surveyed students were looking into different destinations than they’d initially planned on for affordability reasons.
This increased frugality also spilled into responses to other questions. For example, when we asked where students were considering beyond the Big Four,2 Germany, and Ireland, one student noted simply: “Spain, Lithuania, and other European countries with lower tuition.” And, when asked which factors were most important to students when choosing a study program, affordable tuition fees was the most popular choice, selected by 77% of respondents.3 The next most popular choice, a high graduate employment rate, was at 57%. Rounding out the top five choices were a program that leads into the student’s chosen career (49%), high-quality teaching (47%), and the program’s reputation (45%).
Changing destination interest levels noted in this survey were echoed in recent search trends. Search engine data from 2024 showed that the number of “study in” queries for Australia, Canada, the US, and the UK have dropped from the highs seen in 2022 and 2023.
African Countries Rising as Study Destinations
This rising focus on affordability was also reflected in the wide array of study destinations prospective students told us they were considering. In our Spring 2025 Student Pulse Survey, 35% of respondents were considering study destinations beyond Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Among these alternative destinations, 7 of the top 10 write-in answers were European countries. Nigeria, New Zealand, and Japan rounded out the top 10:
As the third-most popular answer, Nigeria led a group of African countries which future students are considering as study destinations. And, while Nigerian students were the largest cohort of participants in this survey, Nigeria’s increased investment in post-secondary education through initiatives like the Tertiary Education Trust Fund4 may also lead students from neighbouring countries to consider studying abroad—but a little closer to home.
In general, compared to our past Student Pulse Surveys, respondents were more openly considering both studying abroad and domestically. When compared to previous surveys, more respondents were also thinking about studying in China, Pakistan, or Ghana.
Interest in Postgraduate Studies Increases Among Future International Students
While study destination interests have shifted, interest in different levels of study were fairly constant compared to our Fall 2024 survey. However, some differences emerge when compared to our Spring 2024 Pulse Survey results:
Graduate studies have seen the most positive shifts over the past year. Interest in doctoral degrees like PhDs rose by four percentage points year-over-year, and as in our Fall 2024 survey, over half of the students surveyed in Spring 2025 were considering master’s degrees.5
However, interest in undergraduate and postgraduate certificates and diplomas was down versus our Spring 2024 survey findings. It’s a small change, but it may reflect how post-study work opportunities, support for students’ dependents, and other quality-of-life or career factors are increasingly oriented toward degree-based study—particularly advanced degrees—in top study destinations.
Canada Leads Among Popular Study Destinations
When we asked where future students would like to study, a higher proportion were focused on established destinations than in the past two Student Pulse Surveys. In fact, 65% of respondents were only interested in studying in one or more of the following destinations: Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, the UK, and the US. This is up one percentage point from our Fall 2024 survey results, and is eight percentage points higher than it was in Spring 2024.
We also looked at how students saw each of these popular destinations in comparison to one another:
As in our Fall 2024 survey, more students were “extremely interested” in studying in the US than in any of the other featured destinations in Spring 2025. However, because more students were “very interested” and “moderately interested” in studying in Canada, Canada remained the top choice by weighted average. Across the pond, strong interest (“extremely” and “very” interested) for studying in the UK and Germany remained relatively unchanged, but strong interest in studying in Ireland was up by three percentage points.
In 2024, the international student population in the US was the largest it’s ever been. Take a closer look at which student populations contributed to this boom, and how F-1 student visa issuances evolved over 2024.
Interest in Top Anglophone Destinations Resilient through Policy, Government Changes
In arguably good news for the sector, surveyed students’ desire to study abroad remained strong despite ongoing policy changes and recent elections over the past year in top Anglophone study destinations. In fact, student sentiment was at least twice as positive as it was negative around how recent policy or government changes affected their desire to study in these destinations:
Policy and government changes had the most effect—positive or negative—on students’ desire to study in Canada or the United States. Only 29% of students noted “no change” to their desire to study in either destination due to these shifts. Conversely, nearly 50% of respondents noted no change in their desire to study in Australia due to recent policy and government changes.
As Canadians and Australians will head to the polls in 2025, our team will return to this question in our Fall 2025 survey to gauge how those elections may shift student sentiment.
Innovation and Care Are Central to Future Students’ Careers
Finally, we asked students about the last step in their student journey: their post-graduation career. What do their dream careers look like? The answer is multifaceted:
In our Spring 2025 Student Pulse Survey, “engineer” appeared more than any other word. Most students knew their engineering specialization, as well: only 18% had a general response of “engineer.” Software engineering was the most popular choice, followed by civil engineering.
The second-most popular response was “nurse,” highlighting (along with “health care”) a strong interest in health sciences, in alignment with current labour market trends. After “nurse”, there was a tie between “lecturer,” “researcher,” and “human resources,” illustrating students’ desire to continuously learn and share their knowledge, whether as an instructor, academic, or private sector employee.
Students’ interest in tech careers also remained very strong: IT, cybersecurity, and data analysis were among the top 20 careers, with data science, computer science, and artificial intelligence following close behind.
International students aren’t afraid to take a chance on themselves, so it’s not surprising to see careers like “entrepreneur” and “business owner” also appear in the top 10 results. “Consultant” rose up the ranks in this edition of the survey, as well. Many students view consulting as a stepping-stone: a way to get experience with different businesses and in different fields, before leveraging their experience into a more specific career.
How Institutions Can Leverage These Survey Results
International student preferences are constantly evolving, based on global trends in affordability, accessibility, and career opportunities. Regularly assessing and adapting to current student preferences is an important part of building your institution’s international student population.
Based on our survey results, here are some suggestions which can help your institution thrive:
- Don’t underestimate the power of customization when attracting diverse student audiences. Where possible, offering multiple program schedules (like regular and accelerated) may boost your institution’s appeal to students with different timelines and budgets.
- Only 3% of international students we surveyed didn’t intend to work while studying abroad. So, including clear work-while-studying guidelines as part of the welcome or orientation materials for international students can set new students up for success. This is also a good opportunity to emphasize the importance of following the conditions of their student visa.
- In an era of fluctuating currency valuations, variable visa approval rates, and shifting geopolitical relations, diversification of student source markets is imperative to a thriving international student population on campus. This is doubly true as emerging destination markets continue to broaden their appeal to future students.
A hearty thank you to the hundreds of students who participated. Your observations give us valuable insights into what your study journey looks like—including what your plans are and how they’re changing—allowing tech companies like ApplyBoard and individual academic institutions to determine how we can help unlock your potential and set you up for future success.
We hope that these insights are helpful to you and your team. Our next Pulse Survey report will look at the sector from the perspectives of our network of international recruitment professionals. Stay tuned for that report in April.
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FOOTNOTES:
1. The ApplyBoard Spring 2025 Student Pulse Survey ran between February 25, 2025, and March 12, 2025. We received 840 responses from individuals in 84 student markets.
2. “Big Four” refers to the most popular destinations for post-secondary study in English: Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
3. Students could choose up to five different factors in their answer to this question.
4. Olosula Blessing, MSME Africa, “FG Approves Over N700 Billion for Nigerian Tertiary Institutions in 2025.” March 15, 2025.
5. In this question, students could express interest in more than one level of study, which is why the total percentages do not add up to 100.
