How can institutions fill undersubscribed programs? This question is key to the continued growth of the international education sector. One way that institutions can achieve this goal is through tailored recruitment efforts.
The international student body is not uniform. Different student populations seek different opportunities in education. Some, such as Filipino students, gravitate toward colleges over universities. Others, such as Nigerian students, comprise a higher percentage of mature students. The same is true for what programs students search for.
But how do institutions know which student populations are more likely to help fill seats in undersubscribed programs? Today, we’re diving deep into our exclusive internal data to find out. We’ll look at the top program keywords on the ApplyBoard platform for 17 of the world’s largest growing student populations.1 The results can help institutions decide where to tailor their recruitment campaigns moving forward.
Key Insights at a Glance
- Business or management was the top-ranked keyword for 15 of the 17 countries looked at.
- Marketing was the second most commonly searched keyword by six different student populations.
- 10% of all program searches included health as the keyword.
- Both computer science and computer were top five keywords in Bangladesh and Egypt.
The following data is by what keywords students typed directly into ApplyBoard’s search function, as opposed to programs selected through our personalized study abroad filter.
Business and Management the Most Commonly Searched Keywords
Earlier this year, we looked to see if students’ field of study interests aligned with job demands in destination markets. The category of business, management, and economics was the top-filtered field for every destination market. So it’s unsurprising that the business and management program keywords reigned supreme for many student populations:
Business or management ranked as the top keyword for 15 of the 17 student populations we looked at. Only Bangladesh (computer science) and Kenya (nursing) featured a different top keyword. Both keywords ranked in the top four for all 17 countries except for Egypt and Thailand.
From 2021 to 2022, the combined proportion of keyword searches for business and management grew by at least three percentage points in eight of the 17 countries.2 Indonesia saw the largest combined growth, up 10 percentage points over this period.
Marketing a Popular Keyword for Students in LATAM and Southeast Asia
While the business keyword led all others in Latin America, the region also searched for marketing more than any other area:
Marketing was the second most popular search term for Colombian, Brazilian, and Mexican students in 2022. The keyword accounted for 18% of all Colombian and Mexican searches, and 11% of all Brazilian searches. Compared to 2021, the marketing keyword grew by three percentage points in Colombia and four percentage points in Mexico. Most of this growth came at the expense of the business keyword, which dropped four percentage points in both countries over the same period.
A similar story exists for the marketing keyword in a few Southeast Asian countries as well:
As in the LATAM countries, marketing was the second most commonly searched keyword in Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand.
The keyword accounted for between 10% and 15% of all searches in these three countries in 2022. This was in line with the previous year.
Institutions looking to fill seats in their marketing program may want to consider students from these six countries.
Health Keyword Accounted for 10% of All Program Searches in 2022
Projections show that health care will be one of the most in-demand sectors over the next decade, and students have taken notice:
10% of all program searches in 2022 included the health keyword, making this the third most popular search term last year. But nursing lagged behind, coming in seventh.
It makes sense that the general keyword of health surpassed the specific field of nursing: All nurses work in health care, but not all health care professionals are nurses. Still, searches for the health keyword nearly doubled those of nursing in 2022. It’s a wider discrepancy than we expected given the global coverage of the working shortage in nursing, and that ApplyBoard’s Pulse Survey showed that post-graduation work opportunities were the second-largest student concern.
Nursing Keyword Lags Health in South Asia
The discrepancy between the health and nursing keywords was most evident in South Asia:
The proportion of nursing searches pales in comparison to the general health keyword in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. Health searches accounted for more than five times those of nursing in Bangladesh. In Pakistan and India, the health keyword was triple or nearly triple that of nursing, and was double in Nepal. Neither keyword gained much traction in Sri Lanka, where business-related searches accounted for eight of the top 10 keywords.3
Students who are interested in studying a health-related field, but are ignoring nursing, are potentially missing an opportunity to develop skills in a sector that will need workers for the foreseeable future. In Ontario, Canada, alone, there’s a forecasted shortage of 33,000 nurses and personal support workers (PSWs) by 2028.4
Nursing was a top five keyword for students from Kenya, Nigeria, Thailand, China, Brazil, and the Philippines.
Computer and Computer Science Round Out Top Five Keywords
The keywords computer science and computer both accounted for 6% of all searches in 2022, representing the fourth and fifth most popular term students typed into our platform last year:
Interestingly, these keywords reverse the trend we saw with health and nursing, with the specific computer science receiving more traction with students than the general computer term.
Computer science or computer was a top five keyword in 10 of the 17 countries. Both terms were in the top five for Bangladesh and Egypt. Only the Philippines saw both keywords fall outside of the top 10.
We highlighted earlier that the business and management keywords grew the most in Indonesia. That growth came at the expense of computer science. In 2021, the keyword accounted for 18% of all searches. But this fell to 4% last year following the rising interest in business.
Information technology became the second most popular keyword for Nepali students in 2022, accounting for 11% of all searches.
How Institutions and Recruitment Partners Can Leverage These Search Trends
One of the most common concerns we hear from our partners is about filling undersubscribed seats. Because resources are finite, one of the best ways to achieve this is knowing which student populations are most interested in those programs or fields of study.
Moving forward, institutions should use search trends analysis to ensure they’re allocating their recruiting resources effectively.
Also, given the global shortage of nurses and personal support workers but discrepancy between health and nursing searches, recruitment partners should ensure they remain up to date on sector developments to help their students make the most informed choices. The demand for health care professionals like nurses and PSWs won’t be going away in the coming decade, meaning destination markets will likely need to compete with one another to attract and keep the best talent.
Stay tuned to ApplyInsights, as we’ll continue to monitor these trends and more. In the coming weeks, we’ll dive into price sensitivity in the UK, the state of the Indian market, and more provincial trends across Canada.
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FOOTNOTES:
1. The countries we looked at for this article included the following: Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Colombia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Kenya, Mexico, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam.
2. These countries included China, Indonesia, Iran, Nepal, Nigeria, Nepal, the Philippines, and Vietnam.
3. In order, the top 10 keywords for Sri Lankan students were business, management, business management, MBA, business administration, hospitality, information technology, computer science, marketing, and accounting.
4. FAO, Ontario Health Sector: Spending Plan Review. March 8, 2023.
