The Determinants of Worldwide International Student Mobility in Higher Education:

Abstract

The increase in international student mobility worldwide suggests that research in this field of study is growing in significance. This paper examines the overall international student mobility patterns and explores into the theoretical predictions on what factors determine the international student migration flows. The primary purpose of this paper is to investigate the empirical determinants affecting the flow of international students in higher education across nations at a worldwide scale, by means of an econometric regression analysis. The secondary purpose is to give tentative policy recommendations which could contribute to the promotion of international student mobility and the internationalization of higher education for countries, both as host and home countries. Traditionally, a large part of the previous higher education empirical studies using econometric methods has been concerned with flows of students from developing countries to industrialized countries or focused on single-country (typically the United States) or countries clustered according to their characteristics. Taking this fact into account, this study makes its own distinctive contribution to the existing literature by tackling worldwide-level ISM (International Student Mobility), taking into consideration 50 both developed and lesser-developed countries as host and home countries. Using pooled cross-sectional time series data over the time period of 1999-2009, this paper estimates an econometric model of international student flows worldwide. The total bilateral flows of students between 50 countries are set as dependent variables. The gravity model is used to reveal the factors determining foreign students flows in higher education. A mixture of both economic and non-economic, macro and micro, traditional and innovative variables were tested such as: GDP per capita, unemployment and inflation rate (as proxy for market size and stability), the number of national higher educational institutions in the Academic Ranking of World Universities and R&D expenditure (as proxies for quality of education). Distance, both physical and cultural, was also factored into the equation. Dummy variables such as Common border, Common language, Colonial ties in the past, etc. were tested to find out whether they are important predictors of international students flows. Many variables were found to have significant influence on the flow of international students. Based on the findings, this paper concludes with a discussion of the implications for international student mobility and higher education.