International students today are already global students, thanks to the internet, before they even step inside the international university of their choice. Their perspectives are wider than ever before and they are looking to go for the best courses and the most cutting-edge field of study they can find. This only ups the ante for the universities since these students need to be catered to in a language they best understand. The numbers for international students have been steadily increasing over the years, while Asia continues to be the leader in sending students abroad to study, different countries around the world are now opening up to the prospect that is international students.

However, there has been little to no research into how best to tap into the international student market and target the real change-makers among them. Understanding what students from different countries are expecting from their education experience abroad is something that should be noted carefully to help better strategize your international student recruitment. The World Education Services recently came out with an article titled ‘ How Master’s Students Choose Institutions: Research on International Student Segmentation’ which summarizes a series of statistics from some of the biggest international student recruitment grounds. Some of them are as below:

China

China has one of the biggest number of Explorer students, i.e. students with high financial resources and high academic qualifications, at 44%. In fact more than half of the student’s surveyed paid more than $40,000 every year. One of the most important factors for Chinese students, however, is the reputation of the college. School ranking is considered as one of the most important things about the school by almost 47% of the students surveyed. These students prefer large universities over private schools and the school’s reputation also plays a role in their future career prospects.

India

Strivers, or students with great academic qualifications but low financial resources, make up for the highest number of Indian students abroad. Only 30% of Indian students are able to pay $30,000 or more every year and have a fair amount of students with low academic qualifications and low financial resources. However, students from India also tend to apply to smaller, masters colleges, but generally prefer public universities over private. For most Indian students location hardly matters, and more students apply for a rural setting than say students from China for that matter. More than 40% of students consider financial aid to be of great importance to their study abroad dreams.

Middle East

Students from the Middle East usually have high financial resources and may or may not have high academic qualifications. In fact, students from this region have even greater financial mobility than Chinese students with over 50% paying more than $50,000 every year. Middle Eastern students cite the reputation of the university to be the most important factor followed by the career prospects presented by it. The cost of living is also something considered carefully by Middle Eastern students.

Latin America

With the highest proportion of students with brilliant academic qualifications but limited financial resources, Latin American students consider career prospects to be crucial when deciding on a college. Only 30% of these students are able to pay $30,000 or more every year. More than 56% of these students cite the availability of financial aid as being crucial in their choice of education. The cost factor generally plays an all important role for a Latin American student applying for education abroad. Location, however, is not that important for students from this region but have a certain preference for cities.

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