Positive Attitudes Towards International Students Drop to 50% (ish)
We’re seeing a general uptick in anti-immigration sentiment across developed countries, and opinion on international students is close to crossing the "overall negative" point.
International students are increasingly getting lumped in with the larger “immigrant” category, with proponents of restriction pointing to issues like housing costs, pressure on local services, and, occasionally, the idea that international students are using education as a backdoor to permanent residency (“edugration”).
Other times, international students are treated as a distinct, “safe” group. They're valued for the higher tuition they bring (enabling more affordable domestic student tuitions), their contributions to university research and reputation, and their potential to fill skills gaps in the labor market.
This recent ping-pong effect reflects governments trying to decide which side students should be grouped into. Policymakers base a lot of their decisions on public sentiment, which is why I track opinion polls so closely for this particular topic.
Yesterday, ICEF (International Consultants for Education and Fairs) Monitor dropped a poll with some interesting stats:
- In the UK, most people distinguish international students from other migrants, with 59% agreeing that international students help fund top-quality facilities and 54% agreeing they enhance the global reputation of UK universities.
- In Australia, even though 53% of respondents think immigration is too high, 58% want international student numbers to stay the same or increase.
These numbers reflect downward trends from opinion polls in previous years, where positive sentiment was closer to 60 or even 70%. International students still lean to the "safe" side ever so slightly, but if things continue as-is we're close to hitting the overall negative threshold soon.
I'll keep y'all posted on how these opinions change as countries see the results of reduced student visa issuances and applications.