International Higher Education in Facts and Figures

UK higher education – a global leader

• The UK sells more brainpower per capita than anywhere else in the world. In 2008, this amounted to £118 billion in knowledge services – worth 6.3% of GDP (The Work Foundation 2010).

• The UK has 1% of the world’s population but undertakes 5% of the world’s scientific research and produces 14% of the world’s most highly cited papers (Universities UK 2010).

• Higher education institutions are worth £59 billion to the UK economy annually and are a major export earner. Through their international activities they are one of the UK’s fastest growing sources of export earnings, and last year bought in £5.3bn (Universities UK 2009).

• There were 248,000 international students (excluding EU) enrolled at UK higher education institutions in 2008/09. There were also 121,000 EU students the same year (HESA 2010).

• Students from India make up 14% of all international students (excluding EU) in higher education in the UK. They are the fastest-growing group: the 34,000 in 2008/09 represented a 31.5% increase over the previous year (HESA 2010).

International higher education trends

• More than 2.8 million students were enrolled in higher education institutions outside their countries of citizenship in 2007. This represented 123,400 more students than in 2006, an increase of 4.6%. Eleven countries hosted 71% of the world’s mobile students, led by the United States with 21.3% (UNESCO 2009).

• In 2007 almost half (42%) of postgraduate research students in the UK were from abroad. The UK had 15% of the global share of these students, more than its share of international students generally (UK HE International Unit 2008).

Transnational education

• In 2008/09, there were 388,000 students studying for a UK qualification outside of the UK. Of this number, 83% were non-EU students (HESA 2010).

• In 2009, there were 162 higher education branch campuses operating globally, an increase of 43% from 2006. More than half were American, 11% were Australian, and 10% were from the UK. The number of countries hosting international branch campuses also grew in those three years, from 36 to 51. There were 11 Indian campuses operating, all but one in the UAE. The UAE remains the most popular host country (Observatory on Borderless Higher Education 2009).