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Arnaud Chevalier - What are the benefits of attracting foreign students

Arnaud Chevalier - What are the benefits of attracting foreign students

Arnaud Chevalier, Research Fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London discusses the benefits of attracting foreign students.

What are the benefits of attracting foreign students?
So, the benefits of attracting foreign students to the country are going to be; foreign students have to pay fees and they will provide currency for the country, they will also create jobs for the country, so it’s positive in that sense, and they create some connections as well between their country of origin and the host country which may then also have some positive benefits in the future, in terms of trade, in terms of cultural exchange. So those are the kind of broad benefits that I can think of for the country. As well as potentially screening some talented people who you may want to keep in, to work in that host country.

What benefits are available for students who study abroad?
For the students who are migrating to a host country, the benefits are usually that they typically get an education of a higher quality than what they would have had otherwise, and one of the main motivators is also getting access to the labor market of that host country. Typically, what we think of as a model of migration is that people want to maximise their earnings, and they think that if I want to work in a richer country than my country of origin and be better off for the future, how can I do that. Well one of the best solutions is to get educated in that country in the first place. So that’s typically the benefits that people have in mind. Even if they come back to their country of origin, they may find that being educated abroad may help them to get the type of jobs that they wouldn’t have had otherwise. There may be some language skills that might be useful. They may also have created connections that will be useful for them in their careers in the future.

What are the benefits for the students’ home country?
For a country, allowing students to migrate means that even students who are staying home are also more likely to work harder towards their education or get more education just because then they have the option of going abroad. So that’s also one of the benefits to the home, to the sending country.

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