The third wave : future trends in international education

This paper describes how the second half of the twentieth century saw the development of a global market in international education. Following the Second World War, the flow of international students undertaking courses at all levels grew rapidly as developing countries sought to educate their populations. By the century's end, there were an estimated 1.5 million students studying internationally at the higher education (HE) level. Driving this market expansion was a combination of forces that both pushed the students from their countries of origin and simultaneously pulled them toward certain host nations. By the 1990s, the HE systems of many host nations (e.g. Australia, Canada, the USA, the UK and New Zealand) had become more market focused and institutions were adopting professional marketing strategies to recruit students into fee-paying programs. For many education institutions such fees had become a critical source of financing. The paper suggests that the international education industry, HE administrators and managers and academic staff face very significant challenges in the next few years.