The UK released a new international education strategy in March 2019. The strategy set out some concrete targets for growth through 2030, including a goal to reach a foreign enrolment of 600,000 students by that year – an overall increase of roughly 30% compared to 2017/18 levels.
Just about two years later – and nearly a decade ahead of schedule – that enrolment target has already been reached. The latest data release from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) reports a total of 605,130 international students enrolled for the 2020/21 academic year. This represents a year-over-year increase of nearly 9% from 2019/20 and extends a pattern of steady growth for UK higher education over the last five years.
That growth trend is all the more remarkable as it occurs alongside the UK’s departure from the European Union in January 2020 and of course the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Despite fears about the potential effect of the pandemic on international student numbers, the 2020/21 student data still shows an overall increase in international first year students,” said HESA policy and research analyst Lucy Van Essen-Fishman. “First-year first degree student numbers from the EU are up by 8%, only slightly below the rate of increase for first year students overall; EU-domiciled postgraduate student enrolments are also up…The 2020/21 academic year was the last year in which EU students were guaranteed home fee status, which may have encouraged EU applicants not to defer their studies, despite the uncertain pandemic situation.”
