MBA Student Trends: Report Offers View on International Students

International, and particularly non-EU, MBA student numbers in the UK have been falling while those already enrolled in programs have been finding it harder to obtain post-study work visas, according to a report released this week by the Chartered Association of Business Schools (Chartered ABS).

In a survey of UK business schools, 51% said that non-EU MBA student numbers had fallen over the past three years. Just one in five indicated that the reverse was true.

Survey respondents included a number of leading program providers in the world’s second-favorite MBA study destination, including Cass Business School, the University of Edinburgh Business School and Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. In total, half of those surveyed are said to be institutions that feature in the QS World University Rankings.

Concern over drops in international students sees report round on UK visa policy

In assessing student trends at all levels of business education in the UK, the report centers on the importance attached to attracting international students. A third of all international students in the UK are said to be studying at a business school (at all qualification levels), yet the report finds that across 2014/15 the number of new students enrolling on courses from non-EU countries fell to their lowest level in five years. The blame for this has been laid squarely at the door of the UK government and its student visa policy.

“Not only are we turning away investment, we are turning away international talent,” said the Chartered ABS’s chair, professor Simon Collinson, while the CEO of the UK India Business Council, Richard Heald cautioned that “any link to changes in the conditions around post-study work visas, whether perceived or otherwise, should be addressed as a matter of some urgency.” This point about perceptions relates to a view that media reporting on UK visa policies around the world may be having more impact on prospective students than the policies themselves.  

Falls are not limited to international students at UK business schools

Even so, the overall picture presented by the Chartered ABS report’s data is not a straightforward one, especially at the level of the MBA student.

The report suggests that a failure to attract sufficient international students might be leading some UK business schools to question whether or not to close their full-time MBA programs. However, the recent fall in MBA student numbers is not limited to international students. In fact, 60% of the report’s respondents said student numbers a whole had declined over the past three years at MBA-level, while only 14% said their number had increased.

Across all formats of the degree, the number of survey respondents who said they had closed programs in the last three years was only 13%, however, while 40% said they had in fact added new programs.

Another point to consider, and one that adds a further degree of complexity to the picture, is that many of these UK business schools – 43% of them according to the report – now operate programs outside the UK. This is either through their own international campus or via a partnership which generally offers students the chance to study in two different countries. In reference to MBA-level programs offered outside the UK, no schools reported a drop in non-EU student numbers in the past three years, while 60% noted an increase. 

There’s no denying the significance of international students to full-time MBA programs in the UK – be they from the EU or beyond. After all, the report says that international MBA students on full-time programs in the UK were in an ever-so slight majority of 52% in 2013. Yet, some of this year’s MBA class profiles reveal numbers that are far in excess of this, highlighting the point that not all UK business schools are experiencing the same problem in this respect. Among their current MBA cohorts, Oxford Saïd counts 95% of its students as international (whether EU or non-EU by citizenship), while Cass Business School the University of Edinburgh say that 56 and 79% of its students hail from outside Europe (including the UK), respectively.