International student mobility has exponentially increased since the turn of the century, with a flow doubling between 2000 and 2015 and a total of almost 5.6 million students in 2018. Their distribution across the globe is highly unequal as North America, Europe and Oceania (Australia and New Zealand only) alone attracted 73% of total students that same year[1].

Setting aside the objective causes of this distribution, we will focus on the countries that have made the strategic choice of widely opening their higher education system to foreign students. Few of them have been successful in meeting their target audience. In 2018, only six countries had at least 20% of their student population coming from abroad: the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Luxembourg, Qatar, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand (NZ).

One in two students holds a foreign upper secondary education diploma in the UAE and Luxembourg! Of course, these proportions must be assessed in line with absolute values, which are partly determined by the highly variable capacity of these higher education systems. With slightly less than 608,000 residents in 2018, Luxembourg hosted only 3,362 international students, while this figure reached 444,756 in Australia had that same year (8% of the global flow).

Aside from the – central – issue of possible tuition fees, the host country’s economy is positively impacted by inbound student mobility, in the short, medium and long terms[2]. The impact is all the more significant when international students account for a significant share of the host country’s total population. The Australian population increased by +1.78% in 2018 with inbound international students! It is worth noting, for comparison purposes, that this percentage accounted for all male student enrolments in France that same year[3]. And the shock is all the more severe in the event of a crisis.

What is true on the scale of the entire country is also true of higher education systems where a major part of tuition fees is borne by the students themselves (in the public sector), and even more so when international students are subjected to much higher tuition fees than nationals. Hence, higher education funding and, very often also, research funding depend on foreign students. Several cases can be distinguished for undergraduate studies:

• Higher education almost free for all: Luxembourg

The University of Luxembourg (the only university institution in the country): €400 per semester for the first year, €200 yearly for years 2 and 3[4].

• Higher education free of charge for national students only: Qatar

Qatar University provides free education to Qatari students only. All other students (residents and foreigners) must pay. The cost is about USD 10,000 per year for a Bachelor of Laws Degree (LLB)[5].

• Higher education subjected to high tuition fees for all, with a substantial extra cost for international students:
  • Singapore: For national students, tuition fees ranged from USD 8,150 and USD 27,400 for the first year in 2020/2021 (these high prices being partially offset by very active scholarship policies). Tuition fees were about 40% higher for resident students, and 14 times higher for international students[6].

Australia: The average annual cost of an undergraduate programme was estimated at USD 5,034 by OECD for national, resident and New Zealander students for the year 2017/2018[7] (i.e. before the Job-Ready Graduates Legislation, a tuition fee reform passed 

• in the autumn of 2020[8]), while tuition fees for international students reached USD 19,029, according to OECD[9].

International students pay more than double the fees due by nationals in Singapore[10], and almost four times more in Australia! For these very specific cases, the Covid-19 pandemic that struck the entire world in 2020 brings to light the strength of the model, but also its weakness, due to the reliance of the entire higher education system on an element which is not under the control of the host country. In Australia, one-quarter of university research funding came from international student fees in 2018! Of the AU$ 12.2 billion in expenditure, indeed, 3.1 billion were taken from inbound student mobility revenue[11]. The situation becomes quite alarming when the number of international students starting new courses drops by 45% in the July 2020 mid-year intake compared to the preceding year[12]. In the autumn of 2020, two academics of the University of Melbourne estimated that the total loss of revenue for the sector could reach AU$ 7.6 billion (around USD 5.4 billion) over the following four years, and would be associated with 5,100 to 6,100 job cuts, representing up to about 11% of the country’s research force[13]. It should be noted that this wave of massive staff reductions started as early as 2020.

In the short term, rich countries do have the capacity to offset the shortfall. For instance, in Australia, a rescue plan for research of AU$ 1 billion (around USD 742.5 million) was decided by the federal government in the autumn of 2020[14]. However, it is not unlikely that this crisis may lead part of the students around the world to reassess the cost-benefit ratio of pursuing studies abroad – especially if this requires heavy debt – and put a brake on international student mobility for several years. Australia is already working on how to reduce the share of “international student resource” in its university research funding scheme, by building commercial partnerships and establishing a sovereign system[15]. A working group on research sustainability is at work.

The deterrent effects of the Covid pandemic on student behaviors and their durability challenge a funding model characterised by its reliance on a flow that must now be regarded if not as fragile, at least relatively unpredictable in a volatile and uncertain world.