More than 4.3 million international students are in higher and further education across the world.
According to the latest UCAS statistics from the June application submissions in the UK, there were 544,580 applicants from the UK, 45,380 from other EU countries and 69,060 from countries outside the EU.
The British Council has created a data visualisation graphic to analyse international student mobility across the world over the last 18 years.
UK outbound
In 2011, just over 28,000 British students left the UK to choose to study abroad, with an additional 12,833 on Erasmus study and work placements.
The US and Australia have always consistently been popular choices, with Malaysia, South Africa and Cyprus becoming popular places of study from 2011 onwards.
UK inbound
As the Indian and Chinese economies continue to grow, more students from these countries choose to study in the UK. In 2012, the UK welcomed almost 432,000 international students with the majority (80,225) coming from China.
In 2010 more countries announced recruitment targets to encourage universities to attract more international students which increased the boom in the number of students entering other countries to study.
Are you ready to recruit more international students?
With the increase in international student study, it's important to have internal systems such as an effective CRM in place to attract, recruit and retain these international students as well as continuing to attract domestic students.
Student CRM has proven to increase conversion rates for international students. Click here to request more information on student recruitment.