Yesterday here at the NAFSA conference I heard the figure quoted that 2% of higher education students are globally mobile, and we need to do something about the 98% who are not. These figures are misleading in that they do not represent accurately proportions of students who cross borders for part or all of their study experience, and if we want to get serious about measuring impact, we need first to reach agreement on numbers.
I travelled overseas as both an undergraduate and postgraduate student, for a semester each time. It is not comparable to someone who undertakes their entire degree program abroad, but by any other measure, that is a lot of international study experience. I was part of the 98% immobile students in 8 of my 10 semesters, but no one could argue that I did not have meaningful and impactful experiences in the other 2 semesters. The 98% figure is simply misleading, not helpful in assessing the impact or importance of student mobility.
In Australia for some time we have been asking a different question. Not how many students are mobile at any one time, but how many students in a particular cohort had an international study experience as part of their degree program? One of the cohorts we ask this question of is Australian domestic undergraduate students. In a given year around 12% of a graduating cohort of our domestic undergraduate students has had an international study experience as part of their degree program. It is still not a large number, but many if not all Australian universities have as one of their internationalisation objectives the goal of increasing that percentage. If we add to that 12% the number of graduating students in the cohort who are foreign, i.e. who came from overseas but who completed their entire degree program in Australia, suddenly the graduating cohort starts to look very globally mobile. About 20% of higher education undergraduate students in Australia currently are international, so adding these students to the globally mobile domestic undergraduate students means that between a quarter and a third of a graduating cohort at the average Australian university has participated in an international study experience.
That's a very different number from 2%.
I travelled overseas as both an undergraduate and postgraduate student, for a semester each time. It is not comparable to someone who undertakes their entire degree program abroad, but by any other measure, that is a lot of international study experience. I was part of the 98% immobile students in 8 of my 10 semesters, but no one could argue that I did not have meaningful and impactful experiences in the other 2 semesters. The 98% figure is simply misleading, not helpful in assessing the impact or importance of student mobility.
In Australia for some time we have been asking a different question. Not how many students are mobile at any one time, but how many students in a particular cohort had an international study experience as part of their degree program? One of the cohorts we ask this question of is Australian domestic undergraduate students. In a given year around 12% of a graduating cohort of our domestic undergraduate students has had an international study experience as part of their degree program. It is still not a large number, but many if not all Australian universities have as one of their internationalisation objectives the goal of increasing that percentage. If we add to that 12% the number of graduating students in the cohort who are foreign, i.e. who came from overseas but who completed their entire degree program in Australia, suddenly the graduating cohort starts to look very globally mobile. About 20% of higher education undergraduate students in Australia currently are international, so adding these students to the globally mobile domestic undergraduate students means that between a quarter and a third of a graduating cohort at the average Australian university has participated in an international study experience.
That's a very different number from 2%.
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