What Motivates International Students to Undertake Higher Education Overseas - Research Paper Example

The paper "What Motivates International Students to Undertake Higher Education Overseas" is a perfect example of an Education Research Paper. Australia has over the last decades created a proper framework by being an international destination for international students ever since the initiation of the Colombo plan. There are however certain factors that do influence students to seek education in other countries as international students such as financial capability, good opportunities abroad, the competitiveness of courses that are provided by universities overseas and better policy frameworks that are in fact crucial for any student to consider in deciding to study abroad. Previous research has found out that the destination, the institutions, and recommendations have been major motivating factors in the students' desire to study abroad. Certain frameworks of motivating factors have been considered such as the ‘push and pull’, factors that are entrenched in the international student choice literature as well as student attitudes towards studying abroad. The key factor is also the socio-economic importance of having studied abroad.

Keywords: motivating factors, international students, international universities, overseas

Overview of factors motivating studying abroad

International education is generally considered to be a growing phenomenon and as identified in 1990 that in each year there are over a million students who choose to study abroad and within the past few years this statistic has probably tripled and increased. All over the world, not only in Australia has there been an increase in the number of international students; however certain factors have been influential with the rise in numbers. Seeking better education opportunities as well as the increasing emphasis of many employers on the demand for international students have been just amongst the key motivators for students to desire to study abroad.

Australia is considered to be amongst the first countries to develop an extensive international education program to provide access for international students to higher education. The Colombo Plan was considered to be crucial for overseas students as it provided for direct sponsorship with more than 40,000 students from the Asian Pacific Region gaining entry to study in Australia. Generally, over the years, Australia has boasted as having hosted the most number of international students in their institutions of higher learning probing the question of how desirable is the education provided in Australia as opposed to other sectors of learning. The need to know what motivates a student to seek to study abroad is therefore of crucial importance.

Ideally, the growth in the Australian job market is based on the fact that most people do expect that any university graduate must have international competencies when it comes to recruitment. This is also fuelled by the fact that most potential employers in Australia need cross-cultural communication skills and greater cultural awareness, and to succeed therefore one needs to have international study experiences. Postgraduate students, as well as undergraduate students as the study would seek to analyze, are influenced differently in what motivates them to desire to study abroad.

Factors that are bound to motivate students to decide to study abroad are based mainly on the existence of good external factors that do exist even in destination countries. Generally one can say that the factors influencing decision making, the factors that motivate a person to choose to study abroad are interconnected because a student cannot make the choice to study abroad without first considering the factors or the needs that would motivate them to study abroad.