International student recruitment trends: What's next for 2025?

2024 was an almost unprecedented year for international student recruitment – and, based on January, 2025 already looks set to follow in its footsteps. 

Canada has recently confirmed caps on international study permits for 2025 (with graduate students now included). Australia is locked in debate around its own proposals for caps, which may come in via the ‘back door’.

The UK, meanwhile, is only just entering a period of relative calm after 12 months substantial changes to the eligibility criteria for study visas and the costs students pay for them. And then there’s the USA, where the re-election of Donald Trump leaves plenty on the table in terms of direct – and indirect – policy changes for international education.   

And yet, as we see across our Keystone Education Group platforms, interest in international education is as robust as ever.   

The question is: what impact will ‘Big Four’ policy changes have on how and where prospective students search?   

 Keystone's Head of Audience and Insight, Dr Mark Bennett takes                              a look into the early student trends we are seeing in 2025.  

The Big Four – impact is mixed  

By measuring how students search on Keystone platforms, we can paint a detailed picture of changing behaviour and preferences.

Below you can see how much more or less likely different audiences are to search for different destination countries (data is for the period following the US election on 4 November up until 31 January).

Let’s unpack this data:   

• Canada sees the most dramatic drop with every single audience group less likely to consider Canadian universities right now. This makes sense, given that Canadian policy changes are the most significant and committed – Canada has recently confirmed caps on international study permits for 2025, with graduate students now included.
• The drop for Australia is less pronounced and offset, perhaps surprisingly, by relative growth from South Asia. This could reflect the less dramatic nature of the Australian changes (rather than outright caps, the current plan is for visa processing to slow after a certain volume of permits have been issued) as well as some audiences hoping to apply before they become more substantial. 
• Interest in the USA is also down across all audiences, but nowhere near as substantially as destinations with more explicit policy plans. For better or worse, it still isn’t entirely clear what Trump intends to do around international recruitment and if there will be direct – and indirect – policy changes for international education.
• The UK, meanwhile, is seeing a recovery in interest for almost all major audiences (only South Asia and Europe are slightly down). Again, this makes sense given that UK policy changes were made some time ago and don’t extend to the caps being implemented or considered elsewhere. It is only entering a period of relative calm after 12 months of substantial changes to the eligibility criteria for study visas.

It’s important to remember that we’re looking here at how likely audiences are to search for a given destination. Substantial drops like those for Canada and Australia reveal real shifts in student search behaviour. However, this doesn't mean the audiences for these destinations have disappeared entirely. Students are still searching for all of the Big Four; it’s just that, for now, they are increasingly likely to explore other options.

And, of course, as we see with the UK, it’s possible for these shifts to recover with time (and policy changes elsewhere).  

Who is benefiting?  

As we can see above, it’s European destinations that are picking up the ‘pivot’ in interest due to policy changes in the ‘Big Four’. We can dig a little deeper into this and reveal which countries are seeing most of this growth.  

Here are the top 10 fastest growing (with the UK included):  

Destinations like France and Germany remain popular, though they are not experiencing as much growth as others. All the countries included in the graph above are relatively stable in terms of policy, with generally favorable fees and visa conditions.

Some, like Ireland, may be benefiting from more turbulent neighbors, i.e. continuing to see advantages from UK changes.

While these countries may not be the traditional heavy hitters in international recruitment, they are capitalizing on shifts in demand and presenting a compelling alternative for students navigating an ever-changing global environment.

And where is this growth from?  

Using our Share of Search data, we looked at individual European countries to see which audiences are driving growth:

What’s most interesting about this is just how diverse the range of audiences and trends are. Here are a few highlights:  

• Italy sees most of its growth from elsewhere in Europe, but is up substantially for India. 
• Audiences for the UK are particularly interesting: whereas international interest has traditionally come from countries like China, India and Nigeria, it’s now their neighbours such as Nepal, Singapore, Kenya and Egypt that are driving search growth.

Final thoughts

Despite the challenges, demand for international education remains strong, and students are becoming more flexible in their destination choices. Institutions will need to adapt quickly to these shifting trends, focusing on agile recruitment strategies to stay competitive in this evolving market.

About the Author

Dr. Mark Bennett is the Director of Audience and Insight at FindAUniversity, a Keystone Company. Leveraging Keystone's unique data and insights, Mark regularly presents on global higher education trends, recruitment, and policy topics, having previously spoken at events organized by CASE Universities Marketing Forum (UMF), HELOA, NAGAP, ContentEd, the UK Council for Graduate Education (UKCGE), Westminster Forum and others. Mark taught at multiple UK universities prior to joining FindAUniversity and holds a PhD in gothic literature from the University of Sheffield; he still struggles to convince his kids that ghosts aren’t real.