The international education landscape has experienced numerous shifts over the past two years. Major policy updates and fresh economic realities are redrawing the worldwide map of student mobility. While studying abroad remains as popular as ever, these students are adopting a more strategic approach. Today’s international students exert greater agency, actively weighing costs and post-study opportunities, while also considering options beyond the most popular destinations. This generation is making informed choices that are already charting new pathways across the global learning landscape.
To understand how these students’ goals are changing amid an evolving international education sector, the team at ApplyBoard ran our seventh Student Pulse Survey in September 2025, refreshing our survey questions in collaboration with the team at the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE).1 Nearly 300 future international students shared their thoughts, detailing everything from which destinations they had in mind to which factors are most influential when choosing where to study.
Below, we’ll explore current student and advisor perceptions of top study destinations, how different program areas are capturing student interest, popular post-study plans, and more.
Key Insights at a Glance
- Canada stayed at the top of students’ lists: only 5% of respondents had no interest in Canada as a study destination.
- Among ApplyBoard’s study destinations,2 Canada was seen as the most open, safe, and welcoming towards international students.
- The highest proportion of students were interested in business programs. Conversely, interest in engineering dipped compared to earlier survey results.
- While 27% of future students plan to return home immediately after studying, 37% plan to gain short-term work experience in their study country.
Canada Retains its Lead as a Popular Study Destination
Government policies in major destinations have impacted student mobility flows, and caused substantial shifts in student visa trends. Despite the impact of student caps and PGWP changes, student interest levels in Canada remained high, which boosted its lead on the US to keep the top spot. In fact, 95% of respondents were interested in Canada as a study destination, to some extent:
The most notable change in student destination preferences is that strong interest in the US declined compared to the previous three surveys. When compared to the Spring 2025 Student Pulse Survey, interest in studying in the US dropped by 9 percentage points among respondents who chose “extremely interested,” and by 1 percentage point among students who chose “very interested.” Looking back to our Fall 2024 survey, these outlooks dropped by 10 percentage points and 4 percentage points year-over-year, respectively. Given that becoming an international student can be a stressful, complex process, factors like added scrutiny on US student visa applications3 and the government’s revocation of thousands of student visas earlier this year4 may be shifting students’ outlook.
Comparing Student and Advisor Perceptions of Top Study Destinations’ Safety and Welcome of International Students
As government rhetoric and policies related to immigration shift, international students are paying attention. To gauge how students think they’d be treated while abroad, we asked them to rank six popular destinations on how open, safe, and welcoming they are. In our Fall 2025 Recruitment Partner Pulse Survey, we also asked international student advisors for their perspective on this topic.
Generally, students’ outlooks are more cautious than their advisors’:
In most cases, the majority of students agreed all six destinations were open, safe, and welcoming. However, only 43% of students either strongly agreed or agreed that this was true of the US, the lowest positive sentiment among the six destination options.5
Across the board, students were more likely to have more polarized negative feelings: the proportion of students who strongly disagreed a place was welcoming was always greater than those who only disagreed. Only a small percentage of student advisors strongly disagreed that any of the six destinations were welcoming—ranging from 0.8% to 5.7%—while the proportion of students who strongly disagreed was higher, from 9% to 18%.
By contrast, students were much more likely to agree a destination was welcoming, rather than strongly agreeing. However, high levels of strong agreement were more common among student advisors. For example, where 47% of advisors strongly agreed the UK was an open, safe, and welcoming destination, only 22% of students strongly agreed. This disparity could have many causes, from students taking in more polarized content through social media and news feeds, to personal connections with current students, to having a more cautious outlook as they’re the ones who will actually be living abroad.
Everyone involved in supporting international students, from student advisors to institutional staff and family members, should recognize the importance of checking in with students to understand any concerns they have about studying abroad. Many concerns will be valid, but it’s vital to guide students away from misinformation and provide context, as oversimplification of complex issues in short form content can also have a significant effect on students’ perspectives. Sometimes, even taking time to answer extra questions or offer a patient response can make a difference, and help future students feel more welcome. For institutions, this means ensuring there is a wealth of reliable, factual, and easy-to-understand information available to international students about your campuses, your program offerings, post-study work opportunities, and more.
Through understanding their perspective, providing fact-checked information, and advocating for international education in our spheres of influence, we can all ensure tomorrow’s leaders and innovators are well-prepared for the next step in their study journeys.
Students Increasingly Considering African and Asian Study Destinations
In a time of increased student agency, prospective students have more destination options than ever before. While most of our survey respondents were focused on institutions in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Germany, the UK, and the US, 38% were considering studies in other destinations. This proportion is up 3 percentage points compared to our Spring 2025 survey.
When respondents were asked about other destinations students they were considering, we found that more students are considering a wider range of options:6
Nigeria was the most popular alternative study destination, cited by 12% of survey participants. Nigerian students were also the largest survey demographic (32% of participants), so it’s possible many of these students are considering domestic and international options. However, this interest may also include other student populations who, seeing the Nigerian government’s push to develop their post-secondary sector, are considering studies closer to home.
France and New Zealand also ranked highly among alternative destinations, securing interest from 10% and 9% of students respectively, rounding out the top three destinations. Meanwhile, Finland (8%) slipped to fourth place—down from third in our Spring 2025 Student Pulse survey—and the Netherlands and Sweden tied for fifth. The Asian destination most often cited by participants was Japan, which captured 6% of responses and tied with Norway in sixth place. Ghana was the second-most popular African destination, coming seventh with Switzerland as each captured 5% of responses.
Alongside Nigeria, Ghana’s growing international student population is shaping student flows in Africa and worldwide.
Student Interest in Business Programs Remains Strong
When asked which fields future students planned to pursue, business programs like commerce, marketing, and management remained the most popular. 40% of respondents were interested in business programs,7 followed by math, computer science, and IT programs (24%), then health and medical programs (22%):
While student interest levels in these program areas were fairly consistent with past results there was one significant outlier. Although engineering still attracted the fourth-highest level of student interest, the proportion of students interested in engineering (16%) was at its lowest level since we added this question to the survey in spring 2023. This shift could be driven by fewer or more limited post-study work policies that favour STEM fields in major destinations,8 or due to affordability concerns associated with STEM programs. We don’t anticipate that this trend will persist in 2026 but our team will monitor future surveys.
Future Students Aim for Nursing, Research, and Business Careers
When we asked students about their career plans after graduation, we saw a wide variety of goals. In this edition of the Student Pulse Survey, nursing appeared more than any other career choice. This is good news for healthcare systems worldwide, as new grads can fill staffing gaps while bringing technological savvy and innovative ideas to the organizations they work with.
Let’s take a look at students’ dream careers:
While some are reliably popular—like business management, software engineering, and research, which along with “business” as a general field made up the five most popular career choices—our survey results also highlight how interest is shifting in other fields. Given the current enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI), it makes sense that students plan to pursue careers in fields like IT, machine learning, and cybersecurity. Data scientists and analysts also appeared among the top 10 career choices.
Elsewhere, an uptick in interest around aviation and aerospace stood out in these fall results. From earning their pilot’s license to working with NASA, flight and space-related careers appeared in 4% of responses, versus 0.5% of responses in Spring 2025. This increased interest may be linked to growing demand for those trained in aviation. As global air fleets expand, especially in the Asia Pacific region, and current pilots and crew retire, one sector forecast predicts nearly 1.5 million new civil aviation employees will be needed by 2034.9 Students interested in aviation programs now could be great candidates to fill those roles after they graduate.
Over One-Third of Students Plan to Gain International Work Experience
Although post-study plans can change, it speaks to international students’ planning skills that only 6% of respondents weren’t sure where they wanted to be after graduation:
While 27% of students plan to return home immediately, 43% hope to work in their study country temporarily, leveraging programs like Canada’s Post-Graduation Work Permit (PGWP), the Graduate visa in the UK, or OPT (Optional Practical Training) in the US to build their skills and network. A further 22% hope to pursue permanent residency after graduation, while only 1% plan to move to a third destination.
Whether they plan to build a career locally or internationally, it matters to students how well institutions prepare new grads to excel. In fact, over 60% of respondents noted high graduate employment rates were a key factor when considering which program to apply to, second only to affordable tuition rates.10
Build Your International Student Strategy with ApplyBoard
The Student Pulse Survey gives us a helpful look into future students’ goals, motivations, and challenges related to becoming an international student. Sending out a hearty thank you to the hundreds of students who took the time to share their thoughts!
If you’re looking for more in-depth sector analysis, stay tuned for ApplyBoard’s 2026 Trends Report this November. Every year, we take a comprehensive look at how the sector is evolving—and how your team can stay ahead of the curve.
If you’re part of an institution interested in honing your international recruitment strategy, ApplyBoard’s sector insights, real-time dashboards, and global network of partners can help you reach established and emerging student audiences, driving diversity and innovation on your campus. Start a conversation with our Commercial Partnerships team today.
Taryn Graham leverages over 15 years of communications expertise from the public and private sectors in her work with ApplyBoard’s Strategic Content and Thought Leadership team, spanning ApplyBoard Insights and the main blog. She also manages the biannual Student and Recruitment Partner Pulse Surveys. [LinkedIn]
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FOOTNOTES:
1. The Fall 2025 ApplyBoard Student Pulse Survey ran from September 2–15, 2025, and received 291 responses from individuals in 61 student markets.
2. Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
3. Makiya Seminera and Christopher L. Keller, ABC News. “Arrivals of international students to the US dropped almost a fifth in August, data shows.” Oct. 8, 2025.
4. Jeffrey R. Young, The Hechinger Report. “International students are rethinking coming to the US. That’s a problem for colleges.” May 1, 2025.
5. “Disagreed” here includes students who chose “disagree” (11.3% of respondents) and “strongly disagree” (18.1%).
6. Students could share one or more destinations in their response.
7. Survey participants could choose more than one field of study.
8. Including the end of Australia’s two-year extension on post-study work rights for fields with verified skill shortages, Canadian PGWP limitations, and recent discussions about limiting OPT in the US.
9. CAE, “2025 Aviation Talent Forecast.” Accessed Oct. 16, 2025.
10. When answering this question, students could select up to 5 factors from a list of 10.
