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1. Almost half of all Member States consider attracting and retaining international students a
policy priority, although the degree to which this is
a priority significantly differed across Member States.
Other policy priorities such as preventing misuse of
this legal migration channel for third-country nationals were also identified.
2. The number of international students coming to
the EU to undertake their studies has increased
steadily over the recent years. In 2017, over
460 000 first residence permits were issued for
study reasons in the EU. The most popular destinations for international students coming to the EU in
2017 were the United Kingdom, France and Germany
which issued around half of all first residence permits
for study reasons in the EU. In terms of the share
of third-country nationals of all students, data for
2017 for 14 Member States showed that the highest
share of international students from all students was
in Cyprus (18 %), Germany (10 %), Hungary (9 %),
Ireland (8 %) and Latvia (8 %).
3. The highest number of international students came to
the EU from China, the United States and India.
4. The main policy drivers for attracting and retaining
international students included the internationalisation of HEIs and increasing financial revenue for the
higher education sector, contributing to economic
growth by increasing the national pool of qualified
labour and addressing specific (skilled) labour shortages plus tackling demographic change.
5. Both national governments and HEIs alike were
found to implement comprehensive promotional activities and campaigns in many Member
States to attract international students, often
combining their efforts. The most common approaches in place to attract international students
were promotional activities and dissemination of
information targeted at prospective international students, in some cases, taking place directly in selected
countries of origin.
6. Member States identified a number of common
challenges in attracting international students.
These included: limited availability of courses taught
in foreign languages, especially in English; lengthy
processing times of applications for visas and residence permits, especially for Member States with insufficient representation in third countries; insufficient
promotional activities and scholarship opportunities;
as well as (affordable) housing shortages.
7. Post study retention measures were found to be
in place in the majority of Member States and
were mostly policy-related, seeking to facilitate
access to the labour market by eliminating certain
restrictions to labour market access for international
graduates.
8. Some factors which significantly contributed to
student attraction did not necessarily benefit
student retention. Programmes taught in English
have had positive impacts on attracting international
students to Member States but can hamper the longterm integration of international students into the
labour market, unless language learning and other
integration measures take place during the period of
study.
9. Member States aim to balance policies to attract and retain international students with
measures to prevent abuse of the student route
for other migration purposes by ensuring opportunities to study and work are made available only
to those with a genuine intention to pursue higher
education in the EU.
10. Bilateral and multilateral agreements with
third countries have created important frameworks for cooperation, including in relation to
student mobility. The majority of these agreements
were aimed at exchanging experiences and practices,
teachers, students and researchers, as well as the
establishment of fellowships
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