GLOBAL
Interest by prospective international students in the ‘Big Four’ study destinations – the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia – declined by 14% in the year ending January 2025. This decline follows a 22% decline the previous year, says a study released by ApplyBoard that measures ‘interest’ by the average monthly keyword search for ‘study destination’ on its website.
Interest in studying in Canada has declined the most, from an average of 28,600 inquiries per month in 2022 to 20,500 in 2024 to 13,600 inquiries in the latest report: a 52.4% decrease over three years, states the study, “Major English destinations faced increasingly polarised media, search trends in 2024”, published at the end of February by ApplyBoard (a global portal to apply to university and college used by over a million prospective students from 150 countries, that is based in Canada.)
Britain experienced the second greatest decline, from 22,200 inquiries per month in 2023 to 15,000 per month in the most recent report.
Australia, which had seen a decline of 2,100 inquiries per month between 2023 and 2024 (22,600 and 20,500 respectively) held steady between the 2024 and 2025 report.
Interest in the US grew modestly, from 9,500 to 9,900 inquiries per month in the year ending January 2025. However, this followed a decline of more than 25%, from 12,800 to 9,500, inquiries per month between January 2023 and 2024 – a 5% decline per month the previous year.
Online inquiries: a major indicator of intent
This decline in interest in information about the ‘Big Four’ study destinations is in line with the 4% decline in enrolment in the ‘Big Four’ reported last June in Mapping English-taught Programmes Worldwide, which was prepared by Studyportals (a global portal to apply to university and college used by over 55 million prospective students from 240 countries based in Holland), the British Council, and the International English Language Testing System, based in Britain.
While there are many factors that go into making a student’s decision about where to study abroad, online inquiries are seen as a major indicator of intent.
According to Meti Basiri, co-founder and CEO of ApplyBoard: “Search trends for a given destination country can be a leading indicator of shifting student behaviour. Students often search for information at the beginning of their study abroad journey, and dropping search volumes now can indicate that application volumes will weaken over time.”
Apply Board’s study details both the sentiments in national on-line media about higher education in each of the ‘Big Four’ by country, for example, India and Nigeria, as well as the sentiment prevalent in social media posts about HE in these specific countries.
In response to a nationwide housing affordability crisis and realisation that the student visa system was being used as a backdoor way of entering the country, Canada has cut the number of international visas first by 35% and then an additional 10% this year and again for next year.
Additionally, Canada now requires international students to show they have CAD$20,000 (US$13,896) and letters from their college or university attesting to the fact that there is, indeed, a place for that student in the school.
Though these changes and the shortage of affordable housing for international students have been covered by newspapers in India and other countries from which most of Canada’s international students come, the tenor of India’s online media has remained relatively constant, even as the volume of stories has increased by 20%.
Between 2022 and 2023, approximately 20% of the stories about Canadian higher education were positive, while in the latest report 21% are positive.
It was 18% positive, and in 2025 this figure rose a few percentage points to 21% positive. Negative sentiment about higher education in Canada hovered between 18% and 19%, with the rest being neutral.
Social media’s negative sentiment
In social media, by contrast, negative sentiment about HE in Canada has grown from 13.5% in 2023 to 21.9% in 2024 (the year Canada cut the number of international students by 35% and the other changes mentioned above).
In this latest report, 27.1% of social media posts about Canada’s colleges, universities, and government policies were negative, according to ApplyBoard.
Only the US registered a higher percentage of negative social media posts about HE last year than did Canada, 36%, an increase of more than 100% over the 15% negative social media posts the previous year.
However, in the period covered by the latest ApplyBoard report, 19% of social media posts about colleges and universities in the US were positive.
Additionally, 34% of the stories about the United States in global news media were positive. This continued an upward trend noted in the report for 2023: “Positive social media sentiment about the US (20%) nearly tripled in 2024 over 2023”.
Australia registered lower negative social media HE figures in the report covering 2024 than it did in the previous year’s report.
In the report released in 2024, which covered the period during which Australia was reducing the number of international student visas by one-quarter, to 60,000, negative social media coverage of Australia rose to 28%, “an increase of 17 percentage points over 2023 and the largest swing among the four destinations,” says the report.”
In the latest report, the negative social media sentiment was 25.4%, while positive sentiment dropped from 18% to 15.7%.
Australia’s HE reputation in global media was more or less unchanged: in the report covering 2023, 31.4% of the stories were positive and 11.8% were negative, while in the latest report 34% of the stories were positive and 11.6% were negative.
ApplyBoard’s most recent study says that 30% of news stories about international education in Britain are positive while 9.7% are negative. By contrast, Britain saw a 20 per cent decline in last year’s report in the number of negative social media posts: from 33% of all posts to 26.8% in the latest report. The per cent of positive social media posts dealing with Britain rose from 18.2% to 20.4% over the past year.
According to Basiri: “It’s hard to ignore the impact of social media and its influence on student decision-making. Social media is often the most popular source of news for many students, and as sentiments on social media shift away from specific destinations, students will take what they’ve seen and heard into consideration as they decide where to study abroad.”
The news is not good
ApplyBoard’s report examines the news sentiments about HE in the ‘Big Four’ in nine separate countries – China, Ghana, India, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, the UAE, and Vietnam – and in many instances, the news for college and university recruiters is not good.
Especially important are both the per cent of negative stories, Basiri wrote in an email: “repeated exposure to negative press about a given destination country can directly shape perception of a study destination, in turn influencing student decision-making.
When students see news outlining government policy shifts, unwelcoming quotes from government officials, or sector challenges that limit their mobility, they are more likely to look toward destinations they perceive as more welcoming or easier to apply to”.
Not surprisingly, given that Indian students studying in Canada have been portrayed by some Canadian politicians and some Canadian media outlets as the cause of the housing affordability crisis, a portrayal that has also been carried in Indian media, negative sentiments about Canada outweigh positive sentiments in Indian social media postings about HE.
The difference, however, is small, with 22% of postings being negative and 20.7% being positive. Fully 57% of postings were neutral.
Equally surprising is the fact that 47.2% of articles about Canadian HE in Chinese media are positive – even though Chinese international students have also been blamed for the housing affordability crisis and, even more importantly, for national security, Canada has moved to limit joint ventures with Chinese scientists. Only 5.5% stories about HE in Canada in Chinese media are negative.
Media stories about studying in Canada in both Malaysia and the Philippines are positive, 30.7% and 33.3%, respectively, with 16% and 14.2% being classified by ApplyBoard as negative.
There are more negative news stories about Canadian HE in Pakistan and the UAE, 28% and 23%, respectively, than there are positive, 20% and 15.5%, respectively.
Sentiments about Canada in the media of two African countries for which ApplyBoard provided this information vary widely. In Ghana, 30.7% of stories about Canada and just under a quarter positive.
By contrast, in Nigeria, only 13.6% of stories about studying in Canada are negative, but a miniscule 6.8% are positive.
In Vietnam, 22% of news stories about international students in Canada are positive while 19% are negative. The positive view of Canada is likely a function of the programs that Quebec Francophone universities and the University of Ottawa, which is bilingual, have to attract Vietnamese students, who are almost uniformly French speaking.
Additionally, the Government of Canada, the Francophone Minority Communities Project, provides financial aid to Francophone international students who enrol in colleges and universities outside Montreal, Quebec City, and Ottawa.
ApplyBoard’s analysis of nine countries shows news stories about American colleges and universities are overwhelmingly positive. This is the case in China, where 38.7% of news stories are positive social media posts compared to 4.7% that are negative.
These numbers are surprising given the growing geopolitical tensions between China and the US, as well as the fact that there have been a number of Chinese professors working in the United States who have been charged with espionage.
There is no indication on the internet, for example, that the Chinese government-controlled media discussed the “China Threat Snapshot”, by the United States House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security’s Subcommittee on Counterterrorism, Law Enforcement, and Espionage last October.
In both Ghana and Nigeria, negative online news stories about HE in the US are about 5%, while 44% of those in Ghana are positive and 30% are positive in Nigeria.
The positive-negative sentiment about the US in the Philippines, Malaysia, India, the UAE, Vietnam and Pakistan ranged from 7% to 14.2%. Positive sentiments about US HE ranged from a low of 28.4% in Pakistan to 39% in the Philippines.
After noting the strong positive views about the US, ApplyBoard urged American universities and colleges to “leverage” the momentum of “positive sentiment and minimal negative coverage in many student-sending countries . . . by showcasing student success stories, emphasising post-graduation opportunities, and fostering stronger engagement with prospective applicants.”
British higher education is depicted in a positive light by 44.3% of Chinese news and negatively in only 1.4% of stories. India’s online news stories about HE in the UK were overwhelmingly positive, 34% as compared to 9.4% negative, as they are in the UAE: 44% to 6.6%, respectively.
In Ghana, Pakistan, Vietnam, and Malaysia, on-line news showing negative sentiment about the experience of studying in Britain ranges from 21.4% to17% with positive sentiment ranging from 34% in Malaysia to 15.7% in Ghana. In Nigeria, the percentage of negative stories about Britain was almost double the 8.1% of positive ones.
The country with the lowest percentage of negative online stories about British HE is the UAE, 6.6%, with almost 45% of postings being positive.
The country media that is most negative about Australian HE is the UAEs where 33.6% of the stories are negative. In Chinese media, only 4.5% of the stories are negative.
In India, Malaysia, Nigeria and the Philippines, negative stories about Australian higher education range from 7.7% to 10.8%. The countries with the highest percentage of negative stories about Australia are Pakistan and the UAE, 22.5% and 33.6%, respectively.
Besides China, the country with the highest percentage of positive stories about Australia is India, 39.6%, followed by the Philippines at 32% and Vietnam at 30.7%. The percentage of positive stories about Australia in the UAE’s media is 27.4%, six percentage points lower than negative stories.
An evolving higher education media sphere
ApplyBoard’s report sums up its findings by saying: “[a]s sentiment around international education continues to evolve, institutions must remain attuned to how students in different markets perceive their study options.
“While some destinations are experiencing rising positive sentiment, others face growing skepticism – reinforcing the need for institutions to communicate their value in ways that resonate with diverse student audiences, particularly in the social media sphere.
“To remain competitive, institutions should focus on the factors that matter most to prospective students: clear career pathways, financial accessibility, and a strong support network for international learners. Proactive engagement – whether through digital outreach, transparent messaging on post-graduation opportunities, or strategic partnerships – can help ensure that institutions are reaching and converting students effectively.”
