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Expert's View - QS Applicant's Research 2007
It’s interesting to see how long and in what way prospective graduate students are most likely to follow their chosen course of study abroad. Much can be drawn from the latest findings from the QS Applicant Research, an online survey of more than 4,000 international applicants to graduate programs all over the world.
The majority of students seeking international graduate opportunities wish to do so on a full-time basis. Of those surveyed, 77% indicate they wish to pursue their future graduate program in the traditional way, on campus and full-time. Only 12.1% from the QS Graduate Applicant Research 2007 indicate that a part-time basis is their first choice, with only 4.1% and 3.1% indicating distance and online learning respectively as their preference.
Prospective graduate students from Latin America indicate that full-time study is their preference (73.4%), comparable to the overall trend, as are the responses from Europe (73%), Asia (70.2%) and Africa (72%). Only candidates from the Middle East (65.4%) are slightly less interested in full-time study than other regional groups, perhaps driven by the increasing number of international programs and campuses located in the region. Significant variances to the overall and regional trends for the interest in fulltime study are Chile (89.5%) in Latin America; Greece (86%) in Europe; China (89.2%), India (85.1%), Pakistan (84.4%) and Thailand (96.6%) in Asia; and Egypt (56.7%) in the Middle East.
The interest in part-time study is somewhat limited by the requirements of immigration authorities willing to provide visas for only those international students studying on a fulltime basis. The global figure of 12.1% interest in part-time study is largely the result of institutions offering programs delivered flexibly, to meet the demands of those candidates unable to concentrate on a full-time degree due to career, financial or family commitments. Where there are regional differences in the proportion of candidates interested in studying on a part-time basis, it is likely that local circumstances are such that students are encouraged to study locally and flexibly. In Latin America, 17.1% of prospective graduate applicants are willing to study on a part-time basis, compared with 12.5% of Europeans, 9.9% of Asians, 17.4% of Africans and 20.8% in the Middle East.
With British Council and IDP Education Australia research pointing the way to an increase in the number of students seeking international qualifications delivered at a distance through mixed-mode and online methods (now commonly termed as transnational), the QS Applicant Research tells a different story. Only 7.2% of the survey indicated an interest in either distance-learning or online graduate programs, a stark contrast to the estimated 800,000 international students studying all UK degrees by 2010, 50% of whom will study on a transnational basis. What may account for such a difference? Certainly, prospective graduate students seek face-to-face teaching and research contact and a cultural experience to add value to their personal skills set, suggesting the more traditional form of studying full-time and on campus as meeting their specific needs.
The period of time that students wish to study for is largely concentrated into two main lengths, one and two years. According to the survey, 41.5% of candidates indicate their preferred study period being between 10 and 18 months and a further 36.6% as between 19 and 24 months. Both timeframes indicate the predominance of interest for the Masters qualification, either on the Australian, Dutch and UK model of a year in length or the longer equivalent available in many countries in Europe and the USA. An encouraging 14.4% of the survey express an interest in graduate programs longer than two years in duration, indicating their commitment to the more research-based degrees such as MPhil and PhD programs. Only 7.6% of those responding indicate an interest in graduate programs less than ten months in length, such as the very compact Masters programs offered by some international universities or the Graduate Diploma.
Some regional and country variations exist concerning study lengths for graduate programs. Most US and Canadian students (65.6%) seek Masters programs of between 19 and 24 months in duration, their own nationally established structure, while Latin Americans (47.7%), Europeans (54.7%) and African applicants (42.2%) all prefer the shorter Masters degrees of between 10 and 18 months in length.
