Are More International Audiences Considering Online Study?

Interest in online study is up substantially in 2025 - are international students react to a shifting policy landscape?

One of the many findings in this year’s State of Student Recruitment report was the indication of a shift back towards online study amongst prospective international students.

At first this seemed slight, with 13% of respondents preferring online study in 2024 increasing to 16% in 2025. But, when we reflected on it, we quickly realised what a significant movement that actually is: a 23% increase in online interest amongst students looking to study abroad.

And the picture became clearer when we began examining regional trends for the USA (ahead of a recent webinar discussion) and saw an increase in online interest from 14% in January to 22% in May. To put that another way, interest in studying a fully online degree in the USA amongst prospective international students has increased by more than 50% to more than a fifth during 2025.

I think we can all ponder what might be driving that (and I will, below) but first, let’s look at the trends for some other destinations.

Where do international students want to study online?

Here I’ve plotted the % of online interest across each of the UK, USA, Australia and Canada, along with Europe (collectively) across January, March and June:

We see interest increasing everywhere, but particularly in those ‘Big 4’ destinations. The change for Europe is much smaller (and less consistent).

And it is all of the ‘Big 4’ seeing this effect. It’s most pronounced for the USA, but the UK isn’t actually far behind and Australia and Canada also see consistent increases (and from lower starting points).

Which audiences are most interested in online?

Here I’ve plotted the same datapoints, but by audience rather than destination, grouped as continents:

The headline here is a 25% increase in online interest across all audiences collectively, measured between January and June.

But what’s equally important here is that we’re also seeing this effect across a range of individual audiences. Growth in online is highest for African students but it’s also consistent for South Asian audiences. Together these are the largest global audiences for international higher education. If I had to suggest, I’d hypothesise that the difference between them may reflect financial factors (including foreign exchange rates) in Africa where access to physical study is more likely to be a matter of affordability as well as feasibility and eligibility.

Interest is also up in Europe and Southeast Asia (another growing audience for international study in our data). It’s worth noting that both of these increases come from a higher baseline interest in flexible study.

So, what's happening?

My simple read of this data is that audiences are becoming more likely to opt for online study in 2025 and this is happening most within and between those destinations where access to physical study has been most disrupted.

The past 12 months have seen numerous changes and disruptions to international study in Australia, Canada the UK and USA: with actual or intended student visa caps in the former two, a new UK white paper on immigration and many executive orders and statements from the current US administration.

It’s possible and, I think, very plausible, that what we’re seeing here is students reacting by looking for alternatives to on-campus study abroad. This aligns with data we shared recently on interest in trans-national-education (another way to access ‘study abroad’ without necessarily studying abroad).

It also helps explain why we’re seeing a trend towards online interest in countries like the UK (where proposals on immigration are more modest and lower impact) and why the trend is visible globally, across a range of audiences.

This is a trend we’ll be keeping an eye on in both our search and survey data. It’s another example of the opportunities that may emerge from apparent disruption, as audiences become more likely to consider a wider range of different options.