Interest from emerging markets rising for Business & Management courses

Despite COVID-19 changing various aspects of the graduate management education landscape, the overall interest in Business & Management courses remains strong. About one in five searches on Studyportals is for Business & Management courses. The origin countries of students interested in Business & Management have shifted over the years, with emerging market origin countries becoming more significant.

Data from Studyportals indicates several interesting trends when it comes to origin countries for the business and management discipline.

The above chart compares the relative interest (for Master’s and Bachelor’s programmes) from origin countries from 2018 against the past 12 months. This data suggests that interest from developed countries like the US, Germany, the UK and Canada are dropping while interest from emerging markets like Nigeria and Sri Lanka are rising.

While students from Nigeria represented 3.8% of student interest for the business and management discipline in 2018, this increased to 7.4% over the last year.

Iran represented 2.4% of student interest for Business & Management in 2018 and rose to 5.2% in the last year. Countries such as Bangladesh, Turkey and Sri Lanka have also become more significant as origin countries for Business & Management degrees.

With 16.4% of the interest, India remains the number one most significant origin country for Business & Management. Meanwhile, the US has dropped from the second most significant origin country in 2018 to the seventh. Germany from fifth place to ninth, and the UK went from the sixth most significant origin country to the eleventh.

This article was written by Gauri Kohli with support and editing from Cara Lambregts.