Born and raised in Lebanon, Rim is pursuing her master’s in management at VUB in Brussels.

“I chose to study abroad as the situation in my country was not really stable. I wanted to give myself a chance to have a better, more secure life and work on myself”, the 26-year-old, who is also part-Austrian, told Euronews.

As she balances her part-time master’s with two part-time positions in two associations, she says one of the challenges she faced was finding a balance between work, studies, health, and social life.

Like Rim, 1.66 million students from abroad, be it from other EU countries or non-EU countries, were undertaking tertiary-level studies across the EU in 2022, according to Eurostat.

44% were pursuing a bachelor’s degree, 45% were enrolled in a master’s degree program, and 9% were studying for doctoral degrees.

The most attractive destination was Germany.

In 2022, 403,500 students from abroad studied in Germany, accounting for one-quarter of all students from abroad studying in the EU, Eurostat data showed.

This is followed by France (16% of the EU total) and the Netherlands (10% of the EU total).

Bia, a 25-year-old student from Brazil, recently started her master’s degree in international relations at the university Jean Moulin Lyon 3 in France.

“It is bringing me a new experience with arts, cinemas, museums and theaters, all the stuff I didn’t have much access to before because I lived in a small town in Brazil”, she explained.

She wishes to work in France once she gets her diploma since, in her opinion, it is difficult to find a decent job in social sciences and humanities that pays well in Brazil.

In 2019, Lucrezia, a 24-year-old Italian student, enrolled in a bachelor’s in communication sciences at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands because of the academic excellence and the quality of services.

“It was the best university of communications sciences in the world”, she told Euronews.

“Compared to the Italian system where you do social sciences in a very humanistic and literary way, at the University of Amsterdam, it was much more scientific and data-driven”, Lucrezia explained.

On the downside, finding a place to stay is a struggle, and it is very expensive because of the housing crisis, she said.

Luxembourg had the highest relative proportion of students from abroad in 2022: one student out of two in Luxembourg is from abroad. By contrast, students from abroad made up a small proportion of the total share of students in Italy (4%), Spain (4%), Croatia (4%) and Greece (3%).

Shadiya (26), from India, is pursuing a master’s degree in environmental policy at the University of Milan after receiving a scholarship from the Italian government.

“Who would not like to move to Italy and explore the culture and the food? It’s a beautiful country,” she told Euronews. The main challenges she encountered were racism, administrative hurdles, and the language barrier, she added.

But what are they studying?

In the EU, the most common fields of study for students from abroad were business, administration, and law (22% of all students from abroad).

It was followed by engineering, manufacturing and construction (16%), health and welfare (15%), arts and humanities (12%) and social sciences, journalism and information (11%).

Origin of students from abroad

Nearly half, or 43% of the students from abroad undertaking tertiary-level studies across the EU in 2022 were from Europe. Some 25% came from Asia and 17% from Africa, according to Eurostat.

Since she studied in an American high school in Bulgaria, Mila, now 22, was originally planning to complete her bachelor’s in the US, but she didn’t get any scholarship.

She then chose to complete a bachelor’s in business administration at KU Leuven in Brussels, Belgium, since she was learning French in high school and because the university was well-ranked.

“I do not regret it at all. It has been a journey,” she said. “It really broadened my horizon because Brussels is very international”. The main inconvenience? The weather.

Trends differ across EU countries.

According to Eurostat data, students from Asia accounted for between 40% and 50% of all tertiary students from abroad in Cyprus, Ireland, Latvia, Hungary, and Finland.

PhD student Auden (27), a Malaysian citizen and Singaporean permanent resident, did his bachelor’s and master’s in physics at Lund University in Sweden.

“Back in 2018, in order to study at a Singaporean university, males had to first complete around two years of military service. Since I was a permanent resident, it was not mandatory to do the military service. So, in order to study at a university, I had to search abroad,” he explained.

His experience highlights the visa and administrative struggles some non-Schengen students might encounter.

“I was elected to work full-time at a student nation, something like a university society, for a year. I called the Swedish migration agency asking if this would be acceptable with my student visa, and since I was working with a university associated society, I thought it wouldn’t be an issue,” Auden said.

“But it was, and when I applied to extend my student visa, I was rejected on the basis that I did not study full-time and did not earn the required credits. So I was deported, and I had to apply for the student visa from Malaysia, which thankfully took only four months”, he explained.

Students from Africa represented 52% of students from abroad in France and 39% of them in Portugal.

“I’ve chosen France because it brought me more opportunities”, explained Andrea, a 24-year-old student from Ivory Coast, who completed her master’s in economic law at Sciences Po Paris in France. Her best memories remain her trips across the country: “It is often said that Paris is a museum-city but I believe France as a whole is an open-air museum”, she says.

The proportion of students from the Caribbean, Central and South America was higher in Spain (45%) and Portugal (35%).

“You don’t feel really far from your country because the culture is somehow similar, because of the language, because you find many South-Americans in Spain”, said Camila, a former Colombian master’s student in geomatic and geoinformation engineering at the University of Jaen in Spain.

Camila chose to study in a southern European country because this programme didn’t exist in Colombia, she could study in her native Spanish, get a scholarship, and pay lower university fees in Spain than in her home country.

“The main inconvenient if you study in Spain is that it is difficult to get a job after you finish your master in my case. I think there are not a lot of professional opportunities”, she told Euronews. Agreements between Spain and Colombia regarding visas and pension schemes also make Spain an attractive destination, she added.

Ana Paula, a 26-year-old Brazilian graduate, completed a bachelor’s in engineering management at Óbuda University in Budapest, Hungary, thanks to a program of scholarships called “stipendium hungaricum”.

“The studies brought me the opportunity to get in contact with the corporative world outside my home country, since I got the opportunity to do internships in multiple companies”, she says. She now works in accounting at a multinational company in Hungary.

Where do credit-mobile graduates come from?

Eurostat’s study also examined EU students enrolled in a tertiary education programme at home who move abroad for at least three months for a study period such as Erasmus or a work placement to gain academic credit.

In 2022, there were approximately 390,000 credit-mobile graduates from the EU, according to Eurostat.

Among the EU countries, the largest number of credit-mobile graduates in 2022 came from France (180,000). It was followed by Germany (51,100) and Italy (47,800).

As a nature lover, Charlotte, 24, a French graduate from Montpellier Business School in France, picked Sweden for her Erasmus because of the outdoors, hiking, and winter sports opportunities.

She spent one year at Umeå School of Business Economics and Statistics during her master to “improve her English”, “step out of her comfort zone” and “meet new people from different countries”.

This study abroad also directly impacted her professional career choice, raising her awareness on environmental issues and leading her to work in the ecological transition.

In her opinion, the situation of the job market in France and the lack of professional opportunities in some competitive sectors might partly explain why so many French students complete a study abroad to build up their resume, even though the financial cost doesn’t make it accessible to everyone.

“In France, there is this feeling that it is a necessary step,” she said. “The job market is complicated. We feel we have to tick boxes to hope finding a job: having a master degree, spending a year abroad.”

If we look at doctoral or equivalent studies, the largest numbers of credit-mobile graduates were from Italy (7,500) and Spain (3,300).

What are the most popular destinations?

You were waiting for this answer: the most popular destination for short-term study abroad among European students was — Spain.

“It is a very welcoming country where it is good to live. It is sunny all year long, and there is sangria,” explained Laurent (29), a Senegalese business administration graduate from the French university of Cergy Pontoise who spent his Erasmus at the university Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid.

For the EU as a whole, the largest number of credit-mobile graduates in 2022 went to Spain (11%), the UK (10%) and the US (7%). Together, these three countries accounted for 28% of all credit-mobile graduates from the EU.

Jennifer (25) from Madagascar studied at Sciences Po Paris in France and spent one year abroad in Edinburg as an undergrad. She was “interested in trying out the British educational system”, the city was “student-friendly,” and the fees before Brexit were “reasonable,” she explained.

Overall, another EU country was the principal destination for credit-mobile graduates in 2022 for 21 of the 27 EU member states.

Andra, a 23-year-old Romanian graduate, did her Erasmus exchange at Mykolas Romeris University in Vilnius.

She said her semester abroad helped her cultivate cultural awareness to avoid stereotypes about other cultures, which can be hurtful.

“Lithuania is a super beautiful and underrated destination. I really fell in love with the place and I would definitely go there again. Hands down. No debate,” she pointed out.