ABSTRACT
Introduction Over the last decades, the economic value of international students is increasingly recognized. Today, international students are considered important human capital for remaining competitive among global knowledge economies, which is reflected, for example, in the fact that many countries intend to attract the best and brightest students in order to incorporate them into their domestic labor market after graduation (Tremblay 2005; Kuptsch 2006; Lange 2013; Van Mol 2014b). Apart from their potential value for national economies, international students also often represent a lucrative source of funding for higher education institutions, as foreign students often pay high tuition fees compared to domestic students (Findlay 2011). Given this value of students for both national economies and higher education institutions, an increasing marketization of international higher education can be observed. Most recently, this trend is exemplified by the growing number of branch campuses, at which students can gain a degree from another country without actually moving residence (see Chapter 7 for a discussion of branch campuses in South Africa). Such exportation of higher education towards other countries, for example, generated approximately £496 million for the British economy in 2012-2013 (Mellors-Bourne et al. 2014).
