Sending country determinants of international student mobility

International student mobility has increased rapidly since 1975 but little attention has been given to why countries differ in their rates of outbound student mobility or whether polices are needed to monitor outflows and encourage students to return home after completing their studies abroad. That is the case even though brain loss is of growing concern to senders. While a handful of papers have looked at student mobility, they differ in their conclusions. A couple of studies have found that students go abroad to study to take advantage of work opportunities abroad upon study completion but others have found that they do so because they lack study opportunities at home. No research paper has looked at student flows to a large number of sending countries and multiple destinations. This paper takes on that task by examining country differences in outbound mobility rates and their correlates. Regression analysis is used to evaluate the relative importance of several structural characteristics of sending countries, including: tertiary training capacity and investments; demand for higher education; GDP per capita; colonial status, population size, and international ties, etc. Preliminary findings show that countries with greater tertiary supply have lower outbound mobility while with higher demand have increased student outflows.