Are international students getting the careers support they need?

Employment support, better careers advice, skills in the curriculum, more practical teaching, better work placements and so on may be the big agenda because international students don’t know which of the other aspects of student life aren’t as good as they should be. It might be because of rising panic about the economic situation at home or here. It might be that these opportunities are sold more explicitly on the careers benefits they offer. It might be that delivery in this area is just not very good.

But it’s always up there. And more and more SU officers are international PGTs – I expect because there have been more and more international PGTs.

If we look at this year’s Graduate Outcomes results and active dissatisfaction with the three “reflections” questions, there’s been a gentle rise since the survey’s introduction:

If we then look just at non-EU international students, the rise is more pronounced:

And if we then look just at non-EU international masters students, the rise is really quite dramatic:

Over that period, not only have the percentages been growing, the numbers have been rising fast too.

These are figures for those graduating in 2021/22 – so there are two more years of expansion to come in the figures, and if the trend lines continue, two more years of dissatisfaction growth.

There are likely all sorts of factors at play here – but the cynic might say that the growth in numbers and income from international PGTs hasn’t been met with a parallel growth in the sort of careers support that these students need.

Whatever is done on immigration or cost of living, these are the sorts of perceptions that feed back and around inside countries. A good time to refocus on tackling these figures would be now.