A Second Chance at ‘Success’

Abstract

While the literature on highly skilled international migration has grown substantially over recent years, the motivations and experiences of an important sub-group — the internationally mobile student — have remained under-researched. In an attempt to redress this gap, this article draws on in-depth interviews with 85 young adults, to explore the choices and motivations of UK students who choose to study abroad for the whole of an undergraduate or postgraduate degree. While studies of east to west migration have typically emphasised the importance of an international higher education as a high-prestige, first choice option for those students who can afford it, we argue that, for UK students, choices are configured differently. For many of our respondents, overseas education offered primarily a ‘second chance’ at accessing elite education.

World class? An investigation of globalisation, difference and international student mobility

“…The research findings presented in this paper have therefore sought to redress the limited theori-sation of international student mobility. Brooks and Waters (20092011) and Waters (2006 are clear exceptions to this generalisation. Our aim in this paper has been to challenge the misperception that student mobility is an unproblematic transient phenomenon.…”

“…Amongst those explaining why attending a ‘world‐class’ university was very important, 79 per cent commented that restrictions on places at UK universities had not been the reason for going abroad. For most students, studying abroad was not therefore a response to failure to get a place (say at Oxford or Cambridge) or a ‘second chance’ to achieve the perceived success of studying at a top university (Brooks and Waters 2009).…”

Explaining Education-to-Work Transitions: Thinking Backwards, Situating Agency and Comparing Countries

“…However, other flows of students out of the UK increased, some attracted by the lower fees in not-too-distant other European states, but others studying in the USA, Canada and Australia, all former British Empire countries and English-speaking. The students' typical motivation has been to earn qualifications at prestige universities having failed to gain entry to Oxford or Cambridge (Brooks and Waters, 2009). What attracts migrant workers to a destination country?…”

Signalling the ‘Multi-Local’ University? The Place of the City in the Growth of London-Based Satellite Campuses, and the Implications for Social Stratification

“…Indeed, evidence from across the world has shown how the middle classes, in particular, have made use of such mobility to ensure the reproduction of their social position. This is evident in cases where middle-class children have failed to gain access to the most prestigious forms of education domestically-for example, to medical schools in Norway (Wiers-Jenssen 2008), and to the highest-status national universities in England (Brooks and Waters 2009a) and Hong Kong (Waters 2008). Studying overseas has also been an effective means, in some national contexts at least, of securing access to prestigious jobs upon the return home (Kratz and Netz 2018;Waters 2009) and of taking an important step towards securing citizenship of another country (Ong 1999;Robertson 2013).…”