Students interested in studying abroad must ask themselves a wide range of questions as they navigate the study abroad information gathering process. A few of those questions might include: What are my goals? What do I want to accomplish? What do I want to learn during my study abroad experience? And most importantly, where do I want to study abroad? Some students know exactly where they want to study, while others take a longer time to educate themselves on all the possibilities available to them.
What are the most popular study abroad destinations? The 39 most popular study abroad destinations based on the number of participating students in study abroad programs and post-study abroad student satisfaction surveys rate the United Kingdom, Australia and Spain as the top three countries on our list and Cuba and Hong Kong at the bottom of our list as the 38th and 39th most popular destinations.
Following is our entire list of the 39 most popular study abroad destinations:
1. United Kingdom 2. Australia 3. Spain 4. Germany 5. France 6. Japan 7. Italy 8. China 9. Canada 10. Costa Rica 11. Ireland 12. Denmark
13. Netherlands 14. Switzerland 15. Argentina 16. Thailand 17. New Zealand 18. South Africa 19. South Korea 20. Mexico 21. Czech Republic 25. Sweden 26. Russia 27. Jordan
28. Hungary 29. UAE 30. Israel 31. Brazil 32. Ecuador 33. India 34. Chile 35. Austria 36. Peru 37. Belize 38. Cuba 39. Hong Kong
An Explanation of the List
Our list is based on the results compiled from 11 organizations tracking study abroad participation, including government, education and news institutions, statistical websites, and several study abroad organizations focused specifically on the industry.
For example, educations.com published their official 2021 rankings for Top 10 Places in the World to Study Abroad! They surveyed 2,700 international students and compiled a list of seven ranking factors to base their results on. Those factors were developed from data provided by students on their reasons for studying abroad, including:
To access higher quality teaching To achieve my career goals To develop myself personally To experience a new culture or lifestyle To have an adventure To learn a new language To make new friends or widen my professional network
One of the lists is based totally on the number of students studying abroad during the poll’s timeframe. Other polls used opinion data gathered from students following their study abroad experiences
The UK was the only country listed in all 11 polls of best destinations to study abroad. Australia was next, receiving scores in ten of the polls, followed by France, Germany and Spain, each listed in nine of the polls.
Several countries were only listed in one of the 11 polls, including Norway, Sweden, UAE, Belize, Jordon, Peru, Russia, Austria, Chile, India, Ecuador, Taiwan, Cuba and Hong Kong.
Original Sources Identified Below
Following is nine of our sources. Two of our original sources have since removed their articles and thus we are unable to provide a link to their data:
BestColleges.com Educations.com Goabroad.com Heysuccess.com` Noodle.com Statista.com Studee.com TheStreet.com USNews.com