\n<\/p>\n
As the \u201cbig four\u201d anglophone countries clamp down on international student recruitment amid concerns about their local impact, many of the Asian source countries of those students are making plays to become significant host countries in their own rights.<\/p>\n
India wants 500,000 students<\/a> by 2047 and has recently approved more than 15 foreign campuses. South Korea recently surpassed its target of 305,000 by 2027. Other Western institutions are expanding into countries including Sri Lanka<\/a>, China<\/a> and Indonesia<\/a>. Hong Kong has recently increased<\/a> the number of international students universities are permitted to enrol, in response to turbulence in the US. And the likes of Vietnam, Malaysia, South Korea and Taiwan are also\u00a0ramping up\u00a0efforts to attract more international students<\/a>.<\/p>\n Amid this buzz of activity, one nation appears to be an outlier: Singapore.<\/p>\n The city state, often dubbed a bridge between East and West, has long been a bastion of internationalisation, hosting foreign universities, international students and many international staff \u2013 not to mention numerous global companies. Yet it has had little to say on international students since the demise of the Global Schoolhouse Project, an initiative launched in 2002 that aimed to enrol 150,000 international students by 2015. That target was missed and the programme was kicked into the long grass<\/a>, with even higher education academics in the country unsure whether it was officially retired.<\/p>\n Government spending on international students fell during the 2010s, and recent data from StudyPortals<\/a> shows that global demand for study in Singapore fell during the year ending June 2025, with a 17 per cent reduction at bachelor\u2019s level and a 15.4 per cent reduction at master\u2019s level compared with the previous 12 months. In the same time period, increased international demand for at least one level of study was reported by Japan, China, Malaysia, India, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Nepal and Pakistan.<\/p>\n Some put this down to the same debates about the pros and cons of immigration that are pervasive in the West.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are tensions surrounding the attraction of talent from overseas, especially given Singapore\u2019s relatively small population base,\u201d said Ja Ian Chong, associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore<\/a> (NUS). Calibrating the right mix is \u201ca constantly moving target that is difficult to predict,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n Currently, foreign students make up about 10 per cent of total undergraduate intake across Singapore\u2019s seven public universities. More detailed statistics are hard to come by. Unlike many other host countries, the government does not release data disaggregating student numbers by nationality.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is unlikely that the government will seek to increase the intake of international students as this would reduce places for local students given capacity constraints, which would not go down well with locals,\u201d said Terence Ho, adjunct associate professor at NUS\u2019 Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.<\/p>\n Part of the issue is that, unlike in many other emerging destinations, Singaporean taxes contribute towards the education of incoming international students, who are permitted to apply for a limited number of government-subsidised places at public universities.<\/p>\n At NUS for example, a Singapore citizen would pay S$9,650<\/a> (\u00a35,650) a year for an undergraduate business course, while a non-ASEAN subsidised international student would pay S$22,100: nearly S$11,000 less than the full fee for non-subsidised students, S$33,050. The most expensive courses, such as medicine and dentistry, can cost upwards of $S180,000.<\/p>\n International students who receive the subsidy are required to stay and work in Singapore for three years after graduation. \u201cThe main idea is to attract international students to not only study but also to work in Singapore…upon graduation,\u201d said Jason Tan, associate professor at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) National Institute of Education. \u201cBut, at the same time, there\u2019s also political pressure on the government of Singapore to differentiate between citizens and non-citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n Neither the total number of subsidies for international students nor the allocation given to each university is made public but, in 2019, the education minister at the time was forced to answer questions about government spending on foreign students. He reassured policymakers that the education budget was \u201coverwhelmingly\u201d spent on local students. He also said that annual government spending on scholarships and tuition grants for foreign students had fallen by about 50 per cent over the previous decade.<\/p>\n As well as grappling with concerns about public sentiment, Singaporean universities have less of an economic imperative to recruit foreign students than exists in other study destinations.<\/p>\n \u201cSingapore\u2019s approach to attracting international students is strategic and selective, rather than expansive,\u201d said Yi\u2019En Cheng, a lecturer at NUS College. While in some countries \u201cinternational student tuition fee contributes significantly to the economy, Singapore\u2019s universities do not depend as much on them and, hence, take a more measured approach, whereby international student flow is carefully managed to align with national goals, such as that of social integration and national identity-making.\u201d<\/p>\n However, beyond finances, internationalisation is key to Singapore\u2019s future in other ways. \u201cSingapore\u2019s development has historically relied on its pivotal geographic location and extensive international engagement,\u201d said Jack Lee, senior lecturer in higher education at the University of Glasgow<\/a> \u2013 and that is unlikely to change any time soon. Moreover, the city state\u2019s ageing population and declining birthrate make recruiting international students even more important for workforce capacity and national development.<\/p>\n \u201cThe challenge is to strike a balance between addressing policy goals for the country and [responding to] the sentiments of the population. While the recruitment of international students may be essential for national growth, there are legitimate concerns from locals,\u201d Lee said.<\/p>\n Tan agreed: \u201cUnlike Hong Kong, I haven\u2019t yet heard of any public plans to substantially increase the intake of non-local students in our universities, in response to declining fertility rates, and I find that interesting. I think that the political sensitivities in Singapore are still rather raw with regard to the effects of large migration numbers on social stability and the perception, as in many other countries, that locals are being deprived of opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n Beyond local universities, there are also signs that transnational education (TNE) in Singapore is stagnating compared with the wider region.<\/p>\n \u201cSingapore was an early mover on TNE,\u201d said Ishan Cader, senior director of consultancy at Times Higher Education<\/em>. Indeed, in 2003, 75 per cent of the 119,000 students enrolled at Singapore\u2019s private institutions \u2013 at a time when there were still only three public universities \u2013 were taking programmes offered in collaboration with foreign universities. Almost from the outset, TNE has been part of the development and capacity-building of the country\u2019s now world-class higher education system.<\/p>\n Although Australia has been the dominant country in establishing branch campuses \u2013 with the likes of James Cook and Curtin universities still present today \u2013 UK institutions have also run joint programmes with Singaporean institutions for decades.<\/p>\n Data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency shows that UK universities had 29,820 TNE students enrolled in Singapore in 2023\/24, compared with 26,080 in 2019\/20. And Singapore remained the sixth top TNE market for UK universities, behind the likes of China, Sri Lanka and Malaysia. However, five years earlier, Singapore had been the third biggest market.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not so much that [Singaporean TNE] is going down. It\u2019s more\u2026that its rate of change is much slower [than elsewhere],\u201d said Cader. TNE growth has been particularly rapid in China and Sri Lanka, as well as Nepal, India, Pakistan and Vietnam. The consequence is that \u201cwhere Singapore may [previously] have been able to draw in students for TNE from South-east Asia and South Asia, there are now more alternatives in those regions\u201d, said Cader.<\/p>\n Moreover, although some foreign institutions are still interested in Singapore \u2013 including New Zealand\u2019s Massey University<\/a>, which recently launched a partnership with the local, private PSB Academy<\/a> to offer its degrees<\/a> in the city state \u2013 the growth potential is far greater in some other South-east Asian countries, said Haike Manning, founder of Lightpath Consulting Group.<\/p>\n \u201c[Singapore] remains really important for the UK and for Australia [but] you\u2019re not necessarily seeing the growth, and market entry is quite challenging,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Navigating the regulatory system can be onerous; which is why recent newcomers have tended to partner with existing private providers rather than try to secure their own operating licences. Earlier this year, for instance, PSB opened a third campus in Singapore, offering qualifications<\/a> from the UK\u2019s Coventry University<\/a>.<\/p>\n Institutions might also be put off undertaking larger ventures by previous high-profile failures, including the 2007 closure of the University of New South Wales Asia \u2013 the first foreign campus in Singapore \u2013 after only a few months of operation and, more recently, the shuttering of Yale-NUS College<\/a>.<\/p>\n The branch campuses that do remain appear, for the most part, to be well established. James Cook University<\/a> (JCU) Singapore, for example, was\u00a0set up in 2003 and today hosts mainly international students.<\/p>\n \u201cWe always planned a long-term presence, and we\u2019ve built that up very carefully and gradually over the years,\u201d said Carole Anne Upton, deputy vice-chancellor Singapore at JCU, whose home campuses are in northern Queensland.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are very mindful that if we want to have a place in the Singapore ecosystem of higher education \u2013 where I think we do occupy a unique space, which is recognised by the Singaporean authorities \u2013 we have to constantly earn that by demonstrating the quality of what we do, and by being very respectful of the regulatory environment that we\u2019re working in.<\/p>\n JCU Singapore receives \u201creally good support from the government, and we\u2019re increasingly able to collaborate \u2013 not only with the autonomous universities in Singapore, which have a slightly different remit and can\u2019t necessarily do as much internationally as we can, but also with employers.\u201d<\/p>\n Upton joked that JCU has trained most of the psychologists in Singapore \u2013 one of the university\u2019s most popular courses among local students. And it is these sorts of subjects, which complement the programmes public universities already offer, that Lightpath\u2019s Manning assumes the government is looking for in international partners today.<\/p>\n Foreign institutions looking to enter the market need to \u201cfind a niche that the Singaporean government cares about\u201d, Manning said. \u201cIn recent years, some institutions have done quite well offering top-up degrees in nursing, because that\u2019s something that the Singaporean government has been focused on.\u201d<\/p>\n Coventry\u2019s new partnership is focused on paramedic education programmes, which it said<\/a> \u201cwere intended to help address Singapore\u2019s rising emergency call volumes and workforce shortages\u201d.<\/p>\n Although\u00a0it seems unlikely Singapore will be setting any bold international student recruitment targets anytime soon, there are hints that the Lion City is still cautiously embracing a certain\u00a0quota of international students.<\/p>\n \u201cA number of immigration changes have been introduced in the recent past that suggest there is a welcome mat for select groups of international students,\u201d said Ravinder Sidhu, associate professor in the School of Education at the University of Queensland. \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWaiting times have been reduced for students wishing to apply for permanent residency, and graduates from local higher education institutions can now remain in the country on a Long Term Visit Pass for up to 12 months to look for employment.\u201d<\/p>\n Some Singaporean universities are also attempting to grow their international offers, including launching new Mandarin-taught degrees<\/a> to cater for Chinese students. And, despite some data suggesting demand may be waning, universities report strong admissions pipelines in response to global turbulence.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve always had a steady growth in admissions, but\u2026we are seeing heightened interest, both from students and faculty, who increasingly view Asia and Singapore as stable, dynamic hubs,\u201d said Lily Kong, president of Singapore Management University<\/a> (SMU), the third of Singapore\u2019s universities to be established, in 2000 \u2013 after the NUS (1905) and NTU (1981).<\/p>\n \u201cAt SMU, our interest is not in predatory opportunism but in ensuring that students and faculty find welcoming, nurturing and high-quality environments for transformative learning and impactful scholarship.\u201d<\/p>\n For Singapore\u2019s public universities, part of the incentive to adopt a more global mindset is to strengthen their research and climb up the university rankings. At SMU, for example, international staff make up 38 per cent of faculty.<\/p>\n However, when top academics began departing the US in response to Donald Trump\u2019s crackdown on higher education, Singapore declined to launch the specific national initiatives to attract them seen in the UK<\/a> and parts of Europe<\/a>.<\/p>\n