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Category: Students

How IDP Sees the Next Era of International Education

Student mobility is big business. Behind the process of getting students to apply to and then attend a university or college thousands of miles away from home is an industry that’s worth billions of dollars a year. And one of the OGs of that industry is a company called IDP, which grew out of an Australian government scheme beginning in 1969, and which for the first 37 years of its existence was owned by a consortium of Australian universities. Over

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May 14, 2026 No Comments

Zombie Universities and the Politics of Survival in South Korean Higher Education

South Korea has one of the world’s liveliest higher education policy scenes. For over a decade now, the country’s been dealing with the challenges of a declining youth population, and hence, declining student numbers. Yet at the same time, it’s continuing to invest heavily in knowledge and education from programs in artificial intelligence, to the upgrading of 10 major regional universities, while all the while seeking to offset population loss through the expansion of international student numbers. And all of

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March 26, 2026 No Comments

Higher Education in Bulgaria: Rankings, Reform, and Demographic Pressures

It seems hard to believe sometimes, but after 110 or so episodes of this show, there are still a few countries we haven’t been to. One of them is today’s destination of Bulgaria. It’s not a place which is often top of mind as far as higher education goes, but maybe it should be. Among European countries, Bulgaria has been one of the leaders in dealing with a question of sharply declining youth populations. In recent months, it’s had an

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March 5, 2026 No Comments

Generation Z and the New Politics of Protest

Historically, students have played an outsized role in politics. They were key to overthrowing regimes in places like South Korea in the 1960s, Ghana in the 1970s, and Serbia in 2000. And even in the recent past, we’ve seen students oust a regime in Bangladesh. But things seem to be changing. Since the overthrow of Sheikh Hasina’s government in Bangladesh a year and a half ago, we’ve seen strongly youth infused protest movements, which have overthrown governments in Nepal, Madagascar,

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February 19, 2026 No Comments

How Students Choose

It’s application season, so I thought I would put some thought together on the factors that drive applications. I hope you enjoy it. How and when do young people choose to go to post-secondary education? This is one of those questions that made sense thirty years ago, but now it’s just not all that interesting. Most students in high school know they are staying in school after grade 12. It’s not a decision, it’s just something they absorb from their

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January 27, 2026 No Comments

One Thought to Start Your Day

One Thought to Start Your Day is our founder and CEO Alex Usher’s popular daily blog, brimming with up-to-the-minute insights and informed opinions on today’s higher education industry.

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