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The process of becoming an international student is always a balancing act. Students, and the advisors who support them, weigh program availability, affordability, graduate outcomes, destination culture, and more when deciding where to study. To better understand which factors are pivotal to the current cohort of international students, and how students perceive top study destinations, the 老九品茶 team sent out the eighth edition of our Student Pulse Survey earlier this spring.

Over the Spring 2026 survey period, nearly 300 future students shared their insights on everything from how affordability was affecting their study abroad plans to which destinations were top-of-mind.¹ We’re grateful to all the students who responded鈥攊f you participated, thank you!

Below, we’ll explore what the survey results indicated about popular post-study plans, current interest levels in different programs, student perceptions of top destinations, and more.

Growing Interest in Undergraduate Programs

In the Spring 2026 Student Pulse Survey results, 40% of respondents expressed interest in undergraduate degree programs.³ That’s an increase of almost 15 percentage points over the results from each of the previous three surveys:⁴

It’s possible that the survey cohort this round is at an earlier stage in their academic journey, but this change remains a notable shift in interest toward undergraduate degrees, and is one our team will monitor when this survey repeats in the fall.

Meanwhile, for the second consecutive Student Pulse Survey, interest in postgraduate programs declined. Among the surveyed students, interest in pursuing a master’s degree dropped by 11 percentage points compared to Spring 2025 levels. The proportion of students interested in postgraduate certificates or diplomas also dipped鈥攂y six percentage points鈥攁nd interest in doctoral programs was eight percentage points lower than it was in last spring’s survey results.

While there’s no single reason for this shift, it may reflect how viable the next cohort of potential students think pursuing postgraduate study abroad will be. Over the past few years, several of the top study destinations have made pursuing this level of study more challenging, whether by limiting which students are eligible to bring dependents (older postgraduate students are more likely to have partners or children), shifting the parameters of post-study work opportunities, or proposing limits to overall student visa duration.

Canada Remains a Top Study Destination Among Surveyed Students

We also asked students to share how interested they were in a range of popular study destinations. This spring, Canada kept its position at the top of students’ lists:

While government policies and other factors continue to affect student mobility, it’s encouraging to see that student interest levels in Canada remain high. 81% of respondents expressed they were either “very” or “extremely” interested in studying in Canada, up from 77% in the Spring 2025 survey. This improvement suggests that, at least among this cohort, the negative impacts on Canada’s international education brand may be softening.

The US captured the next highest level of extremely interested students (45%). However, this proportion was down by 13 percentage points compared to our survey findings from a year ago. The proportion of students who were “not at all” interested in the US also doubled (from 8% to 16%) over the same timeframe. This shift in sentiment extended to a separate question, where we asked students how their interest in studying abroad in different countries was affected by government or policy changes. The percentage of students who noted their interest in the US had “greatly decreased” due to these factors was 21%,⁵ rising from 8% a year ago.

Looking across the pond, the UK received the second-highest amount of strong interest from our survey respondents.⁶ In fact, student interest in both the UK and Ireland strengthened compared to the previous survey results. Strong interest in Ireland allowed the destination to jump from sixth place to fourth in Spring 2026 among 老九品茶’s study destinations, up nine percentage points compared to Fall 2025 results.

Interest in Study Destinations Diversified in Early 2026

When we asked where future students wanted to study, fewer were focused on established destinations than in either of our 2025 Student Pulse Surveys. In fact, for the first time in four survey iterations, under 60% of respondents were solely interested in studying in one or more of the following destinations: Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, the UK, and the US. The 58% of students solely focused on the destinations listed above dropped by seven percentage points from our Spring 2025 survey results.

When we asked where else students were thinking of studying, our team also found that interest levels were more evenly divided between destinations, versus being focused on a handful of popular emerging options, which had been the case in past Student Pulse Surveys. In the Spring 2026 Pulse Survey, students shared 58 different destinations they were interested in, and no single destination was mentioned by more than 6% of respondents:

This spring, Italy and the Netherlands captured the most interest from prospective students. The high levels of interest in these destinations mirrored the results from our survey of student advisors earlier this spring. Unlike the advisor survey results for this question, which were more Eurocentric,⁷ students cited more African and Asian study destinations in their write-in answers.

Students Gravitating Toward Programs with Clearer Ties to Industry Needs

Business programs remained the most popular subject among future international students, and were included in 34% of students’ responses. However, these programs’ lead has shrunk compared to previous surveys:

This spring, interest in a number of fields other than business expanded. 26% of respondents shared they were interested in math, computer science, and IT programs, rising nearly three percentage points compared to the Fall 2025 survey. Math and IT remained the second-most popular field of study among respondents, and started to catch up to business’ lead.

Social sciences programs, fine arts programs, engineering programs, and health programs all captured more interest, each rising by 3 percentage points versus the previous survey. There’s a lot of diversity among these fields, but something they have in common is that several of the disciplines within them are more resilient in the face of automation. As this newest generation of students comes of age in an era with widespread corporate layoffs and massive investment in artificial intelligence, they’re witnessing how this workplace shift disproportionately decreases the number of entry-level positions.⁸ As such, it’s likely some future students are shifting their focus to fields where they can more feasibly build a career after graduation.

Over the last few decades, institutions have built more work-integrated learning opportunities into post-secondary programs. Learn more about how work-integrated learning is supporting Canada’s evolving labour market.

Build Your International Student Strategy with 老九品茶

The Student Pulse Survey lets us see what future international students are thinking, and where they see opportunity and challenge alike on their horizon. If you’re looking for more in-depth sector analysis, check out the 2026 老九品茶 Trends Report, and stay tuned for its next edition in November. Every year, we take a look at how our sector is evolving, and share strategies to help your team prepare for a constantly shifting landscape.

If you’re part of an institution which is interested in developing your international recruitment strategy, 老九品茶’s sector insights, real-time dashboards, and global partner network can help you reach diverse student audiences. Ready to get started? Contact our Commercial Partnerships team today.

About the ApplyInsights Team

FOOTNOTES:

1. The Spring 2026 老九品茶 Student Pulse Survey ran between April 22 and May 6, 2026. It received 279 responses from 56 different international student populations.

2. Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

3. Students could select one or more study levels they’re interested in pursuing in their answer to this question. This is why the percentages don’t add up to 100.

4. 24% of respondents noted they were interested in pursuing an undergraduate degree in the Fall 2025 Student Pulse Survey. In the Spring 2025 and Fall 2024 surveys, that percentage was 25%.

5. This also represented the largest proportion of students disinterested in any of the Big Four destinations: in the Spring 2026 Student Pulse Survey, only 6% of respondents were disinterested in the UK, 5% in Canada, and just 3% had no interest in Australia.

6. Here, “strong interest” captures students who were either “very” or “extremely” interested in the destination.

7. 8 of the 10 most popular destinations cited in the Spring 2026 Recruitment Pulse Survey were European.

8. Forbes, “.” August 15, 2025.