Bis research paper number 128 The wider benefits of international higher education in the uk

2.6.2 Benefit types 
The impacts and benefits of ISM are likely to manifest themselves in a range of different 
ways – planned and unintended, positive and negative, immediate or longer term, and 
implicit or explicit. As these benefits and impacts are dependent on a very diverse body of 
mobile students, they will be expressed distinctively and according to different national 
and/or cultural contexts. They are hard to control and influence because they are 
dependent on the individuals, their cultural backgrounds, personalities and career 
trajectories.
However, five broad categories of benefits and impacts have been identified and are 
explored here to inform the primary research in this study: 

financial; 
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The Wider Benefits of International Higher Education in the UK 

economic; 

academic; 

socio-cultural; 

political. 
These are essentially de Wit’s (2002) ‘rationales for international higher education’ but re-
categorising ‘economic’ into separate categories for financial and wider economic benefits. 
They are now considered, in turn. 
Financial benefits 
The financial benefits of international student mobility to host HE institutions – and host 
countries – are the short-term, cost-related benefits. These are well rehearsed and include 
the fees paid by international students (where these are payable) as well as their 
associated accommodation and living costs. These can benefit host institutions directly 
and contribute to their revenue streams, as well as more broadly to national and local 
economies of host countries in the form of inward foreign investment. Recent estimates of 
the value of annual financial income from education exports for the UK have been as high 
as £14 billion (for 2008/09), of which HE comprises over £8 billion (Conlon et al., 2011). 
However, there are associated financial costs to this mobility, since students consume 
national and institutional resources and services (e.g. such as healthcare). The provision 
by host countries of scholarship and support programmes is clearly also a discrete cost 
(Oxford Economics, 2012, 2013).