全球商业人才的重大重组

Where international students want 2025 was a turbulent year for graduate management education(GME), compounding persistent challenges for some businessschools and creating new opportunities for others. With changing This paper aims to identify the latest trends in international studentmobility and which factors are shaping them. To explore thesequestions, we draw on data from the most recent ApplicationTrends Survey report about the incoming class for the 2025-2026academic year; fall 2025 enrollment data from a pulse survey The first section highlights the latest in international students’application, enrollment, and consideration patterns. The secondsection discusses the factors behind these trends. Ultimately, wefind that formal student visa and immigration policies—and theirinformal secondary effects—are driving international talent away GMAC’s annual Application Trends Survey is one of the clearest indicators of where international studentsare interested in pursuing GME. The 2025 results revealed that international applications are moving towardAsia and Europe and away from Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States (Figure 1). Respondentsin Europe (excluding the U.K.) indicated that India and Germany were their top sources of international talent, Figure 1: International applications grew in Europe (excluding the U.K.) and Asia but fell in The declines in international applications in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United Note:The category “Asia (excluding Greater China and India)” is not mutually exclusive from East andSouth Asia category, but the sample size for Greater China was not large enough to report independently. Enrollmenttrends do not necessarily follow the same pattern asapplicationtrends. To address whether thegeographic shifts identified by the Application Trends Survey also occurred among who matriculated, we added Ultimately, the pulse survey results affirmed international students’ growing interest in Asia and Europeand declining interest in programs in the Americas. More than half (54 percent) of programs in the Asia andPacific Islands (APAC) region reported greater international enrollment growth compared to fall 2024 (Figure2). Conversely, two-thirds of responding business school programs in the Americas reported international Two-thirds of business schools in the Americas reported a decline in international studentenrollment compared to last year. While the enrollment growth in Asia was most pronounced among full-time programs, the decline in theAmericas was relatively uniform regardless of program modality. Globally, Ph.D. programs were the most likelyto experience international enrollment declines (57 percent). Just under half of business master’s programs—which are typically more dependent on international talent—experienced declines in international enrollment. Increasingly, we hear from schools that students paying a deposit does not always guarantee they will showup to class on the first day. To help shed light on where post-deposit attrition might be a challenge, ourpulse survey also asked from which countries programs saw the largest drop off in students who formallyaccepted admission and paid a deposit but still did not come to campus. In the Americas, nearly 90 percent Candidates one to two years away from applying to business school are also gaininginterest in Asia and Europe as application plans to the United States wane. While this application and enrollment data demonstrate what has recently occurred in the market, the GMACProspective Students Survey gathers monthly responses from candidates who are generally one to two yearsaway from applying to business school. To gauge what might occur in the coming years—and how candidatedecision-making may have evolved throughout 2025—this section examines monthly and annual data about U.S. candidates typically have overwhelming preference to study in the United States (approximately 90percent). When looking at 2025 data, that figure did not change much. However, there has been movementin the study destination considerations of non-U.S. citizens over the course of 2025. Their application plans Figure 3: Non-U.S. candidates’ application plans to programs in Asia and Eastern Europe are Preferencefor studying in the United States decreased in 2025 compared to the previous year. In Asia, there is surging candidate interest in pursuing GME within the region. In Central and South Asia, forexample, prospective students’ plans to apply to GME programs in Central and South Asia as well as in Eastand Southeast Asia increased over the course of 2025 (Figure 4). At the same time, their consideration ofprograms in the United States has steadily declined. But when candidates were asked in which region they Compared to previous years,preferencefor studying in Western Europe is growing. Ultimately, the candidate consideration trends follow similar patterns to the application and enrollmenttrends discussed above.