Gone International: expanding opportunities

This report compares the academic attainment and employment outcomes of mobile and non-mobile first degree undergraduate students who completed their studies at the end of the 2015–16 academic year.

For the first time, the report examines the impact of short-term international placements that last up to four weeks. It also expands student profiles analysed to include, disabled students, students from low-participation neighbourhoods, part-time students, students who are care-leavers and mature students. 

​Overall, there has been an increase in the number of students going abroad: 16,580 UK-domiciled graduates that responded to the 2015−16 Destination of Leavers in Higher Education (DLHE) survey were reported to have had at least one period abroad as part of their undergraduate first degree.

Key findings include:

• 3.6% of graduates that went abroad were unemployed compared to 4.4% of graduates that didn't,
• Students that go abroad from disadvantaged backgrounds have lower unemployment rates. For example, Asian students were 43.5% less likely to be unemployed than their peers who didn't have an international experience,
• The UK continues a high level of participation in Erasmus+ programme as 44.8% of all placements were through Erasmus+, the UK has received more funding than ever before for Erasmus+ student mobility
• Students from disadvantaged groups are less likely to go abroad than their more advantaged peers. For example, only 5.1%% of students from low-socio-economic backgrounds spent time overseas compared to 8.7% for their more-advantaged peers.

Download the report here.

 The report has been produced with the support of the Higher Education Statistics Agency.