Lies, damned lies and statistics: Overseas study edition

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” – Mark Twain

As someone whose tagline is “an academic by training and an international educator and education entrepreneur by trade”, I value accurate and up-to-date information and am willing to expend the effort to obtain it.

Since it’s directly related to my work as managing director of a full-service educational consulting company in Vietnam, I periodically check on how many young Vietnamese are studying overseas and in which countries so I can decipher any new and emerging trends.

In the spirit of collegiality, I often share this information via e-newsletters, blog posts and articles with colleagues who have a vested interest in learning about Vietnamese students in their countries.

Outdated information is worse than no information

Sadly, most of the data I see in Vietnamese and English language media reports are outdated and therefore of limited value and some offers conflicting figures.

For example, the United States International Trade Administration’s Vietnam – Country Commercial Guide, updated on 30 January 2024, states that “there were approximately 190,000 Vietnamese students studying abroad in the 2019-2020 academic year…” per Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training.

Another article that recently made the rounds was based on Acumen’s report The 2024 Key Trends in Southeast Asia that correctly concluded that Vietnam leads Southeast Asia in outbound students. However, it cited UNESCO figures which put the number of outbound students from Vietnam at 132,000 whereas the UNESCO Institute for Global Statistics website Global Flow of Tertiary-Level Students website states that the “total number of mobile students abroad” from Vietnam was 137,022. This is from 2021/22 and is cited by ICEF in a 6th March 2024 report.

BMI’s Market Report: Vietnam states that there were “130,000+ Vietnamese citizens studying abroad as of 2016 (eight years ago!) and quotes then Vietnam minister of education, Phung Xuan Nha, as saying that “approximately 170,000 Vietnamese” were studying abroad at the end of 2018.

And so it goes.

What is the real number?

I have seen the figure 130,000 bandied about for years. In fact, I estimate that there are at least 275,000 young Vietnamese studying abroad, 93% of whom are in the top 10 host countries, including 64% in Asia. Australia is currently the leading English-speaking overseas study destination for Vietnamese students, a place it frequently trades with the US.

How do I know this? I do my homework. Whenever possible, I try to find primary source information from the host country’s government either in English or that country’s language. The second best option is a secondary source that quotes a government official from that country. If necessary, I will email a colleague from the country’s ministry of education or another relevant agency.

Some governments, for example, Australia and the US, are much better than others at providing up-to-date and comprehensive information on an official website, the ideal source. However, Singapore, a destination country that is advanced in so many areas, does not report the number of Vietnamese students enrolled in its educational institutions. It’s also useful to know what they’re studying, and where by state or territory, information many foreign governments make available.

Looking at the top 10 countries listed below, the first three alone exceed the total figure mentioned above. This is not rocket science. You can find this information in a few minutes of online sleuthing.

• South Korea: 80,343 students (2023). Vietnam ranked first among sending countries.

• Japan: 36,339 (2023). Vietnam ranked third.

• Australia: 33,524 (April 2024). Vietnam ranked fifth.

• United States: 26,387 (May 2024). Vietnam ranked sixth.

• Taiwan: 23,728 (2023). Vietnam ranked first. About 16,000 students are enrolled in degree programmes and more than 7,000 in Chinese language or exchange programmes.

• Canada: 21,000 (December 2023).

• China: 14,000 (2023).

• Singapore: 9,000 (2023). I’ve seen this figure in previous years. I contacted the Singapore Ministry of Education but didn’t receive a response. I suspect the current number is substantially lower.

• Germany: 7,400 (2023)

• France: 5,254 (2022/23).

The top 10 total is 256,975. The next six countries likely include url=http://government.ru/en/news/48188/]Russia[/url] (3,000 in 2022-23), , the UK (2,660 in 2021-22 – higher education only); Finland (2,500 in 2023), New Zealand (1,000 in 2023), Malaysia (1,000 in 2023) and Hungary (1,000 in 2023).

Countries with a critical mass of Vietnamese students, mostly in the hundreds, include India, Italy, Ireland, the Netherlands, the Philippines (that is, English programmes) and Spain. Some governments, including in Russia and Hungary, offer large numbers of scholarships to Vietnamese students. Other countries that actively recruit in Vietnam are Latvia, Poland and Sweden, to mention just a few, as evidenced by online and offline activities.

The types of students studying in these countries are qualitatively different. For example, most of the young Vietnamese going to South Korea and Japan are enrolled in language and vocational programmes, whereas most in Australia, Canada, the UK and the US are in academic programmes. The goal of those in South Korea and Japan, both countries with favourable immigration policies, is to acquire a skill, work for the long term and send money home.

Focus on study in the United States

The US is one of the countries that has been benefiting from the post-pandemic recovery. In May 2024, it hosted 26,387 Vietnamese students, mostly in higher education, according to the SEVIS Data Mapping Tool.

The last time that number was higher (29,976) was in January 2020, the fateful month COVID made its unwelcome arrival in Vietnam and began its quest to conquer the world.

Here’s the breakdown in descending numerical order:

• Four-year colleges and universities: 12,877 (48.8%)
• Community colleges: 3,614 (13.7%)
• Masters: 3,125 (11.8%)
• Secondary: 2,401 (9.1%)
• PhD: 2,042 (7.7%)
• Language training: 1,531 (5.8%)
• Other: 689 (2.6%)

Four-year institutions continue to attract the most Vietnamese students because there are more of them than ever actively recruiting in a hypercompetitive market with lower price points than ever. If a family tells our counsellors that its annual budget is US$20,000 and the student has an open mind about the location, the answer is that there are regionally accredited US higher education institutions with a total cost of less than that.

Community colleges are making a modest comeback after multi-year declines. (Five years ago, the number was 8,530, a 58% decrease.) Last September, the number was 3,094 so this May’s number represents a 17% jump.

The shift to graduate programmes continues, likely a result of many Vietnamese students completing their undergraduate degree in Vietnam because of the pandemic and now pursuing graduate study in the US and other countries. If you factor out language training, Vietnamese graduate students comprise 24% of total US higher education enrolment.

While enrolment in English programmes continues to grow, it’s still exceedingly difficult to obtain an F-1 visa for these programmes because of past abuses. Consular officers are more likely to err on the side of caution with an application to a language rather than an academic degree programme.

For young Vietnamese who want to improve their English overseas, the Philippines has been a popular destination in recent years because of its proximity to Vietnam and relatively low cost.

Boarding and day school enrolments continue to increase after dramatic decreases precipitated by the pandemic. To put this in pre-COVID perspective, there were 4,114 ‘secondary’ students from Vietnam studying in the US in March 2019, a 42% decline in five years.

The gradually increasing enrolments in high schools and community colleges are good news for four-year institutions that have relied on them for years as pipelines for new Vietnamese students.

Here are the top 10 US host states in descending order: California: 4,008; Texas: 3,293; Washington: 1,803; Massachusetts: 1,802; New York: 1,434; Florida: 1,363; Pennsylvania: 1,331; Ohio: 1,143; Illinois: 1,110; and Georgia: 784. The top five host states have 12,340 or 47% of Vietnamese students. The percentage for the top 10 states is 68%. California and Texas remain popular because of the large concentrations of Vietnamese Americans there.

Since information is power and the basis of industry decision-making, it’s important that we get it right. While this kind of information collection is not an exact science, the end result, using primary and secondary sources, paints a reasonably accurate and useful picture of where Vietnamese are studying around the world. This approach can easily be applied to every sending country.

Dr Mark A Ashwill is managing director and co-founder of Capstone Vietnam, a full-service educational consulting company with offices in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City that works exclusively with regionally accredited colleges and universities in the United States and officially accredited institutions in other countries. Ashwill blogs at An International Educator in Viet Nam. A list of selected English and Vietnamese language essays can be accessed from his blog.

This article is a commentary. Commentary articles are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of University World News.

This article was updated on 21st September 2024.