Inbound Insight: United Arab Emirates

In this Inbound Insight series article, we look at the mobility of students from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and explore the priorities of this student cohort when searching for student accommodation based on data gathered through the Global Student Living Index.

Outbound destinations

UNESCO figures show that in 2022, the UAE had 18,600 outbound international students. This represents a 51% increase from 2018, when 12,289 Emirati students studied abroad.

Top destinations for Emirati students are the UK (8,059  in 2022), India (2,287 in 2023), and the US (1,502  in 2022/23, with most studying at the undergraduate level). It is interesting to note that the number of Emirati students studying in the US has decreased by 45% since 2018, when there were 2,757 Emirati students studying in the US. At the same time, the number of Emirati students choosing to study in the UK has steadily grown, increasing by 77% from 2018, when there were just 4,565 students from the UAE studying in the UK.

What’s contributing to this growth?

Unlike many other major sending markets, poor graduate employment prospects and high rates of youth unemployment are not drivers of outbound mobility for students from the UAE.

The UAE is somewhat unique in that it has a population of over 10 million, yet only 11% of the population are Emirati nationals.

Education is a top priority for the UAE government as it works to reduce the country’s dependence on oil and create a knowledge-based economy. As a result, ensuring there is a better connection between students’ skills and labour market needs is a top priority for both government and employers. The UAE government has allocated significant funds for study abroad scholarships to support these goals.

According to a report in Higher Education Digest, Emirati employers often place a higher value on international graduates, with some in fields such as engineering even sponsoring students to study overseas.

The UAE has one of the highest numbers of international schools in the world, sitting in third place after China and India. Most of these teach British and US curricula in English. While these schools have traditionally catered to the UAE’s large expatriate population, there are reports that an increasing number of Emirati nationals are enrolling in international schools. Higher Education Digest notes that more than 90% of students at international schools in the UAE intend to study overseas after graduation, meaning that Emirati student mobility is likely to continue to increase.

Search priorities

Global Student Living Index data shows that Emirati students have similar priorities to other international students when it comes to finding somewhere to live. However, travel time to their place of study is slightly more important for Emirati students (75%) than it is for the broader international student cohort (72%).

Accommodation type

Students from the UAE are significantly more likely to be in private halls than other international students (98% vs 85%) and less likely to be in university halls (2% vs 15%).

Search resources

Students from the UAE are less likely to use social media than the broader international student cohort (18% vs 29%) when it comes to searching for somewhere to live. The top five resources used by Emirati students when searching for somewhere to live are university websites (53%), general web searching (24%), social media (18%), and personal recommendations from friends and family (15%). Students from the UAE are slightly less likely (9%) than other international students (12%) to use an educational agent to assist them in their search.

Booking

When it comes to booking their accommodation, Emirati students are less likely to have booked with the university housing or accommodation office (28% vs 34% of all international students). Students from the UAE also favour booking through online student accommodation listings sites, although the proportion using these sites is slightly lower than it is for all international students (22% vs 24% of all international students). Students from the UAE are also less likely to have booked via a consultant or agent than international students in general (3% vs 9%).

Struggles

GSL Index 2024 Q2 data highlights that struggles faced by Emirati students differ from the overall international student cohort. For the overall international student cohort, stress/anxiety, finding part-time work, meeting new people, keeping up with the workload and making the most of their time at university are the top five struggles reported by students. However, for Emirati students, issues such as getting the right type of skills and experience for their career and homesickness feature in the top five: