France reaches 400,000 international students.

According to Campus France, there are now more than 400,000 international students studying in France, the highest growth rate in more than 15 years.
Campus France reported this week that, in accordance with the most recent statistics from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the number of international students enrolled in France increased by 8% in the academic year 2021/22, which is known as “la rentreé” in France.

Due to the largest rise since 2005, the overall number of international students in France, including apprentices in higher education, is currently 400 026.

A strategy from 2018 set a goal of luring 500,000 foreign students to the nation by 2027 and launched an international campaign in 2019.
According to Olivier Marichalar, Campus France’s head of studies, “France has consistently demonstrated that it is a welcome and open nation to international students, which can have a lasting impact on some international communities.”
This expansion is mostly being driven by an increase in the number of foreign students coming to France from nearby European nations.
In an interview with The PIE, Marichalar stated that he thinks this is because of “the high ranks of an expanding number of French higher education institutions in international rankings,” in addition to the calibre of hosting services that schools have been dedicated to providing.

Morocco continues to have the most students in France among the top 10 countries of origin, at 46,371.

There are currently 19,185 international students from Italy studying in France, a 16% rise from the previous year. 11,256 students are now studying Spanish, increasing 51% from 2016 and up 25% from the previous year.
The number of students from Lebanon (10,469) has also increased dramatically by 30%.

The US, with 6,179, witnessed a 50% gain from 2021, while Germany climbed by 17% to hit 8,186. As for countries of origin that previously saw a fall in numbers, they are now expanding.

Marichalar further observed that these students are drawn to France by its competitive tuition rates and high standard of education.

According to Campus France, pandemic-related mobility limitations continue to have the greatest impact on students from the Asia-Pacific region, who have only seen a 1% increase in enrollment over the past year. However, this little growth is an indication that things are starting to stabilize after a 9% decline in 2020–2021.

The agency also provided encouraging data that supports the sector’s recovery for the 2022–2023 academic year.

By the end of August 2022, Etudes en France, the country’s platform for higher education admissions and enrollment, had received more than 140,000 applications from students in 70 different countries, an increase of 18% over pre-pandemic levels.