Latin America the next academic destination for international students / Latin America: from a source market to a competitive academic destination

Objectives
1. To develop awareness of the opportunities Latin America has in the international student market.
2. To promote international student recruitment as a strategy for financial sustainability for the Latin American higher education institutions.
3. To share the economic and cultural impact international students bring to an institution, the city and the country.
Outcomes
The takeaways for participants in this session are the following:
1. There are opportunities in the international student market for higher education institutions in Latin America.
2. International student recruitment is part of the internationalization of the institution for which it is key regional institutions start planning how to develop their own approach.
3. Best practices in the world, show that even though institutional efforts are key, the highest effectiveness will be achieved when the government develops public policy and an ecosystem to provide services throughout the process of recruiting and receiving international students.
Latin America has been seen by the world for some years now, as the place to recruit students and develop key research collaborations, but not as a competitive academic destination for degree-seeking international students. As the Higher Education Institutions in each country in the region are struggling for more government funding, equal access for all students, and increasing the international programs for undergraduate and graduate students, they are somehow not facing the impact of being one of the main source markets for student recruitment.
Latin America is in just a good timing to continue strengthening the academic collaboration with HEIs worldwide however, simultaneously, start preparing their institutions to actively participate in the global student market: from being a source of students, to hosting more degree-seeking international students. More and more programs are showing us constantly that the region has all that is needed to be a competitive destination. Some of these are the New Zealand’s Prime Minister Scholarships to study in Latin America, the Pacific Alliance Scholarships, the Erasmus programs with Latin American countries, 100K Strong in the Americas, and others.
This represents then new challenges for the Latin American HEIs, such as developing international marketing departments, strengthening the International Relation Offices or related offices, creating an international marketing and recruitment plan. Even more, the strengthening of the services and process international students have access to, where the private sector and the government should also participate.