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In the past few decades, international education mobility has been one of the most important sources for increasing competitiveness in the international education market for countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States (Kemp, 2016; Marginson, 2018). Over the past few decades, both the United Kingdom and the United States (as well as other English-speaking countries such as Australia, Canada, and New Zealand) have in fact profiled themselves as magnets for international students at both K-12 and higher education levels, with top schools and universities relying heavily upon pupils and scholars from overseas and making them a part of their business model (Sá & Sabzalieva, 2018).

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, more than five million students had crossed the border of the United States for higher education, and this is the dominant basis for the discourse on mobility. International students in higher education used to bring around $27 billion to the US economy and an estimated $1.5 billion annual increase in economic activity (Altbach et al., 2019). The 2017 report by the Institute of International Education (IIE, 2017), which studied the recent trends for US students who study abroad as well as for international students studying at higher education institutions in the United State, assessed the impact international students from universities, colleges, and universities across the country have on economic and social well-being. This academic year should be noted as the first year that tuition and fees for international students in the United State were paid privately, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES, 2020). The United States remains the leading destination for foreign students, enrolling 2.2 million students annually, up from 1.5 million in 2010–2011. This is despite a slower (13%) increase in enrollment in the United States ranging from 582,996 to 660,581 students (IIE, 2019).

But the nation continues to make some countries seem less important than others based on the way mobility is shaped by discourse. The mobility trend for international students is one of the main drivers of international educational mobility in the United States. It serves the national interest and offers financial benefits while also being a significant source of economic and social mobility for students and their families. In the United States, international students have had a growing influence on the state of economic development and support ongoing efforts to internationalize universities; they have been an important source of financial support to financially struggling academic institutions during the current recession (Nureev et al., 2020).

Contrary to the above example, the ability to go to college abroad and work in thriving economies in developing countries where opportunities to educate students at the post-secondary level remain limited serves as an important mobility factor for students and their families. In India, for example, a strong trend has developed in recent years to train talent abroad rather than pursue a career at home (Sadik & Brown, 2020).

In general, recruiting international students has increasingly attracted the attention of developed countries against the backdrop of the global talent war, integrating their strategies to attract and retain highly skilled labor migrants. Although international student mobility has become a subject of research in the field of highly skilled migration, few studies have attempted to demonstrate the long-term impact of international educational mobility on countries’ ability to manage student mobility. The three most important countries in the world currently to have hosted international students are the United States, Canada, and Germany. The most important countries sending students abroad are China and India. Figure 1 reports the total numbers of tertiary mobile enrollment of international students and clearly demonstrates this trend using the OECD data.

Fig. 1
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(Source OECD, 2020)

Tertiary mobile enrollment of international students (total number)

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However, among those three countries hosting the most international students, the United States stands out as the international education superpower. It enrolls more international undergraduate students than any other country, including Chile, Poland, Spain, or Japan, yet lags far behind the others in terms of the number of foreign students in the US education system. The rise in anti-immigrant policies coupled with the need to increase enrollment means institutions need to find new ways to attract international students (Streitwieser et al., 2020; Weimer & Barlete, 2020). In addition, entry visas and bans on immigration also become an obstacle for the students from developing countries who do not have enough funds to prove that they would be able to sustain themselves while studying and living in the United States. Difficulties with visa policies make many students opt out for other countries with more favorable entry policies.

High-ranking schools and universities have a higher proportion of English-language courses, which are very popular with international students. Asia has been a key factor in international student mobility for more than a decade, and if growth in these countries stabilizes today, they will have a larger percentage of these students in the future. At the same time, a new report by the International Association of Universities and Colleges (IUC) and the World Economic Forum (WEF) shows the future direction of international student recruitment (Dennis, 2020a). Advances in higher education are attractive to mobile learners, especially in developing countries such as China, India, South Korea, and Japan.

International Student Mobility and Equality

Decades of research have shown policies that improve or expand access to high-quality public education to be able to effectively balance the stark differences in economic opportunity between households of various backgrounds, ethnic origin, and wealth (Čábelková et al., 2020). Indeed, facilitating schooling for low-income students has long been a vehicle for upward mobility. Over the past half-century, policies have improved access to higher education worldwide.

With international student numbers up 8% last year, the United States remains the top choice for students worldwide. The US student body, which has shed the unfortunate image of being narrow-minded in the past and now hosts more international students than any other country in the world, is developing similarly to how it did in 2000; the same is true for the United Kingdom, which is currently second in the number of students per capita. The rising number of US students studying abroad means that more students than ever are being exposed to new ideas and mindsets. These data tracks trend over 15 years and provide a comprehensive picture of international students coming to the United States and Americans traveling abroad. In addition, new international students have been enrolling in US universities faster than their American counterparts abroad since 2000.

On the other side of the Atlantic, some of the higher education institutions in the United Kingdom expressed concern about the country’s social and political climate, which could deter potential international students. This is likely because policy decisions discussed in the United Kingdom (e.g., the travel ban that NACAC strongly opposed) make the country less welcoming to international students. Yet the British Government’s decision to remove international students from government targets to reduce net immigration will also likely have a chilling effect on them, probably because it makes them feel less welcome. According to the Association of International Educators, international students contributed more than $41 billion between 2000 and 2015, supporting 458,290 jobs in the UK (Van Damme, 2017).

UNESCO statistics reflect a relatively small percentage of the degrees sought by international students and do not take into account trends related to credit mobility, such as the increase in the proportion of students with bachelor’s degrees in another country (UNESCO, 2021).

Although most of the leading target countries provide data on their entire student population, this is rare for the United States. American students studying abroad are particularly affected by credit mobility in the United States. This suggests that students are more likely to take up international loans and mobility as they improve the quality of local higher education systems. In view of the rising costs of higher education abroad, in particular, comparative costs should give some countries a competitive advantage in the coming years. In order to maintain their future competitiveness by attracting international students, universities in these countries must be better able to demonstrate the perceived quality of their education systems. As the costs of training abroad, including tuition and accommodation, become more expensive than their domestic counterparts, institutions in some countries will seek to meet, if not exceed, the expectations of potential foreign students. Institutional and national recruitment strategies will take into account the growing number of international students and their ability to compete in rapidly changing industries. Politicians will also be interested in international students because they may become highly skilled immigrants in the future. Studies on internationally mobile students tend to focus on the conditions and push–pull factors that motivate students to study abroad. The UNESCO Statistical Institute (UNESCO, 2021) provided a bilateral database of international student flows that is combinable with data from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as well as other international institutions. Countries answer the annual UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) questionnaires and report on the number of internationally mobile students they accept. Higher Education Institutions (HEI) provide data on international student flows to and from higher education institutions in OECD countries to the Statistical Authority for Higher Education (HESA). The OECD provides information on the number of international students from different backgrounds enrolled in its countries. These data cover students from non-EU countries at all levels, including undergraduate and postgraduate students and residents. As an indicator of the quality of education, we have done a snapshot of this data with the rankings of British institutions. We are not trying to show a causal link between policy and mobility changes but to show that potential links can be addressed a strong correlation exists between the number of international students and students’ degree of mobility to and from higher education institutions.

In the United States, for example, efforts have been made from GI legislation (assistance to war veterans that involve enabling them to obtain higher education) to student aid that have helped lift thousands of Americans into the middle class and boost productivity, innovation, and resources in the American economy (Goldrick-Rab, 2016). Education is a public good, but one must do everything possible to go beyond the already substantial direct benefits that individuals derive from higher education, such as higher incomes and the ability to live comfortably in a more stable and prosperous society with a higher standard of living. Moreover, we now live in the era of information and high skills, and education has become an important route to upward mobility for all, but it is especially important for low-income and minority students. That is why some researchers consider the government to have a proper role to play for low-income people by providing access to public education to all students regardless of income level (Guo-Brennan, 2020). Public school students could be at a more immediate disadvantage if they cannot perform better than their peers in private schools. While the difference between parents choosing to educate their children in a private school may be relatively small, spending on an elite private school can yield an even greater advantage for these students. This inequality can be highly consequential because employment opportunities at elite universities are scarce and closely linked to the quality of their education. This could allow private students to gain a crucial advantage over their public-school counterparts. In the well-known example of the United States (to which I will come back to again and again), the 50 United States vary dramatically in the amount of education funding they provide per student (Eaton et al., 2019). Indeed, intergovernmental inequalities are so serious that they have received greater attention within states. The greater resources that children from the top 20% income households receive from society reduce the likelihood that children in the lower percentiles have the same chances of success. Increased neighborhood segregation and school segregation continue to create funding that disproportionately affects poor Americans of color. This is evident from recent research showing the growing gap between children from high- and low-income families to now exceeds the gap between children born before 2001 and children born in the past 20 years (McArdle & Acevedo-Garcia, 2017). While cognitive ability tests have shown no significant differences in infants of high- or low-income parents, large and persistent differences do begin to appear in kindergarten. For older children, some evidence shows the gap between those born in the early 1960s and those born in the early 1980s to have grown, while the gap between children from high and low-income families to have also grown in terms of high school drop-out rates. While the college-completion rate for children from poor households increased by about 4%, the graduation rate for children from middle-income households has actually increased by nearly 20% since the 1970s (Ison, 2020). Over the past 30 years, tuition fees for students from low- and high-income homes have risen by nearly 40%, and the percentage of students with bachelor’s degrees or higher in the United States has also increased (Mitchell et al., 2019). In 2002, President George W. Bush signed a K-12 education law known as the “No Children Left Behind Act,” which assumed these disparities to largely be due to schools’ failure to take seriously the need to educate children from low- and middle-income families with serious socio-economic problems. In some schools, neighborhood problems are a major factor: schools are more marginalized today than at any time in the last 50 years because the neighborhoods in which they are located have become so marginalized. Children who are affected by serious socio-economic problems may devote less time and attention to academic teaching. Advocates claimed that accountability for test results would soon eliminate the performance gaps (Simpson et al., 2004). A recent study by the US Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights found schools with a high concentration of mobile students to have higher test scores than schools in low-income neighborhoods (Marcotte & Dalane, 2019). The most pressing problems are in US urban schools, where up to 40% of students in one school may have high levels of poverty (Owens & Candipan, 2019). Solving the issues related to K-12 level education significantly impacts the quality of students applying for their university degree at one of the Higher Education Institution (HEI). Thus, proper attention should be given in order to make sure that local universities are not flooded by the foreign students who would surely increase international student mobility but also possibly deteriorate the level of domestic human capital and contribute to the knowledge spill-over effect and brain-drain (Strielkowski et al., 2019; Gruzina et al., 2021).

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, a significant increase had occurred in the number of students studying at offshore universities and partly or completely undertaking international programs in their home countries. According to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and the United Nations in New York, about 50% of international students enrolled worldwide are from the Asia-Pacific region. UNESCO’s latest statistics show a 2.5% increase in international student numbers between 2014 and 2015. International educational mobility is often intertwined with other aspects of global development such as economic development and sustainability. Initiated in the early 2000s, the Singapore Global School House project gave international students a central role in the future sustainability of the city state’s development. Since COVID-19, the media has been reporting in much more detail than ever before on the experiences of international students. Despite not being an accepted or mandatory practice in the West, students are often attacked and mocked for wearing masks, even in countries like China and South Korea.

According to the OECD (2021), the internationalization of higher education has led to international students’ increased mobility. In 2017, 1,450,000 visas were issued to higher education students, with 3.5 million being enrolled worldwide. Before the nineteenth century, countries that had to accept international students dominated migration policy, freeing international students from anti-immigrant policies. Since COVID-19, students have been granted extended residency rights or allowed to return after lockouts: job seekers and legal residency policies allowed new students to arrive while lockouts remained. In the new academic year 2020–2021, 41% of international students have changed their plans or chosen to study outside their original target (Lange, 2020). COVID-19 has disrupted the international playing field, with significant implications for international student mobility and the future of higher education in Europe.

Digitalization and Its Costs on Higher Education

The economic downturn and rise of digital education undoubtedly have driven the demand for higher education on a global scale, affecting all educational systems and countries around the world (Strielkowski et al., 2020; Williamson, 2019). With more than one billion new students being enrolled in universities in the near future, and growing prosperity taking root in developing countries, digitalization will make higher education more scalable and affordable. The current digital upheaval in the education sector is motivated by rising costs, improved competitiveness, and increased expectations. Even the most prestigious universities are turning to digital education to compete. Over 80% of prospective students rate institutions based on their website, and one of the first things they look for is the scientific catalog. The COVID-19 pandemic could be just the disruptor that forces the digital transformation process to accelerate. However, many colleges are directing their efforts to maintain the status quo. Organizations need to prepare for the future by using new technologies and data to transform processes and modernize systems, even as public funding declines (Chiabai et al., 2014; Ehrenberger et al., 2015). The needs of students already living in a digital environment and marketplace will be of the utmost importance. In the meantime, we will continue to support universities and schools in finding the appropriate technologies to develop the next generation of education systems for the twenty-first century. One thing is certain: universities and scientists will be forced to go beyond their traditional teaching and learning methods and use new technologies. Compliance with and monitoring these factors will help educators and administrators capitalize on the significant value of the education-based approach promoted by technological adaptive learning. One effective way in which digital trends in education are reformulating the way students learn is through the introduction of the Internet of things (IoT). With various departments of education leading the way, trends for the digital transformation of education as of 2020 include improved learning experiences, better access to resources, and greater use of technology in the classroom. Institutions that bring together the best technological expertise and high-quality content will definitely benefit from this wave. Mobile technology (e.g., smartphones, tablets, and other connected devices) offers many benefits, including improved learning outcomes and increased campus security. Critics of online learning and digital tools have pointed to the lack of access to resources and the high cost of digital learning as the main obstacle to adoption. If the educational ecosystem consisting of preparatory schools, universities, colleges, and other institutions includes new and evolving technologies, the digital transformation can be fully exploited to bring about systemic and institutional change. From an organizational point of view, technology stands out through the use of cloud computing, mobile devices, social media, and mobile applications (Čábelková et al., 2015). Companies partner with digital transformation initiatives from leading universities to help them optimize their content management systems (CMS) and customer relations management (CRM) using the latest technologies such as Google Cloud, Microsoft Office 365, Zoom, or Moodle. From a social perspective, the most important technologies that have been taken into account in the digital transformation process are social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Google+, and Google Docs. From a technological point of view, the most prominent technologies are the use of cloud computing, mobile devices, and mobile applications such as Google Cloud and Dropbox. Digital learning is crucial for international students as well as for teachers working in this field. The main participants in the educational process at the university are understandably students and teachers, as the university’s task is to educate. World leaders in education recognize that, despite its transformative impact on society in general, technology has enormous potential in encouraging students to learn well and prepare them for life after school. International educators are working to keep up with the best practices in digital literacy and learning to prepare their students adequately for success in the digital age. When used effectively, digital tools and technologies can enable international teachers to create curricula and programs that deepen students’ learning. Others also doubt that the quality of education in the classroom can be improved through self-determined learning or other forms of digital literacy and learning. Rather, these improvements should be reinforced through improvements in the teaching and learning process by reducing class sizes, providing textbooks, and introducing learning standards. Nevertheless, developing countries, especially those with limited access to the Internet, obviously need to find a way to ensure that school systems everywhere provide students with the knowledge or skills needed to support a knowledge-based economy, regardless of the wealth of knowledge and information they provide. The experience of developed countries suggests that providing more pupils with the same level of education as their peers in other countries does not automatically lead to better learning in schools or to a better quality of life for all pupils.

Now to at the other side of the story on digitalization in education: with the rising competitiveness of education and new online tools and techniques that can be provided over the Internet, students who’ve been asked to pay a price for distance learning have started to complain. Some see this as a rip-off, and others see it as too high a price for what they’re getting. A school offering online discounts may not make as much difference as people think. Students benefit from a list price that is lower than the cost, and they get another discount on that price through financial support. Financial assistance is based on a federal formula: the price that is calculated and what a family is expected to be able to pay. Thus, if tuition fees are reduced, students would get less financial support and still be expected to pay the same amount regardless of the tuition fee. Some colleges offer online discounts, but the students who need the discounts the most benefit the least. Proposals exist for students who would attend school in person that aim at creating a national repository of affordable online courses through college subsidies. Colleges would be incentivized to offer online discounts and set up high-quality online courses to attract as many students as possible. Students who need the rebates the most would benefit the least because they face higher online education costs and lack access to affordable courses. Students would pay for courses under a single fee model, which would mean that some courses would be free for many students able to afford them. In a way, colleges would forget that the government would have paid them for every student who attended one of their online courses. The only way one can expect a financial recovery for universities in such countries as the United States is a second wave of federal aid. Without congressional action, colleges could actually lose some of the services on campus where students are currently protesting because they have to pay to attend lectures online, which would be a drastic loss if universities reopened. While not the only solution, this plan ideally would help make online education more affordable. Online courses cost about the same, if not more, than in person courses, according to a recent study by the American Association of University Professors (Anderson, 2020). Unexpected financial hurdles could also occur for colleges and universities as they shift some or all of their activities online. Amid such economic turmoil, several US universities have facilitated students’ ability to take courses online. For example, Georgetown, Princeton, and Lafayette College have cut tuition by 10% for students learning online due to the coronavirus pandemic (Burke, 2020). Other universities have gone further: Southern New Hampshire University has offered freshman scholarships and will cut tuition by 61% for the next school year. The University of Maryland has delayed the start of the semester for individuals by two weeks as the number of cases soared across the country. California State University also made significant waves in 2020 when it announced it would offer its online hybrid courses in the fall (EdSource, 2020). About 80% of students replied positively when asked if tuition for the online hybrid class should be lower than it would have been for in person classes. Scientists have also argued that the coronavirus could help lower the cost of higher education by forcing institutions to adapt their business models to virtual classes. Tuition fees and fees for online courses can be significantly lower compared to traditional institutions. Because online students can learn from home, they can avoid the dormitory and food costs that accompany living on campus as well as the transportation costs paid to live on campus for attending traditional courses. If an online student lives in another state, they may also benefit from their state’s university tuition. Online college rates may seem like a chore, but the reality is that secondary education can be more affordable than is assumed. Some colleges argue that the value of the degrees they offer has not changed, and many students say their virtual learning experience is not worth the high price tag. Students are also found who’ve not received any significant reduction in their tuition fees like those who learn from afar because of various natural disasters and catastrophes, such as COVID-19, which will be looked upon closely in the next section.

The COVID-19 Pandemic, Education, and International Education Mobility

Little doubt exists that new economic and political realities will affect international students’ mobility and enrollment. If COVID-19 continues to disrupt higher education and international student mobility, the number of enrollees in the United States and other countries around the world is likely to decline for at least the next few years if not longer.

Private universities in Greece that offer British qualifications with a guarantee of quality are expanding their offer to accommodate larger numbers of students by 2020. Branches in China are ready to take in thousands of students by the end of 2021, with plans in place for more than 1000 students per year. This transnational partnership will contribute to the development of a new generation of international students in higher education and international student mobility. This will be an important part of the subsequent reconstruction phase and a key element for Greece’s long-term economic and social stability. British universities have adapted remarkably quickly to the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and plans are now in place to secure a medium- and long-term future for the international education sector. In order to help UK universities, build on the transnational education (TNE) partnership, Universities UK International has launched a massive data update. Like so many affected sectors, the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted college professionals to rethink their strategies on internationalization. A live online panel sponsored by the International Education Policy Institute (IEPI) and the Centre for International Studies at Cambridge University delivered the message that demand for education in an internationalist environment will continue to grow. The European Association for International Education (EAIE) has collected 805 responses from people working in higher education in Europe and found that almost 75% expect the pandemic impact on student mobility from abroad to be “significant” or “very significant” (Mercado, 2020). At the same time, EAIE stresses the need to compromise on the recruitment of 600,000 international students by 2030. The quick fix is technological, but such changes are no guarantee of lower quality. A report from World Education Services (WES, 2019) showed the decline in the market for international students to likely lead to a rise in costs of more than 50% for universities and colleges by 2030. In a March 2020 study of 234 American universities by the Institute for International Education, three out of four schools said the virus had forced them to cancel plans for international students. Adding to the security concerns regarding COVID-19, American schools have the highest number of international student visas in the United States. A survey of 8481 students who had applied to study in the United Kingdom for the autumn 2021 semester found 39% to state they would “probably” or “very likely” cancel their plans and another 39% to state being “undecided” (Dennis, 2020b). The reasons are clear why post-COVID-19 will accelerate the decline in international educational mobility and increase costs for universities and colleges. If COVID-19 continues to ravage the Earth, a precipitous decline will occur in the American model within a few years. One can understand the importance of international educational mobility and the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, and a brief discussion describing the benefits of whether online education could be a viable alternative to retaining international students would be beneficial. The pandemic and subsequent responses reveal and reinforce the need for global education, especially for those studying outside the United States, as well as for the development of a global education system. Clearly, some of the 2020-cohorts still want to graduate from American institutions but have not begun their studies yet.

The results from a survey of 199 colleges involving the US Department of Education's National Center for International Student Assessment (NCSA) showed that the expected 200,000 international students will remain in their current institutions until the start of the academic year, with some expected to be admitted as newly enrolled international students (World Education News & Reviews, 2020).

That the recent pandemic may give target countries more equal opportunities is apparent, but it may also cause long-term problems for international students. The main host countries are the US, China, and the UK, accommodating a total of 1.75 million people. In addition, the experiences of Vietnam and other middle-income developing countries also serve as an important example of how the role of international education in developing health care and education for the poor and the weak can be rethought.

The Digital Revolution in Higher Education

One would probably agree that the COVID-19 pandemic has instigated a digital revolution in academia and higher education. Social distancing, months-long quarantines, and economic shutdowns have forced the majority of people working in academia and higher education not only to complete their personal transition to the fully functional and operational online system. Due to the crisis the coronavirus epidemic has induced, innovations in academia and higher education that would have normally taken several years due to the various contradictory administrative regulations have now been introduced promptly over a matter of days. This is a clear example of the Schumpeterian “creative destruction” in the making that will forever change the status quo in academia and higher education.

Since their very origins in medieval Europe, universities have had two main goals: providing the representatives of the powerful political and business elites a place for networking (and making them even more powerful) and preparing the offspring of those elites to take over the family businesses (Strielkowski, 2015).

With regard to the above, Wissema (2009) described the evolution of universities, presenting them in three generations: medieval universities, research universities (Humboldt-type universities), and finally high-tech, science-, and technology-driven entrepreneurial universities.

Nowadays we appear to be entering into the next phase of the evolution in academia and higher education that will create the 4th generation of universities, which one can call online and digital universities (see Fig. 2). Much of that is because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which launched a digital revolution in academia and higher education.

Fig. 2
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Evolution of academia and higher education

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Current technology has finally provided us with all the tools needed for making higher education fully online and digital. So why are we reluctant to make this final step? Are we ready for that change?

The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has been a push factor that can help everyone better understand that all the attributes of higher education such as online thesis defense, online entrance, and final exams, as well as online academic jobs, are as effective as those conducted in person. Here are some examples: on March 18 and 20, 2020, Imperial College London conducted the world’s first online exams for its 280 six-year medical students (Tapper et al., 2020). The digital “open book” exam was successfully delivered remotely, and many universities in the United Kingdom and worldwide are now likely to follow Imperial College London’s strategy as a solution for examining students during the COVID-19 shutdown. According to one of the students who’d taken the exam, this was a good experience because medical school finals measure a higher level of learning than just remembering information. The tests focus on students’ ability to synthesize information, to come up with a diagnosis, and to interpret complex data (see Ali, 2020).

In addition, conducting doctoral defenses online suddenly became possible due to the coronavirus pandemic. On March 26, 2020, the first online doctoral defense took place under the Erasmus School of Economics in Rotterdam (2020). Zhaowen Qian defended her doctoral dissertation titled “Time-Varying Integration and Portfolio Choices in the European Capital Markets.”

In addition, if the exams and doctoral defenses can be done online, so can graduations. In Japan, despite the fact that spring graduation ceremonies had been canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic, the students at the Business Breakthrough University in Tokyo attended remotely by controlling avatar robots from their homes through the Internet and having access to robot’s cameras and microphones to fully interact and emerge themselves in the process (Reuters, 2020; The Guardian, 2020).

Digitalization in higher education allows lectures to be streamed online and professors and students to interact in the virtual environments; however, not everyone is ready for this. Even youths who do not spend much time in the “real world” but instead prefer playing video games or interacting with others on social network platforms have confessed that they would prefer being lectured in real classrooms in real universities. Sometimes this is just a matter of habit, but quite often this can be attributed to the difficulties that emerge with managing personal time or procrastination when students are left studying online from the comfort of their home (Strielkowski et al., 2020).

With regard to the above, one can distinguish three main types of people in today’s academia and higher education (see Blaginin et al., 2019):

  • Lecturers: typically engaged in delivering lectures to students (several lectures a week, several days a week). Some lecturers are good public speakers, are popular among their students, and enjoy their work. However, most lecturers lack time for writing and publishing research papers, and many of them loath this activity. Most (but not all) lecturers often use the same (often outdated) material (Power Point slides) for many consecutive lecture courses year after year.

  • Researchers: writing and publishing many research papers and monographs. Researchers know all about the publishing process, bibliometrics, and how this system works. Many researchers are terrible public speakers and prefer to not lecture whenever possible (quite often they “buy out” their lecture time with the research papers or grant projects).

  • Businessmen: the rarest type of academician. Businessmen are the directors of research centers, professors, deans, and chancellors. They had previously been lecturers or researchers but discovered their leadership skills. Many businessmen are proficient in writing and securing grant proposals and obtaining funding for their institutions.

Ideally, one should exhibit the traits of all three types in order to increase their appeal to potential employers, even though this is a very rare case among the majority of academicians. Therefore, one should discover what type of academician they are and try to develop their skills in this particular field. All three types are likely to be transformed after the digital revolution in academia and higher education, but all of them still have an important place in the 4th generation of universities.

Two years ago, I participated in the “NextGen VOICES: A postdoc’s purpose” organized by the Science journal. We were asked to provide an answer to the following question: “What is the purpose of a postdoc? Address this question by writing a job advertisement for the perfect postdoc position.” This is what I wrote:

Approaching 40 and still without a tenured position? Join our Ivy League university and let the Matthew effect boost your career. We are a cronyism-free workplace. You are encouraged to pursue your own research interests. Your publication output is more important for us than any teaching or administrative obligations. Our prestigious location incurs high living costs, but you can work remotely and enjoy more time with your family. (Strielkowski, 2018)

My letter was placed into the “Idealists” section. Back then, such an advert seemed to be unrealistic. Now, only two years later, my job advert for the ideal postdoc position may become a reality.

Many researchers in academia have no obligation to teach and can do most of their work online. Working on research projects, preparing and submitting reports and journal papers, and even supervising theses, all of these can be done online. In fact, for the past 5 years or so, I have conducted all my academic job interviews online, with most interviewers using Skype or WebEx.

A plethora of bright and talented researchers exist who could greatly contribute to the work of many prominent universities if the salaries those universities paid were enough to maintain their lifestyle. The cost of living in Cambridge or Berkeley, where I used to live and work, is enormous (and this is not to mention that one could not survive there if they also had a family to support). Even though a study might be extremely inspiring and rewarding, or the people you meet on an everyday basis are the world’s top of the top in their respective scientific fields, the conditions under which one has to survive are undignified. One has to pay horrendous sums of money for a small dull room with a shared bathroom and commute to work by foot or by bicycle.

Surely, sexagenarian and septuagenarian professors struggle with online lectures and prefer face-to-face meetings. However, today’s lectures have to be innovative. Simply showing the same PowerPoint slides year after year no longer works. In order to grasp students’ attention, lecturers need to constantly update their material and refer to the most recent publications, scientific discoveries, or perhaps even to popular culture. This is the modern way of teaching and is also very fruitful for the lecturers themselves; by explaining new things to students, they can better understand these things themselves.

A reviewer once commented on my paper (Strielkowski, 2018) on the transition of modern education: “As someone who is teaching at the university since the 1980s and who has taught with blackboards, whiteboards, overhead projectors, and PowerPoint, I am not really sure if teaching with MS PowerPoint slides is better for students than to teach with a blackboard, where the students have to write permanently their own notes. In my view, the students are more attentive in the latter scenario than in the former one, because they assume that they know enough if the presentation slides are in their bags or laptops.” This clearly shows that some people are not ready for the digital revolution.

Moreover, the coronavirus pandemic and social distancing that have forced most universities worldwide to close can assist in cutting down the time spent on endless department, faculty, and board meetings. Often, one has to travel for an hour or two just to sign a single form. There is a high percentage of the so-called “bullshit jobs” (Graeber, 2019) in higher education. Endless meetings, colloquia, or discussions without an end, all these things create many obstacles and steal valuable time. This is not to mention that scientists are expected to travel frequently but forgoing one transcontinental flight per year would decrease carbon emissions more than driving a hybrid car, buying green energy, or eating vegan food would (Kumar et al., 2019).

Conclusions and Implications

Overall, international education mobility is undergoing rapid and profound changes in the twenty-first century. Some of these changes (e.g., digitalization) were anticipated, while others (e.g., the impact of COVID-19 on international travel or public safety) have become a “black swan” that no one could imagine or predict. Nevertheless, the most interesting new trends in the international education mobility in my opinion are the unpredicted ones caused by this unusual and unexpected situation. There would be many, and all would be very interesting to assess, analyze, and study for our own benefit as well as for the benefit of future generations.

Clearly, many traditional principles of academic life, including international student mobility and tuition processes, are going to be reshaped due to the recent experience with the COVID-19 pandemic. While some are afraid of moving away from the status quo, others are willing to undertake this path. This “creative destruction” (see Schumpeter, 1942) is likely to change academia and higher education as we know them forever.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and all the unprecedented changes it has brought, the online tuition was often viewed as incomplete, supplementary, or inefficient. The coronavirus pandemic will surely alter these views and change these perceptions. The major and most ubiquitous impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on academia and higher education is that the innovations leading to their digitalization, which would normally have taken months or perhaps years under normal circumstances (mostly due to the red tape and the administrative and legal regulations) were promptly solved and introduced in a matter of weeks or even days. The K-12 and higher education sectors have turned out to already have all the tools necessary for online lectures, teleconferencing, and digital open books exams, but they had been reluctant to exploit them and unleash their full potential, perhaps waiting for better days or a more suitable time in the future.

The coronavirus pandemic struck unexpectedly and forced academic stakeholders to act quickly. Most of them appear to have reacted well. However, the intriguing question is whether the K-12 and higher education sectors are going to return to what one can call the “offline status quo” after the pandemic is resolved. The longer this shutdown lasts, the smaller the probability is that the digital revolution in K-12 and higher education will be reversed after things return to normal.

When addressing international student mobility, the pandemic will bring its consequences as well. Going abroad to study is going to become more expensive and cumbersome (at least temporarily, at least for several months to several years following the COVID-19 pandemic). Many potential international pupils and students at both the K-12 and university levels will reconsider their options and perspectives. In the future, one would tend to think twice before embarking on a long trip abroad to spend several years in a school or college for bringing home a foreign diploma. Online education tools are going to become ubiquitous and effective, allowing one to study at prestigious universities from the far corners of the world at a margin of the traditional tuition fees. However, these changes are going to provide some new currents and innovations for the further development of education and international student mobility in the years to come.