Retention rates for international first-year students in selected OECD host countries in 2015 and 2020

How many international students stay in their host country after graduation? And how significant are the differences between the various host countries? These are the questions addressed by the OECD’s International Migration Outlook, published at the end of 2022, which looks at how many international students remain in their host countries after graduation.

The OECD analysis compares the proportions of international first-year students in the OECD countries under consideration who were still in the respective country after five or ten years. For this purpose, the two five-year retention rates of the 2010 and 2015 first-year cohorts were calculated on the one hand, and the ten-year retention rate of the 2010 first-year cohort on the other.

Comparing the ten-year retention rates between 2010 and 2020 in the countries considered, Germany with a rate of 45% is just ahead of Canada with 44%. It is followed by Australia (29%), New Zealand (27%), Sweden (22%) and Japan (21%). The corresponding shares are comparatively low in the United Kingdom (16%), Switzerland (14%), the Netherlands (12%) and Italy (11%). It is also striking that in many countries the five-year retention rate of the 2015 intake is higher than that of the 2010 intake, for example in Canada (64% vs. 54%), Germany (63% vs. 54%), Australia (48% vs. 43%) and France (43% vs. 34%).