The global Higher Education sector is a very large and diverse market with each its own challenges, specialities and uniqueness, depending on target courses and establishment. However it is not diffuclt to identity the classic big trends that are shaping the sector based on common drivers such as technology, consumer needs and global economic drivers.

Diverse Student Float: As per various studies over the years, the big reality is that the diversity of student float (ie, number of students of different races, ethnicty, chosen areas of specialization) as they cross borders will continue to grow. Countries of source, continue to be India, China, Korea, Thailand and destinations continue to be United States, UK, Australia and Germany / Canada.

Heavy On-line Focus: ASU, Arizona State University converted its first year program to a completely online program making it so much more affordable for students and cutting overall cost of running the program. Many online programs cost about a third of the regular full time course costs thus making overseas higher education much more affordable.

Campaigns for Funding: Univesity education in the US, and many EU nations are funded partly by state and that state-funding was recently cut down. In the United States, state funding fell by about $7 Bil last year alone, thus pushing universities to raise funding campaigns from private donors / corporations and other trusts. This has revitalized the universities to relook at courses that are truly useful and benchmark themselves against the best, drop less useful prorgams and courses.

Mentoring and Leadership Following: Students are no longer expected to merely pass exams and get their degrees but now really need to introspect as to what they want to achieve out of their time and money spent for a degree. They need to shadow mentor and understand the unique tie-lines between courses and industry. Figure out how corporations are changing and apply new ways to learn, and adapt those to the professional lines they expect to take. They are required to intern with companies, start-ups and enrich their programs with real learning.

Universities will be data-driven: Universities will be increasingly data-driven. Not that they are not already but the data dependency will grow exponentially. In fact, it is likely that the Universities might approach star student performers in foreign countries based on their performance and projects as displayed on Git-hub, global contests, hackathons and or eco-friendly school projects or other international competitions. A young student in Fiji could be tracked and mentored remotely for a program that is going to start only 2 year hence. Universities will increasingly adopt automation perform with higher level of complexity to capture data at various planes and enhance their decision making.