The Asian region has figured prominently in studies of international student migration, with scholars highlighting the rapid advancement of Asian universities and the growing influence of international students in higher education. Much has been written about the massive state funds poured into teaching and research, and the rising number of students seeking degrees in emerging education hubs within the region.

Yet, existing studies have tended to focus on specific sites and subjects – in particular, wealthy “global cities” such as Singapore and Hong Kong, where local institutions compete with prestigious counterparts in the West. Fewer scholars have looked into the role of institutions in other less developed locations in today’s knowledge-based economy, in which lower-tier universities with limited academic resources, also seek to compete for foreign students.

Despite an obvious lack of academic prestige, these institutions seek to take advantage of a growing international market for higher education. They do so by catering specifically to less privileged students unable to access more desirable destinations, either in the West or within the region.

Institutions within this segment of the Asian higher education market often utilise the same discourses of internationalisation and human capital development that more “prestigious” universities use. Yet, at the same time, institutional efforts to put these discourses into practice vary widely on the ground. In this article, I describe three cases, based on research studies conducted by myself and two other scholars who sought to investigate unlikely cases of higher education and mobility within the Asian region.

First, Le Ha Phan’s work reveals how regional universities in Vietnam attempt to create a “global” image by offering English-language programmes, despite the limited capacities of teachers and students within the institution. Phan describes how such programmes encourage two very different migration flows: an influx of English-speaking teachers from neighbouring countries such as the Philippines, as well as the internal movement of poor, rural students within Vietnam. Phan describes how, despite a strong desire to seek global education as a means to social mobility, students develop a sense of “educational mediocrity,” or are resigned to the uneven quality of their “global” education.

In contrast, Peidong Yang’s research challenges the traditional belief that international student mobility is always a rational desire to accumulate human and social capital. As Yang notes, this view of the motivation of students reinforces the assumption that students tend to move towards institutions in the “English-speaking West”; in reality, students move for a variety of reasons, not all of which are necessarily calculative and purposefully strategic.

His research shows how lower-middle/working class Indian students pursue Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degrees in provincial level Chinese universities. Such a phenomenon is not insignificant, given that there are now up to 10,000 Indian students in 50 Chinese colleges. In his ethnographic fieldwork in both China and India, Yang argues that such movement is characterised by compromise, chance, and complicity with mediocre educational experiences. In this sense, Indian medical students in Yang’s study see their move towards China as a way of negotiating educational desires and social expectations within the realities of their limited resources and abilities to enter more selective medical schools.

Lastly, my own work investigates the creation of an unlikely education hub in Manila, Philippines. Like Yang and Phan’s work, I find that while Philippine universities do not possess the quality education that attracts students to other countries, these institutions have also seen a growing number of international students from countries such as South Korea, Nigeria, and India. Yet, in contrast to Vietnam and China, Philippine universities appeal to students seeking qualifications in professions where Filipino migrants are highly represented – nursing, medicine, and seafaring – either to gain an advantage within their home countries, or as a stepping stone towards jobs in the Middle East and North America. Here, Filipino school owners and state officials build off the country’s reputation as a top source of migrant labour, marketing Philippine universities as the best venue to train for jobs found anywhere in the world.

All three studies emphasise the diversity of knowledge institutions and student mobilities within the region, and how such “unlikely” locations create different forms of migration within a segment of the higher education market largely ignored in current academic scholarship.

These gaps signal new possibilities for higher education studies in the future – in particular, a direction that is likely to move towards studying different motivations, different cohorts of students, in different types of institutions.

This article is based on a panel presentation entitled “Discrepant Student Mobilities and Unlikely ‘Global’ Universities in Vietnam, the Philippines, and China” at the International Conference on Asian Studies 2017 at Chiang Mai, Thailand.