Internationalization in higher education: a look at the years 1999-2013 from the perspectives of the countries with the most international students and turkey

As one of the most important topics of internationalization in higher education, international student mobility has turned into an area which countries and higher education institutions from all over the world have been focusing on and developing policies since 1980s. Data on international student mobility from UNESCO (2016) show that the number of outgoing international students all over the world has been more than four million doubling in the last fifteen years. While the increase in student mobility and the economic return of such activities increase the competition in this area, this also requires questioning both the position and the trends of Turkey over the years. In this study, the world countries with the highest inflow of international students along with Turkey and the change in their international student profiles are evaluated based on the available data between 1999 and 2013. The findings indicate a change over time in the patterns of international student flow with respect to the number of incoming students and the regions of their home countries both for world countries and Turkey. These findings are expected to shed light on the Turkish higher education policies on internationalization