国际学生作为国家项目：各州如何打造高等教育品牌

作者：Evelyn Kim、Annette Bamberger 和 Sazana Jayadeva

从学生选择到国家战略

International student mobility is often framed as a story of individual aspiration. Students, it is widely assumed, choose destinations based on rational calculations of what they stand to gain: prestigious degrees, global networks, enhanced career prospects, and immersion in new sociocultural contexts amongst others.这种叙述以学生和较小程度上的机构为中心，这些机构争夺他们的赞助。 Yet it often obscures the role of the state in shaping where, and how, international education is imagined in the first place (Bamberger & Kim, 2022;Sidhu, 2006).

The recruitment of international students has increasingly become a national project. While established destinations such as the UK have long maintained coordinated campaigns and online platforms to promote their higher education systems, what is particularly noteworthy today is the spread of such initiatives across a wider range of countries. Governments now invest in coordinated branding campaigns, frequently under the moniker “Study in X” websites (such as Study in Hong Kong and Study in Germany), that promote entire higher education systems under the national banner, often accompanied by social media channels such as Facebook and YouTube. These platforms are carefully curated spaces through which states project what they perceive makes their country distinctive and attractive as a study destination.

We argue that this constitutes a form of nation branding: the strategic creation and projection of ‘the nation’ throughhigher education (Kim & Bamberger, 2025;Lomeret al, 2018). These campaigns do not focus solely on academic excellence or global competitiveness. They weave together claims about innovation, economic power, cultural richness, affordability and safety, constructing an integrated narrative in which higher education becomes a gateway to the nation.

Different paths, different priorities