Here’s a perfect example of serendipity.  I noticed that someone had visited my blog from this referrer:  Motivations for Studying Abroad and Immigration Intentions
The Case of Vietnamese Students, Journal of International Students.  Why?  Because the author cited this 2018 blog post:  Viet Nam Ranks 5th in International Enrollment in 3 Countries.  

It was written by Tran Le Huu Nghia is a research fellow at Informetrics Research Group and Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. His research interests include graduate employability, teaching and learning in higher education, international education, teacher education and TESOL. 

Below is the abstract:

This article reports a study that investigated prospective and current Vietnamese international students’ motivations to study abroad and their immigration intentions. Analyses of 55 intercept interviews and 313 responses to a survey revealed 12 push and pull factors that motivated students to pursue overseas studies and 18 sociocultural, economic, and political factors that influenced their immigration intentions. Independent samples t tests indicated that there were statistically significant differences in the influence of motivations on decisions to study overseas between groups of male and female students and prospective and current students. The analyses, furthermore, suggested that students’ immigration intentions depended on their personal attachment to the home country and (perceived) adaptability to the host country.

I highly recommend this short (16 pp.) article, if you’re interested in learning more about why young Vietnamese study overseas, including key push and pull factors. 

To further whet your appetite to read the entire article, here is part of the conclusion:  

In short, despite its limitations, this exploratory study found that international students were motivated by several factors to pursue international education overseas. The study also indicated that not all of the students were immigration hunters; many were willing to return their home for socioeconomic, cultural, and political reasons. Therefore, the fear that international students arrive in a host country to seek immigration opportunities is biased, especially when the host country has the power to adjust its policies regarding international students (e.g., Spinks, 2016).

I’ve had considerable first-hand experience over the past 14 years in Viet Nam with the fact that many Vietnamese students who study overseas at not “immigration hunters” and are returning home for “socioeconomic, cultural, and political reasons.”  The reasons are simple:  1) there’s much more to come back to in a growing number of fields; and 2) conditions in some of main host countries are not as favorable as in the past, to say the least.  

Shalom (שלום), MAA