Getting into one of the world’s top 200 universities abroad shouldn't feel like navigating a maze. But for most families, it does.
Currently over 6 million students are studying outside their home country. A number projected to keep climbing. Behind every one of those students is a family that had to figure it all out - often without a reliable map.
Here's what makes it so hard.
The QS and TimesHigher Education rankings together evaluate over 1,500 universities. But a top-200 ranking tells a family almost nothing about whether a specific programme is the right fit for their student: their grades, their budget, their career ambitions, the country they want to live in for three or four years.
Post-study work rights, safety, affordability, and political stability are also central to student decision-making - not just prestige. Yet most information families can find online is too generic to be useful, or too sales-driven to be trusted.
Cost is a crucial factor in decision-making and students are applying to more programmes than ever — typically four to five, a 250% increase compared to previous years (Educations.com survey). That's not students being indecisive. That's students and parents casting a wide net because they don't have the targeted, personalised information they need to narrow it down sooner.
Think about what a family is actually trying to work out:
- Which universities will realistically accept my child's grades?
- Which programmes genuinely lead to the career they want?
- What will this actually cost — tuition, living, visa, flights — and is there scholarship money on the table?
- Is this country safe, welcoming, and stable enough right now?
- What are the visa and post-study work rules, and have they changed recently?
These are not small questions. And the answers change depending on whether you're a student fromIndia, China, Europe, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Brazil or elsewhere. Students come with very different needs, expectations, and earning potential at home — which means the return-on-investment calculation is necessarily different depending on where you're coming from. (ICEF Monitor survey)
The internet is full of content on studying abroad. Rankings websites. University brochures. YouTube vlogs. Reddit threads. Agent websites with undisclosed commercial relationships. It's not a shortage of information — it's a shortage of trust worthy, personalised information.
That gap has consequences. Families make expensive, life-altering decisions based on incomplete pictures. Students end up in programmes that don't align with their goals, in countries where the visa rules shifted six months ago, or at universities they could have received a scholarship nobody told them about.
For a family doing this for the first time, the complexity is daunting.
They deserve better information. Clear. Accurate. Built around their specific situation — not around what's easiest to sell them.
That's a problem worth solving.
