What do student visas cost? A global comparative analysis

Abstract

A visa is often required for international student mobility. The costs for this vary enormously, as data from the Global Mobilities Project (GMP) shows. Students from the Global South sometimes pay more than twice as much as students from Europe. The differences are even greater when the standard of living is taken into account: While the costs for students from Western Europe amount to only a fraction of the average daily income, students from Central Asia would have to work for almost three weeks and those from sub-Saharan Africa for more than five weeks to afford a visa. The overall result is therefore a paradoxical situation: students from richer countries have to pay less if they want to be internationally mobile. These global inequalities are connected to injustices at the individual level and point to the dysfunctionality of visa regimes that structurally restrict the international mobility of talented people from the Global South.