For years, the United States held a firm lead as the top destination for international graduate business school candidates. That is changing.
GMAC’s Prospective Students Survey 2026, which tracked nearly 4,300 candidates across 145 countries throughout 2025, shows a measurable and accelerating shift away from the US as a preferred study destination, and the data suggests it moved in real time over the course of the year.
Among non-US citizens, preference for studying in the United States stood at 34% in 2024. By 2025, it had dropped to 28%. Western Europe, by contrast, rose to 45%. This, according to the report, is its highest recorded level in the survey’s history.
The shift is also visible in application plans, which track where candidates actually intend to settle, not just where they’d ideally study. At the start of 2025, 63% of global candidates planned to apply to US programmes. By the final quarter, that figure had fallen to 52%. This marks a 10-point drop within a single year.
The steepest decline came from Central and South Asian candidates, a group that includes some of the largest sources of international business school talent.
Among this group, plans to apply to US programmes fell from 72% in Q1 to 49% by Q4, a 21-point drop over 12 months, the report notes.
The 2026 report tracks candidate sentiment on US government policies month by month from May 2024 onward. Following the January 2025 inauguration, the share of non-US candidates reporting they were less likely to pursue GME in the United States rose steadily.
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The report cites announcements related to global tariffs, potential changes to the H-1B visa program, and broader immigration policy as contributing factors.
Where are they going instead?
Western Europe is the clearest beneficiary. Among non-US citizens, it is now the top preferred study destination at 45%, up from 41% in 2024.
Central and South Asian candidates, the group that showed the sharpest US decline, increased their application plans to Western Europe, Eastern Europe, and East and Southeast Asia over the same period. Their application plans to East and Southeast Asian programs doubled from Q1 to Q4 of 2025.
Plans to apply to programs in the Middle East, while still small in absolute terms, grew from 2% to 9% among this group within the same year. Latin American candidates also shifted preference toward Western Europe over the US in 2025, as did candidates from Central and South Asia.
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The 2026 report describes candidates as ‘building broader application strategies across markets’ rather than anchoring plans to a single country.
Career pivot is no longer the point
Alongside the geographic shift, the survey also documents a change in why candidates want to go to business school at all.
In 2022, 58% of global candidates said they wanted to pursue graduate management education to change their industry or job function. By 2025, that figure had fallen to 42% — a 16-point drop over four years. The decline was statistically significant across every age group. Among candidates aged 40 and older, the drop was 19 points.
The top motivation in 2025 was gaining business knowledge, cited by 72% of candidates — surpassing even the desire to increase income. The most consistent motivation across all years remains enriching life and developing potential, cited by 77% of candidates in 2025.
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Two-thirds of candidates said they want a global career, and half said they want to work abroad specifically.
AI is now a standard expectation of prospective students
In 2022, 17% of candidates said that learning to use AI tools was part of their ideal curriculum. This figure rose to 40% in 2023, increased further to 46% in 2024, and reached 50% by 2025.
AI has moved from a niche interest to the third most desired curriculum topic globally, sitting behind only strategy and business analytics. It now appears in the top five curricular priorities for candidates across almost every degree type, including full-time MBA, professional MBA, Master of Marketing, Master of Finance, Master of Entrepreneurship, Master of Business Analytics, and Master of Accounting candidates, all of whom ranked it in their top five. The exceptions were Master’s in Management and Master’s in International Management candidates.
Candidates say they want AI embedded in practical contexts, 66% want hands-on experience through simulations and business applications, and 62% want courses exploring how AI contributes to business strategy development.
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Gender gap in how people want to study
In 2025, 79% of male candidates globally preferred to study full-time and in person. Among women, the figure was 67%. That 12-point gap is the largest recorded in the survey since at least 2019.
In 2024, women had been a driver of the resurgence in in-person learning preference. That reversed in 2025, women’s preference for full-time in-person study fell while men’s rose.
The report notes that first-generation candidates follow a similar pattern to women. Among first-generation candidates, 64% prefer full-time in-person study, compared to 77% of those whose parents hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. Be it online, blended, or hybrid, and part-time in-person formats, each attracted 10% of first-generation candidates, equal shares across all three alternatives.
