This book describes how the number of international students has grown in 150 years, from 60,000 to nearly 4 million. It examines the policies adopted towards them by institutions and governments round the world, exploring who travelled, why, and who paid for them. In 1860 most international students travelled within Europe; by 2010 the largest numbers were from Asia. Foreign students have shaped the universities where they studied, been shaped by them, and gone on to change their own lives and societies. Policies for student mobility developed as a function of student demand and of institutional or national interest. At different times they were influenced by the needs of empire, by the cold war, by governments' search for soft power, by labour markets, and by the contribution students made to university finance. Along with university students, others travelled abroad to study: trainee nurses, military officers, the most deprived and the most privileged schoolchildren. All their stories are a vital part of the world's history of education and of its broader social and political history.

Hilary Perraton worked for most of his career in international education. He is a former deputy chair of the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the United Kingdom and in recent years has been a research associate of the von Hügel Institute, St Edmund's College, Cambridge, and a visiting fellow at the University of London Institute of Education. His previous books includeA history of foreign students in BritainandLearning abroad: A history of the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan.

List of tables.- Acknowledgments.- 1 Introduction.- Part one: Narratives.- 2 Origins: Student travel before the First World War.- 3 Rise and fall: Between the wars.- 4 Thirty glorious years: Postwar ideology and development.- 5 Cooperation or competition: Into the market.- Part two: Themes.- 6 Children of the gorgeous east: Indian students and Britain.- 7 Profitable work for Uncle Sam? American two-way traffic.- 8 Warm welcome in the cold war: The competition for students.- 9 Get them young: Children across borders.- 10 The soldiers' tales: International military training.- 11 Follow the money: Who has met the costs and why.- 12 Conclusion.- Index.