Although already publishes some time ago, it still makes sense to review the JRC report Student mobility in tertiary education: institutional factors and regional attractiveness. The report analyses the mobility movements to European countries for both degree-seeking students and credit-seeking students.
It attests that degree mobility is much bigger in Europe than credit mobility: about 10% of students are international degree-seeking students while only 1,1% are credit-seeking. It notes that part of the explanation may be that there are much more non-European degree-seeking students than credit-seeking, but it seems to ignore the factor that degree-seeking students stay for much longer periods than credit-seekers.
The report also notes the institution is more important than the region, although credit students tend to favour urban institutions much less than degree-seekers.
One very remarkable omission: there appear to be no data on degree-seeking students in the Netherlands. With 122 000 international students in the Netherlands (2016-17), this seems a big omission. The University Maastricht with almost 9 000 international students should figure in the top 10 in Europe (on place 7) but is nowhere to be seen.
