How much do in-study work hours really shape international student choices?

QS MidWeek Brief - August 27, 2025

Welcome! Last month, New Zealand’s international education sector made global headlines when it announced plans to double student numbers. One of the key measures to achieve this goal was plans to increase in-study work hours.

If enacted, this change won’t be the first time a country has adjusted in-study work hours, so this week in the QS Midweek Brief we ask the most important question: does it actually attract more international students? We also go to Argentina, in advance of October’s QS Higher Ed Summit: Americas, to discover the country’s higher ed sector faces familiar challenges and opportunities.

Stay insightful,
Anton John Crace
Editor, QS Insights Magazine, QS

To Work or Not to Work

By Nick Harland

In Brief

• Major study destinations are dramatically increasing or removing in-study work hour limits for international students, hoping to boost their appeal and enrolments.
• While a powerful 'selling point', experts caution it's just one factor among many, like visa rules. A majority of international students already work, driven not just by career goals but by rising living costs and to gain financial independence.
• Though many students successfully balance academics and work, there's growing concern that economic necessity could compromise academic focus. This policy is rapidly shifting from a career-enhancing bonus to a vital survival tool for students, profoundly reshaping global higher education strategy.

 Growth. It seems to be the word on everyone’s lips at pretty much every university in the world. But whilst most universities agree that they need growth, it’s a little harder to find consensus on how exactly to achieve it.

That quandary lies at the heart of a new higher education plan recently unveiled by Education New Zealand, fittingly entitled ‘Going for Growth’, which sets out how the country plans to boost its international student numbers by 35,000 over the next decade. Central to the strategy is a proposal to increase the number of hours that international students can work during their studies, from 20 hours per week to 25.

It follows similar initiatives in Canada and Germany, where caps on working hours for international students were increased in 2024. But not everyone is convinced these changes will deliver that much-desired growth in foreign student numbers.

“I personally don’t think that the hours you are allowed to work as an international student is amongst the most crucial factors for choosing Germany as a study destination,” says Yvonne Hall, Head of International Relations at Mannheim Business School. “Students will ask about it, but other things are at least as important to them or even more important,” citing language requirements as the factor that international students in Germany most often ask about.

Andreza André da Rocha, Senior Career Development and Employer Relations Manager at ESMT Berlin, largely agrees. "The prospect of being able to work a considerable number of hours is a very good selling point for universities,” she says, adding that an increase in the limit could ‘potentially’ attract more international students. However, she too says that it’s only one ingredient of a much bigger cocktail of factors that attract students to a country.

That cocktail of factors is probably the biggest reason why the policy’s effectiveness is so difficult to judge. Just take the curious case of Australia. In January 2022, the government removed the cap on the number of hours that international students were allowed to work, which sparked warnings over unintended side effects.

On the face of things, the change did seem to spark an increase in international student numbers, going from 501,312 in 2022 to 644,358 the following year. However, that increase may also have been down to relaxed visa regulations and international students returning to the country after COVID restrictions were lifted. The country subsequently reversed their decision in July 2023, but student visa approvals still went on to hit record numbers in late 2024.

Even if it’s difficult to say with any certainty whether this move boosts international student numbers, one thing does seem certain: students typically take advantage of being able to work alongside their studies. According to research carried out by the UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA), 77 percent percent of international students work while they study, compared to 68 percent percent of home students.

Another study by the UK’s Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) showed that part-time work was more likely to be done to pay bills and reduce debt rather than career development. These figures seem to align with those of other countries. Hall says around 80-90 percent of Mannheim students have a job, while ESMT Berlin student Huy Vu estimates around two-thirds of his classmates work alongside their studies.

"I think the right to work for a certain amount of hours per week is definitely an advantage,” he tells QS Insights Magazine. “With 20 hours per week, and with the minimum wage in Berlin, you can earn enough money for bills, food and other things." He also notes that higher education in Germany is often free or heavily subsidised, so being able to work is even more valuable to international students.

Although Vu doesn’t just work for financial reasons, his work at a Berlin AI startup is closely related to his Master’s in Global Management, the money certainly doesn’t hurt. "I wanted to be more independent from my family so that I could have more financial stability and freedom."

The idea of financial freedom isn’t exactly an old one, but it has been shunted further into the spotlight since the global cost of living crisis started. Some students are starting to feel the pinch. da Rocha says that students’ decision to work a side job is partly motivated by an increase in the cost of living in Germany, and it’s a similar story a few oceans away in Auckland, New Zealand.

“Living in Auckland can be quite expensive, and while I do receive support from my family, I also want to earn my own income,” says Yan Xuan, an international student at Massey University. She welcomes the increase in working hours. “Many part-time jobs on the market now offer 25-hour shifts, which is quite frustrating for those of us on student visas limited to 20 hours per week. If I were allowed to work 25 hours, I probably would.”

However, Xuan says concerns over graduate employability are likely to supersede in-study working hours. “The change might have been more attractive before they realised how bleak the job market in New Zealand currently is,” she laments.

Like Vu, Xuan also highlights the career benefits of working alongside your studies, saying work experience is ‘both valued and often expected in the job market here.’ But as the cost of living crisis deepens, so too may the need for students to work more hours to fund their education. It means that many industry figures are wary of further increases in the number of hours that students are allowed to work.

"There has to be a balance,” says da Rocha. “And there's a risk if students need to take advantage of this 20 hours per week from the start of their programme because they need to finance their studies." At ESMT, staff often suggest to students that they focus on their studies for the first half of the programme because of the academic workload.

Nick is a freelance copywriter, writer and founder of Big Bang Copy. As a freelancer, he has written content for Specsavers, Numan, Ricoh, Hearst and many more. He specialises in education, healthcare and music, but has written about everything from financial services to luxury travel. In 2021, he founded the copywriting agency Big Bang Copy. He works with a small network of freelancers on bigger copywriting projects such as website rewrites or marketing campaigns.

Argentina at a Cross Roads

By Seb Murray

In Brief

• Argentina's tuition-free higher education system faces an uncertain future amidst government budget cuts and economic instability.
• Deep cuts, including up to 70% budget reductions for public universities and scholarship cuts, combined with a weak peso and high inflation, threaten educational quality despite continued international student appeal.
• As Argentina's higher education faces an existential crossroads, some institutions are innovating with digital internationalisation to ensure global access without physical mobility, aiming to democratise and preserve quality.

Argentina’s higher education system is at a turning point, yet its long-standing combination of academic prestige and open access has set it apart across Latin America.

At its centre is the Universidad de Buenos Aires — Latin America’s most prestigious university, ranked 84th in the world in the 2026 QS World University Rankings. Adding to its appeal, Argentina offers something fairly rare: tuition-free education at public universities for both local and international students, a policy protected under the national constitution.

Up until now, this policy has attracted students from across Latin America and beyond. But last year, the Argentine government, under President Javier Milei, tried to start charging international students tuition fees, a move that was rejected by lawmakers. But the future of the policy remains an open question.

This debate over tuition comes at a time of deep economic strain. In Argentina, prices are still rising quickly, even though inflation has eased from extreme highs. In 2023, the peso lost about 78 percent of its value against the US dollar after a government devaluation, and has kept falling since, though at slower rates.

For international students, a weak currency can make Argentina cheaper at first if they bring money from stronger currencies, but high inflation can quickly reduce those savings. For Argentine scholars going abroad, the same weak peso makes studying overseas far more expensive.

These currency pressures are not the only challenge facing students and universities. Last year, public universities had their funding cut sharply; in some cases losing around 70 percent of their budget.

The cuts, introduced under Milei’s government, have led to large protests and raised worries that tuition-free education in the country may not be able to continue in the same way in the future.

The Alure of Argentina

Even amid a deepening economic crisis, Argentina has continued to attract many international students, especially from nearby countries. In 2022, the latest widely reported official year, its universities had about 123,000 foreign students, roughly 4 percent of all undergraduates and graduates.

The capital, Buenos Aires, welcomed more than 50,000 international students that year, including about 20,000 enrolled in university programmes and many others taking short courses or enrolled in language studies.

For many students, Argentina’s tuition-free public universities are exceptionally appealing. In Latin America, about one in four people live on less than US$6.85 a day. For many families, that makes the cost of studying in another country impossible to afford, but for others makes tuition-free universities in Argentina a very attractive proposition.

Another advantage could be a shared language, Spanish. And little wonder that most of the international students in Argentina hail from nearby Latin American countries. The most recent figures from 2022 show that there were about 24,000 students from Brazil in Argentina. Another 17,000 came from Peru, with 14,000 from Colombia and 12,000 from Bolivia.

The numbers coming from Europe, North America and Asia are far lower. Meanwhile, the country’s higher education system is coming under immense strain. University budgets are under pressure from public spending cuts, inflation that has come down but is still high at nearly 40 percent in June, and a peso that remains weak. All of this makes it more expensive for universities to maintain campuses, pay staff and fund research.

That also makes it harder for international students to pay for costs like housing, food and transport because the peso is weak and inflation remains high.

In some cases, public institutions are stretched thin. In April last year, the Universidad de Buenos Aires warned that its budget had been cut 26 percent in nominal terms and about 80 percent in real terms, with inflation running close to 300 percent at the time. The shortfall forced professors to hold some classes by candlelight or even outdoors to save on energy costs.

Under President Milei, public university funding fell by about 30 percent in real terms during his first ten months in office. The cuts triggered massive protests in April, with tens of thousands marching in Buenos Aires and some students occupying campuses to demand the money be restored. It never was.

“I could never have trained without the free, public university system,” psychology graduate Ana Hoqui tells AFP at a protest. She said she was there to defend the system that had allowed her to study and build a career in medicine. “I feel it’s in danger,” she added.

Seb Murray is a journalist and editor who writes often for the Financial Times and has written for The Times, The Guardian, The Economist, The Evening Standard and BBC Worklife. He focuses on higher education and global business. He also produces a wide range of content for a range of corporate and academic institutions. Seb is also a recognised expert on higher education and speaks at international conferences.