Universities in the Grip of Geopolitical Shifts: The Decline of the US and the Rise of Europe?

Meelis Kitsing, Rector and Professor at EBS
Published in Äripäev: 30 April 2025
 

The 2024 university application survey by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), an organisation promoting management education worldwide, reveals growing interest in entrepreneurship and management education. Notably, interest in programmes offered in Europe (excluding the United Kingdom) has significantly increased.

Growing international interest
The survey, covering 1,090 programmes in 297 universities across 40 countries, showed that in 2024, European business schools experienced a 35% increase in international applicants compared to 2023. In contrast, the United States saw just a 1% increase, the Asia-Pacific region 6%, while the number of international applications decreased by 12% in the United Kingdom and by 29% in Canada during the same period.

It is important to clarify, however, that a significant proportion of these international applications still originated from within the same region — for example, European students increasingly opted for other European countries over the United States. Applicants from outside Europe accounted for 55% of applications to European master’s programmes in management education.

A notable development is also the rise in domestic applications: in Europe, these increased by 39%, compared to 19% in the US, 5% in Canada, and 40% in the Asia-Pacific region. Meanwhile, in the UK, domestic applications fell by a striking 45%.

High-quality and diverse business education
Several factors help explain the growth in applications to European business schools highlighted in the GMAC report. European schools have significantly improved their positions in international rankings in recent years compared to US institutions. In the Financial Times’ February 2025 ranking of MBA programmes, six out of the top ten institutions were European: IESE and Esade (Spain), INSEAD and HEC Paris (France), Bocconi (Italy), and London Business School (UK).

By comparison, only four US schools made the top ten: Wharton, Columbia, MIT, and Northwestern. Several well-known American universities have dropped in the rankings — for instance, Harvard Business School is now in 13th place (it was 4th in 2023 and 1st in 2014). In 2014, the top ten included eight US and only two European schools.

Europe offers diverse and high-quality education — often with lower tuition fees than leading US programmes — as well as strong international career prospects. For example, the two-year tuition fee for Spain’s IESE MBA programme, ranked 3rd by the FT, is €110,000, while the same duration at Wharton (University of Pennsylvania), ranked 1st, costs nearly $180,000 USD. That said, scholarships are often more substantial in the US, which may reduce the actual cost difference.

The geopolitical context
Although the GMAC data was collected before the return of the Trump administration, growing geopolitical instability and polarisation have affected interest in studying in the US. In recent months, US government policies on the economy, immigration, and education have added unpredictability and instability. This trend is visible even without the US government belonging to any higher education-focused “Signal group”. Based on the 2024 data, the growing interest in European management education may continue to rise, making European business schools even more appealing to those seeking diversity and international experience.

These developments present a clear opportunity for Estonia to expand the international reach of its management and entrepreneurship education by capitalising on its strengths. It is true that Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine has affected interest in studying in Estonia, as our location may be perceived as less favourable.

However, our strong culture of entrepreneurial experimentation helps offset this geopolitical challenge. Estonia stands out for its practical, innovation-driven solutions in entrepreneurship. According to the European Innovation Scoreboard, Estonian companies' investment in external R&D innovation and the proportion of innovative SMEs engaging in cooperation are well above the European average.

Estonia’s environment may be particularly appealing to students who view studying here as a chance to launch new ventures without excessive strategic overthinking in an uncertain world. As Peter Drucker famously said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

Opportunities for Estonian business education
Estonian management and entrepreneurship education must therefore embrace experimentation more boldly and recognise the export potential of education. There may be even greater promise in shorter, more focused programmes. Estonian universities already offer microdegree programmes, whose design and targeted delivery deserve more thorough consideration to make studying in Estonia even more attractive.

Although the prevailing attitude in Estonia is that summer is not a good time for studying, international students are actively looking for opportunities to study during the summer. Many Estonian universities already offer a variety of summer programmes. The Education and Youth Board provides scholarships for international students to participate in summer and winter programmes.

While visa challenges can complicate coming to Estonia even for short programmes, expanding summer courses in the fields of management and entrepreneurship remains a logical next step — especially when targeting students from other European countries.

For example, the EBS Summer School, aimed at master's students and now taking place for the fifth time, has already attracted 100 participants from four continents this year. Its keynote speaker is MIT Nobel laureate Bengt Holmström. As in previous years, a large share of participants come from other European countries — confirming the trend highlighted in the GMAC study: Europeans and students from around the world are increasingly choosing to study in Europe.