Abstract:

Higher education is dynamic global industry with highly competitive and developed market. Universities strive to communicate their international programs to impress prospective students interested in studying abroad. International education is provided in local environment and influenced by local culture and characteristics, however it might be perceived as a global product satisfying needs of students worldwide, attaining consistent positioning and referring to similar values on all markets. This study addresses a question, whether there is a difference between communicated characteristics of international programs among universities from various cultures. Websites of seventy universities coming from different GLOBE cultural clusters are analyzed through data-mining methods. The analysis suggests that marketing communications to international students do not stand on cultural grounds as there are only marginal differences between international program communications across the world. The major difference in the group of prime international higher education providers was found between the GLOBE Anglo universities and the rest of the world.