South Africa's affluent increasingly looking to international universities for children's education

Wealthy South Africans are increasingly exploring opportunities to have their children educated at international tertiary institutions.

London-based investment migration consultancy Henley & Partners (H&P) has seen a significant increase in inquiries from affluent families globally, including South Africa, looking to access premium international education opportunities for their children via investment migration.

The surge in demand and competition for places at leading universities post-Covid has heightened interest in investment programmes that offer residence rights or citizenship in the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and several European countries that are home to leading educational institutions.

According to Sable International, an average of 11,000 South Africans study overseas each year. The immigration specialist said tuition fees in the US are between $10,000 (about R177,465) and $80,000 (about R1.4m) a year.

The UK could cost anything between $14,000 (about R248,448) to $50,000 (about R887,317) a year.

More than 70% of the top 1,000 tertiary institutions ranked in the recent Times Higher Education World University Ranking are in countries that host investment migration programmes, with 18% in the US and 10% in the UK.

Sarah Nicklin, spokesperson for H&P, told TimesLIVE: “Historically, South Africa and Nigeria have competed for first place in web inquiries H&P receives from the African continent, but in 2022 South Africa is the second largest market in Africa and seventh in the world in nationalities applying for investment migration options.

Nicklin said last year South Africa saw high growth in inquiries (57.5%), with the highest number of inquiries on record on the continent. The previous high for South Africa was in 2019.

“By the end of Q2 2022, H&P had received 36% of the full year 2021 inquiries from South African citizens, so the market appears to be levelling off after the spike in 2021, though the current spate of load-shedding might prompt a new surge in interest.

“The UK has always been a top education destination, and Portugal and Greece golden visas offer a pathway to citizenship of an EU country within five and seven years, respectively, meaning children can live and study anywhere in the bloc. 

“Spain is also rising in popularity in inquiries in 2022 and another European programme popular among South African citizens is Montenegro.”

She said Spain’s golden visa also offers a pathway to citizenship, albeit longer than Portugal and Greece, as residents may apply for citizenship only in their 10th year of residence in Spain.

“Montenegro is an official EU candidate country, so an investment in 2022 could earn your family citizenship of an EU member state in a few years, enabling access to European education institutions. However, the programme is due to close at the end of 2022 so the window of opportunity is narrowing.”

Dr Juerg Steffen, H&P CEO, said securing the best possible education for their children has become a key motivation for investors considering residence and citizenship by investment programme options.

“Our children are our most precious assets and providing them with the best international schooling and university options is the greatest gift we can give to them and one of the best investments we can make as parents,” he said.

“We predict 2023 is likely to see the largest millionaire migration flows on record with more than 125,000 affluent investors and their families on the move.”

TimesLIVE