Ensuring the Quality of Higher Education and its Impact on Country Attractiveness for International Students

The migration activity of students as one of the important factors of changes in the intellectual potential and economic development of countries requires a constant search for the causes and pull factors. To this end, our study analyses the impact of higher education quality factors. For this aim we analyse the impact of 15 factors, including efforts to develop technologies penetration via R&D cooperation of universities with business entities, ability of universities to meet the needs of a competitive economy, focus on STEM tertiary education. Using the data for 2023 on the example of OECD countries and applying the methods of correlation and cluster analysis, we confirmed the hypotheses about the greatest importance of such factors as Tertiary education expenditure, Average quality of higher education institutions, QS university ranking (top 3), Relevance of education system to the economy, University-industry R&D cooperation. Therefore, current management of higher education aiming at attracting talented youth should combine traditional technologies of quality assurance with agile reaction to changing economic and societal needs. The experience of a successful cluster of leading countries in attracting talents proves the importance of building strategies for the development of higher education systems based on the development of such factors.