Latin American students increasingly want to study in Spain amid growing political uncertainty in the US, the head of one of Europe’s leading business schools has said.
“We’re seeing a lot of interest from students from Latin America, who are going to Madrid and Barcelona because America has become more closed off and less accepting,” Daniel Traça, director general of Esade Business School, told Times Higher Education.
Traça said Esade, a business and law school with campuses in Barcelona, Sant Cugat and Madrid, is actively positioning itself to capitalise on the rising interest from students who would have otherwise chosen North America.
The school is also seeing more students and academics arriving from the US itself, drawn to cities like Barcelona and Madrid at a moment of political turbulence back home.
“Everything is messy, uncertain, and becoming toxic,” Traça said. “[Barcelona and Madrid] are large, growing cities with amazing lifestyles, with a sense of freedom and social conscience. We’re going to see less, just purely geographic moves but more of a notion of looking to be at a place that is intellectually and socially free.”
