Amanda Wilkinson, Director, Higher Education Wales:

“Higher Education Wales welcomes the ‘Stay, Leave or Return’ research into the patterns of Welsh graduate mobility.   Given the relative economic performance of Wales compared to some English regions, our retention rates are astonishingly good.

“The figures show clearly that when London is taken out of the equation and Wales’ is benchmarked against the regions of comparable size, we rate particularly highly in terms of retaining home domiciled students.  Wales is widely recognised to be a net importer of students and is clearly continuing to prove itself a desirable destination for study with current figures for attracting students from outside of Wales being high. 

“We must work to retain students from outside of Wales once they have graduated and continue to work with the  Welsh Government, business and wider stakeholders to attract more businesses and highly skilled jobs to Wales. “