1. Develop a relevant demographic profile of Brazil to present to a graduate school director to inform him or her about this potential market of students. 2. Is this an attractive market for U.S. graduate programs? Refer to Appendix 2: Marketing by the Numbers to develop a market potential estimation of this market. Colleges and universities in the United States offering graduate degrees enjoyed double-digit growth for nearly a decade, particularly from Chinese applicants. But that is changing. Applications from Chinese students declined 5 percent for the 2013-2014 academic year, dropping the overall graduate-school application growth rate from foreign students to just 1 percent. This has schools that offer business, engineering, life sciences, and physical and earth sciences graduate degrees wondering how they will fill their classrooms. One bright spot is applications from Brazilians, which increased 24 percent because of a push by the Brazilian government to boost advanced degrees from U.S. schools. Brazil is currently the sixth largest economy in the world, but not enough of its citizens hold advanced degrees, which threatens the country s future growth. Many U.S. schools are wondering if this market is worthy of more marketing efforts to replace the lost Chinese applicants.
