Motivations of students coming from Eastern Europe to study in Poland – international, local and institutional context

The article comprises a presentation of the motivations that accompany students coming from Belarus, Lithuania, Russia, and Ukraine when deciding to study in Poland. The theoretical framework for examining the motivation of foreign students’ migration decisions is the push-pull factors model by Everett Lee. The analyzed material comes from an online survey of foreign students studying at the University of Wroclaw and the Maria Curie Sklodowska University in Lublin in December 2022 and January 2023. The study focuses on the factors that attract foreign students to specific destinations in three contexts: international (why Poland?), local (why a particular city?), and institutional (why a particular university?). The pull factors of greatest importance for foreign students from both universities turned out to be economic and cultural ones. The evaluation of the level of democracy in Poland was also significant. Taking into account the local context, it is worth noting that Wroclaw and Lublin attract not only with their original educational offer but also with their “urban atmosphere,” a “climate” conducive to ethnic difference. Social networks – understood as having family or friends in the country, the city of study or the chosen university – turned out to be the least important for the decision to study in Poland.