Knowledge pursuit across distance: Revealing the multipolar trend of international student attraction with the A-index

• A-index integrates flow volume and weighted distance to measure attractiveness. • China’s attractiveness grew 397% (1999–2018) in multipolar transformation. • Economic similarity drives spatial spillover in international student attraction. • A-index identifies emerging regional hubs challenging centre-periphery model. • A-index achieves superior predictive accuracy ( r =0.7436) over traditional metrics. Competition for comprehensive national power nowadays is essentially a talent competition. International student mobility has traditionally favoured Western countries, but emerging economies are gaining prominence, making accurate quantification of national educational attractiveness increasingly important. Existing methods face limitations: physical attribute approaches fail to capture social dynamics, and network methods focus on flow volume while neglecting distance. We propose the Attractiveness-index (A-index), which comprehensively quantifies countries' talent attraction capacity by integrating flows, distances, and cross-regional patterns. A-index reveals previously obscured transformations in global education, showing a shift from US dominance to a multipolar landscape where China's attractiveness grew 397% (1999–2018), uniquely identifies Australia’s exceptional global reach despite modest raw numbers, and recognises emerging regional educational hubs—insights invisible to traditional metrics. We identify the influences on the A-index’s spatio-temporal evolution and reveal strategic competition patterns among structurally similar economies through spatial spillovers. Sensitivity analysis confirms the A-index’s robustness across different parameter configurations. With a higher correlation coefficient to net student inflow than weighted indegree centrality, the A-index provides a superior methodological foundation for understanding educational resource distribution and developing human-centred strategies in the global talent landscape.