Education brokerage and China-to-Malaysia international student mobility: a migration corridor perspective

• Offers a migration corridor perspective on student mobility and education brokerage. • Emphasize the geographical and temporal situatedness of education brokerage. • Agents’ entrepreneurial brokerage tactics are tailored to the migration corridor. • Further research needed on digital migration industry/infrastructure and regulation. China-to-Malaysia international student mobility (ISM) has surged since 2020. Drawing from interviews conducted in 2023–2024 with 23 Chinese international students (current and recently graduated) and 7 university staff in Malaysia, this article examines why and how an emergent education brokerage market develops and operates in the China-Malaysia migration corridor. Three factors contribute to the making of this migration corridor: (1) Malaysia’s internationalization of higher education efforts, including bilateral educational collaborations with China; (2) China’s rising domestic competition in higher education enrolment and graduate employment; and (3) Malaysia’s appeal to Chinese students (relative affordability; ethnocultural, linguistic, and geographical proximity). These broader educational, economic and policy contexts within the China-Malaysia migration corridor set up the contextual conditions for the emergence of an education brokerage market. Chinese students sought education agent services – which are often enfolded into students’ personal social networks – due to the presence of information gap in ISM to Malaysia, and to procure reassurance and convenience in navigating unfamiliar university admissions processes. Market demand in China-to-Malaysia ISM saw the emergence of student-turned education agents who utilize entrepreneurial and collaborative brokerage tactics tailored to the Chinese market such as presence on Chinese social media platforms and experiential study tours in Malaysia. A migration corridor perspective sheds light on the contextual dynamics of ISM flows and education brokerage, further contributing to critical and nuanced understandings of agents’ roles as constitutive members of the migration industry/infrastructure in the neoliberalization and marketization of higher education.