Cross-border student mobility has become a defining feature of globalized higher education. In particular, seeking international advanced degree plays an irreplaceable role in fostering deep, reciprocal political and economic understanding, sociocultural exchange, and the long-term sustainability of nations. Nevertheless, both short-term studying abroad and international degree seeking remain a form of mobility that requires substantial mobilization of family capital and financial resources, which result in a gap between students’ intentions to study abroad and their actual participation. This gap is often shaped by the interaction of multiple structural factors. Accordingly, understanding students’ intentions and the determinants underlying them constitutes a core concern for higher education policy aimed at developing appropriate and equitable support for overseas study.

This study examines Taiwanese students’ intentions to pursue international advanced degrees and how family capital, institutional and academic variables, and subjective variables jointly shape the classification paths of their study-abroad intentions. We pose the following research questions. First, what are the major motivations and barriers for Taiwanese students to pursue international advanced degrees? How do concerns regarding cultural adaptation, intention to seek domestic employment, and motivations for studying abroad enter the classification paths of study-abroad intentions? Second, how do family capital, institutional type, and major field of study differentiate students with high and low study-abroad intentions? In particular, how does the classification role of maternal education change between the family capital model and the integrated model?

Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of capital and field (Bourdieu, 1984, 1986, 1990), this study conceptualizes how family structure and individual decision-making shape students’ intentions to study abroad. Family background, through cultural and economic capital, establishes the volume of resources and the starting position from which students engage in study-abroad decisions. Higher levels of capital facilitate access to international information and attenuate sensitivity to risk. While Bourdieu emphasizes the profound influence of family background on habitus and decision-making, he also argues that class-based habitus can be reshaped through education and changing environments. In Taiwan’s context, disparities in educational resource structures are most salient at the higher education level, particularly along the divides between comprehensive universities and the technical/vocational system, as well as between public and private institutions.

These distinct types of institutions represent diverse "academic fields" (Bourdieu, 1984), where varying institutional objectives and systemic capital shape students' orientations toward international mobility. Consequently, this study analyzes students' micro-level decision-making within the constraints of different structural environments, such as specific universities or departments. By doing so, it elucidates how the interplay between expected benefits and perceived costs ultimately determines their intention to pursue study abroad opportunities.

This study’s significance is twofold. Theoretically, while prior research relied on paternal status as a single proxy for family capital, maternal influence seems to become increasingly salient due to higher education expansion and the use of overseas study for social differentiation (Netz & Finger, 2016). Qualitative evidence (Perkins, 2020; Simon & Ainsworth, 2012) further indicate the potential impact of mothers as key facilitators of children’s global mobility. Accordingly, this study refines family socioeconomic status by separately examining paternal and maternal influences. From a policy perspective, as the Bologna Process deepens, the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) seeks to dismantle stratified access to mobility. By analyzing family capital and individual motivation, this study addresses EU objectives to ensure equitable participation for underrepresented groups in programs like Erasmus+, which reflect the universal pursuit of social justice.

We adopted a quantitative survey design. Based on a literature review, expert consultations, and focus group interviews, we developed a survey for Taiwanese College Students". The instrument encompasses background variables, motivations for pursue international advanced degree, perceived potential barriers, and other subjective variables related to study-abroad decision. The questionnaire underwent content validity review by 13 experts in higher education and the sociology of education, followed by a pilot test involving 88 students (senior undergraduates and graduate students). Reliability analysis yielded a Cronbach’s Alpha of .716 for the motivation dimension (Q3-1) and .626 for the barriers dimension (Q3-2). For the latter, Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) was employed to extract three sub-dimensions, accounting for a cumulative explained variance of 65.55%. Data collection was conducted via an online survey using non-probability sampling, specifically relying on available subjects. As it was not possible to assign a calculable sampling probability to every individual in the population, this study does not aim for population parameter estimation. Instead, it focuses on the analysis of variable relationships and structural patterns within the sample (Babbie, 2021). The survey was administered from December 10, 2025, to January 5, 2026, resulting in 1,403 valid responses. Regarding the analytical strategy, descriptive statistics were first employed to present the distribution of students’ intentions to pursue international advanced degrees, as well as their major motivations and perceived barriers. Subsequently, a Classification and Regression Tree (CRT) model was utilized to identify the classification paths of students with high and low study-abroad intentions (Breiman et al., 1984). The dependent variable was dichotomized into high and low study-abroad intentions. Students who reported that they “had the intention but had not yet begun collecting information” were classified as having low study-abroad intentions, whereas those who reported that they “had made preliminary plans and were collecting information” or “had a clear plan and were preparing accordingly” were classified as having high study-abroad intentions. Two sets of models were developed. The family capital model included paternal education, maternal education, paternal socioeconomic status, and maternal socioeconomic status. The integrated model further incorporated institutional and academic variables as well as subjective variables. The former included institutional type and major field of study, while the latter included concerns regarding cultural adaptation, intention to seek domestic employment, and motivations for studying abroad. The CRT analysis used Gini impurity as the splitting criterion, and cross-validation was employed to examine model stability.

This study compares findings from the family capital model and the integrated model. Due to space limitations, this paper focuses on how family capital, academic fields, and study-abroad decision considerations jointly shape the classification paths of students with high and low study-abroad intentions. In the family capital model, parental educational attainment serves as an important cue for differentiating study-abroad intentions. According to the CRT variable importance analysis, “maternal education” is standardized at 100.0%, ranking as the leading indicator among the family capital variables, while “paternal education” reaches 90.3%. These findings suggest that family educational background has higher relative classificatory power than parental socioeconomic status. When the model incorporates “motivations and concerns,” subjective variables exceed background variables in their standardized importance for decision classification. In this integrated model, “concerns regarding cultural adaptation” is most critical (100.0%), followed by “intention to seek domestic employment” (90.8%).This shift suggests that when cultural maladaptation fears and domestic stability outweigh expected returns, students likely opt against international degrees. Notably, maternal education, which is paramount in the initial model, diminishes, implying that individual perceptual factors and career orientations possess discriminatory power surpassing family origins. Shortly, "adaptation to foreign environments" and "transnational career imaginaries" are the most significant dividing lines in student intentions. Fear of living abroad, coupled with a preference for domestic employment, functions as a critical threshold for pursuing international degrees. Accordingly, the diminishing influence of family background in the integrated model suggests that institutional and governmental interventions—specifically providing information on life adaptation, career planning, and employment facilitation—can help students transcend family constraints. By strengthening links to overseas careers and addressing information asymmetry, policymakers could empower candidates who lack family capital to translate their intentions into substantive actions toward pursuing advanced international degrees.

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