When students are known, they succeed
Why StudyVillage was created—and why personal support matters
For almost two decades working inside universities and specialist medical colleges, Dr Carl Llewellyn Jones saw the same pattern repeat itself.
International students arrived with enormous promise, family sacrifice, and ambition—yet once on campus, they entered systems designed for scale, not for people. Universities are very good at teaching thousands of students at once. They are far less equipped to understand who an individual student really is: where they come from, how confident they feel, what pressures they carry, and what success actually looks like for them.
Support, when it comes, is usually reactive. By the time a problem is visible—missed assessments, disengagement, mental health strain— momentum has often already been lost. Parents, meanwhile, are left at a distance, sensing something is wrong but lacking clarity or reassurance.
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The turning point for Carl and StudyVillage was sobering. A series of international student suicides—many involving students who had previously studied in overseas schools and tertiary institutions where they were known personally and supported closely—raised urgent questions.
These were students who had once experienced high-touch, individualised care, only to find themselves largely invisible inside large, well-resourced Western universities.
One of the voices that shaped StudyVillage’s direction was a medical doctor and founder of a Sri Lankan higher education institution— deeply frustrated that, despite enormous resources and decades of experience, institutions hosting tens of thousands of international students could allow such gaps in care to persist.
What began as Carl’s PhD research into structural shortcomings in international education became something practical and human. Working with psychologists, social workers, academics, and practitioners across countries, StudyVillage was built as a parallel support system—one that sits alongside universities, not inside their constraints.
Today, Carl leads an international team of like-minded professionals united by a simple principle: students thrive when they are known, supported early, and treated as individuals.
For parents, this means reassurance, visibility, and confidence that your child is not navigating this journey alone.
StudyVillage exists to provide what large systems struggle to deliver at scale—care that is personal, consistent, and built around your child’s real needs and
goals.
