As globalisation increases, Higher Education Institutions are challenged to produce more young graduates to meet the corporate world's demand for highly qualified, mobile international managers. Business and management programmes are required to have international components to attract the best students. To date, the majority of research has focused on the management and quality of such programmes with few studies undertaken from the students' perspective. This article examines students' motivations to study on an internationally franchised academic programme, prior expectations and whether these were met. Students of international franchised management programmes at both undergraduate and postgraduate level studying in five different countries were asked what motivated them to choose this form of study over other possibilities open to them, their prior expectations and how satisfied they were with their actual experiences. The results confirmed some previous findings, i.e. the significance of enhanced employability potential. However, they also identified new themes, showing how the students' funders influenced the choice of study and how that influence was affected by gender. The results also queried students' true motivation for these programmes and the international academic franchisees' potential to meet those expectations fully.