November 7, 2026 · GlobalStudyConsulting database

The Oldest Consultancies in the Database: Gabbitas (1873) to the Modern Chains

792 offices list a founding year. The oldest is a London firm from 1873, and the founding decades trace the whole history of student mobility.

Seven hundred and ninety-two offices in this database state a founding year, and the top of that list is a short history of students moving around the world. The oldest is Gabbitas in London, founded in 1873 to place tutors and governesses, still advising families a century and a half later. Then come the American exchange organizations born around the Second World War: ASSE International (1938), AFS-USA and CIEE (both 1947), IES Abroad (1950), Putney Student Travel and YFU USA (both 1951).

The founding decades widen the lens. A thin line of nineteenth and early twentieth century firms, a postwar exchange wave, then the long build of the modern industry, and finally the steep climb of the 2000s and 2010s as Indian, Chinese and Bangladeshi demand turned consultancy into a mass business with chain branches in every metro.

Longevity is not a quality score, and this database does not treat it as one. A firm founded in 2019 inside this dataset may hold the strongest current university relationships in its city. But age does tell you one thing plainly: the office survived several visa regimes, several currency shocks and several destination cycles. For a decision that spans two to four years of your life, that kind of survival is a data point worth having on the profile, which is why founding year is a standard field here whenever the agency publishes it.

The new end of the list

At the other extreme, the founding chart's tallest bars belong to the 2000s and 2010s, and they belong disproportionately to India, Bangladesh and China. The modern chain branch in a metro suburb is usually a young company riding a young market: mass higher education at home, rising incomes, and destination countries actively recruiting. Many of the database's biggest networks, KC Overseas Education among them, are products of exactly this wave, whatever their current size suggests about permanence.

So the founding field cuts both ways, and the profile presents it neutrally for that reason. Age proves survival through past cycles. Youth often means the office was built for the current one: current tests, current visa rules, current university relationships. The wise read is to pair the founding year with the destination list's freshness and the services on offer, and to treat all three as the start of questions, not the end of them.

Data: the GlobalStudyConsulting database of 1,506 consultancy offices in 384 cities, collected from consultancies' own websites and verified November 7, 2026. Try the Agency Fit Finder or browse consultancies by city.