Students who have travelled abroad are nearly twice as likely as their home-bound peers to complete a college degree and reportearning higher incomes, out-earning their peers by more than 40%.
Although this principle, also known as enhanced earning capacity, went beyond the scope of the report, it came up repeatedly in meetings, Mr. Kiernan said.
The lower than expected earning figures were revealed in a Corporate Revenue Monitoring report for 2012-2013 as part of the NEC's "constant communication with the council on all aspects of the business".
The KPMG report suggested that Northern Ireland had the highest proportion of people earning below the living wage, at 24% of workers, followed by Wales at 23%.