Category: USA

The US university still sending students on study abroad

“Students seem excited, even if the experience will look different”

Many people were looking forward to 2021, hoping to travel freely and without concern over health and safety. While widespread travel may not be the case just yet, a handful of universities are allowing for limited student travel.

The University of Tennessee at Knoxville (UTK) is just one of these universities. In a normal year, UTK would send a couple hundred students abroad per semester. This semester, their Center for Global Engagement was able to send dozens of students to a small number of destinations including Ireland, Poland and South Korea.

Anne Hulse, Interim Director of the Center for Global Engagement’s Programs Abroad Office said that many factors were at play when deciding whether or not they would allow students to travel. Terra Dotta’s Emily Robinson explains.

“Our students aren’t dumb. If they felt manipulated, they would go elsewhere”

Last August I woke up to find out I was a Chinese spy, remembers Erik Eging of the Confucius Institute US Center. This was news to me.

“81% of international students see buying an international education as an investment”

This year has been an incredible year of disruption for international education, writes Shane Dillon, found of Cturtle and UniAdvisor. It has rapidly brought to the forefront conversations around education delivery and the value of tertiary education in general in the 21^st century.

As of March 2020, the global movement of international students has vanished and the future of the sector, the countries and university brands involved are in a state of flux.

Now more then ever before it is critical for the sector to embrace data on international graduate employment outcomes to illustrate clearly to consumers the value and return on investment an international education delivers. Numerous studies from UNICEF, QS and Cturtle show clearly that employability is the most important consideration impacting student choice across Asia.

August 28, 2020
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Australia, China, Higher education, Immigration, International student recruitment, UK, USA

The magnitude of the crisis among international students

“Not many international students are equipped to advocate for themselves when a crisis arises”

This week’s guest blog is by Ruby Cheng, director of the International Enrollment Program (Asian Pacific Region) at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs.

I’m writing this article as an international educator, a guardian of a college international student, and an advocate who wants to voice up the concerns for the vulnerable and underrepresented group, international students, during the global COVID-19 pandemic.

When the COVID-19 became imminent in China in early February, I saw a great effort exerted by U.S. institutions, trying to accommodate Chinese applicants. Many international admissions offices offered opportunities for applicants to delay the transcript submission due to the closure of schools and universities in China.

In response to the closure of the testing centres for TOFEL, IELTS and GRE/GMAT, many admissions offices provided flexible policies including online interviews and Duolingo test, which allows students to take the English proficiency test at their homes. Those strategies made Chinese applicants and their families feel welcomed, despite the virus chaos they are experiencing in China.

“In these trying times, rather than fret about the future, it’s useful to take a step back and assess”

Recent head-spinning events – raging fires causing university closures in Australia; the UK exiting Europe; and most recently, a coronavirus outbreak bringing global mobility to a standstill – has the international education sector battered as if by a hurricane of headlines, writes Anna Esaki-Smith, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Education Rethink.

While none of these occurrences relates directly to education, they pose fundamental risks to an industry whose very core is rooted in the free movement of people. However, in these trying times, rather than fret about the future, it’s useful to take a step back and assess.

In Education Rethink’s latest report, Rethink 2020: Five Trends to Watch, we go back to basics by examining the foundational undercurrents driving student mobility towards the English-speaking world.

Consider that, in 2019, the total population of international students across the US, UK, Australia and Canada – grew by more than 115,000, according to the latest student visa issuance data.

But focusing on increasing numbers alone is not enough. Where are students coming from? And what are the factors driving those flows?

March 4, 2020
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Innovation, International student recruitment, USA

Want student-first admissions processes? Look to your student services peers

“When we hewed closely to student needs and perceptions… the international student and scholar community flourished”

Ryan Fleming is a client director with IDP Connect. In this blog, he discusses the importance of institutions paying attention to students’ needs and perceptions when considering new policies or processes.

About nine years ago, I embarked on my international education career by joining the international student and scholar services (ISSS) team at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio. Though I didn’t realise it at the time, my years in Kent would prove formative for the way I approached a subsequent career lane change into the private sector.

At Kent, my role was equal parts strategic and operational: build the systems that would support and nurture students while simultaneously counselling them personally within the framework of that system. For my teammates and me, international orientation involved equal parts planning and delivery: figuring out what students needed to know, when and how they needed to know it, and then being the ones to tell them ourselves.

January 29, 2020
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International student recruitment, Student Services, USA

Learning from the US: new ways to evaluate & record skills and competencies

“Seeing online education as a ‘cheaper’ way to deliver higher education has long been debunked in the US”

Finding new ways to teach and accredit soft skills has never been more important, writes director and co-founder of UK Education Guide, Pat Moores. In this blog, she explores some of the lessons that educators can learn by observing the practices being adopted stateside.

At a recent presentation at the British Council’s International Education Conference, I was interested to note that none of the attendees at my session had ever heard of Western Governors University (WGU) or Competency-Based Education (CBE).

No big deal, of course, there are well over 5,000 US colleges, so not having heard of one is hardly a crime, but why does WGU matter and why does CBE matter too?

It is estimated 85% of jobs that will exist in 2030 haven’t been invented yet and 65% of children starting school will one day hold jobs that do not exist now. It is widely anticipated that many existing jobs will be replaced by robots/AI.

“In 2020, we see campuses adapting to new norms by putting processes in place to proactively help international students feel welcome”

Anthony Rotoli, CEO of Terra Dotta – specialists in enrollment, mobility, and risk management software for higher education – explores some trends that are likely to heat up in international education in 2020.

The world of international higher education is continually changing – whether due to recent shifts in global dynamics, diversifying student populations or international education-focused priorities evolving across institutions.

Also, many colleges are responding to dropping international enrollment numbers among first-year international students, causing them to modify their own recruitment efforts and programs supporting international education. Let’s explore some trends that we see heating up in international education in 2020.

December 20, 2019
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International student recruitment, Internationalisation, USA, Volunteering

Looking for a Pathway Partner? Maybe Check in the Mirror

“Even without a partner, you can still benefit from emulating the best elements of outside pathway providers”

If you are looking for a pathway partner, it is probably also true that you are looking for some kind of overarching structure to guide your international student management on campus.

You’re also not alone; in 2009, only two outside pathway partnerships existed in the US, while seven years later, there were 55*. Why such interest in partnering? Pathway Providers are most often selected by universities because they bring added value to a university’s international student lifecycle, from student recruiting to student support and career success.

“Even students in America are deciding to enrol outside the US”

According to concerned groups, the final rule published last Monday will have drastic effects on international students enrolling in colleges and universities in the United States.

As it is, the list of international students enrolled in higher education institutions in the U.S. fell by over 6% in the last school year. The public believes that the new immigration policies of the Trump administration are responsible for undercutting the demand for higher education from overseas students. Schools report that the low inflow of international students is already in its third year.