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The Data Rich Open Doors:
One Year Later


Kerry Geffert
Product Evangelist, Terra Dotta

 

Each November data wonks within international education eagerly await the release of the Institute of International Education’s Open Doors, a census of international and study abroad students in the United States. Did international student enrollments increase? Any new popular destinations for study abroad students? These and other questions keep educators busy pouring over the data to understand the picture of student mobility.

We at Terra Dotta are no different. Previous Portal articles have reviewed Open Doors from different perspectives, along with the implications for international education. An article in December 2016, “The Data Rich Open Doors,” made observations based on multiple years of census data for both incoming and outgoing students. How do the data from the most recent census measure up against those observations? What follows is a rundown of those observations and how they are changing or remaining constant using findings from the 2017 Open Doors.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Fair disclosure - the following paragraphs contain a host of figures that may not be easily digested in one sitting by everyone. If you are tempted to stop here, I encourage you to jump to the Conclusion. There you might find reason to read the remainder of the article in a manner that best fits your preference. 

 

International Students

 

New enrollments of international students dropped (by 3.3%) for the first time in five years, erasing two years of growth. For 2016/17, the number of new international student enrollments is less than those in 2014/15.


The percentage of international students as a part of the total U.S. enrollment continued to inch upward as international numbers grew and U.S. enrollments continued to decline. As competition for international students increases worldwide, the literature is beginning to address the need for U.S. campuses to consider additional efforts or resources to bolster their overall enrollments and financial standings.


The top five sending countries remain unchanged – China, India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Canada. Not surprisingly, the significant decline in Saudi students brought South Korea back into the number three spot where it had been for over five years – despite a further decline in South Korean students.


China and India, the top two sending countries, now comprise essentially half of all international students with 49.8% of the total whereas they represented “only” 38.5% of the total in 2011/12. Such heavily weighted enrollments from just two countries may not be in our best interests. Those who have been in the profession for 20 years or more likely remember the vulnerability that can exist when campuses rely heavily on a few sending countries (think Iran, Nigeria, Venezuela). 


Of the remaining countries in the top ten sending countries – those listed above along with Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, Mexico and Brazil – only the burgeoning market of Vietnam continues to increase since 2011/12, while Taiwan has shown modest growth since 2014/15.

The remaining six sending countries remained relatively flat or decreased since last year.
Even though two countries dominate international student enrollments, some diversification can be observed in the remaining half of the population. Since 2011/12, enrollments from China and India have increased by 82%, but enrollments for the remaining top ten countries have increased by only 7%. Meanwhile, enrollments from the rest of the world have increased by 22% during the same time period. Clearly domestic economics have impacted – and more visibly impact – enrollments from some of the major sending countries, but the opportunity for growth from the rest of the world still exists, if the U.S. is viewed as a positive host country.

Last year we noted that the number of undergraduate international students had been growing at a faster rate than students at the graduate level since 2011/12. This pattern did not change. What did change was that the percentage of change for each group was only about a third of what it had been in 2015/16. Non-degree students continued to decline, though at a faster rate and to its lowest number since 2011/12. OPT students continued to grow, but at a slightly slower rate; however, the gain appears to represent 80% of total number of international students gained over last year.


Patterns of funding sources made some significant shifts from last year, but invite greater scrutiny to determine contributing causes. Students supported by personal or family sources dropped by approximately 6%, an amount that could be explained by a combination of students graduating and shifting to OPT, and the slowed growth of new undergraduate students. The number of students funded by other foreign sources also decreased to some of the lowest levels in the past five years. Still, two thirds of students rely on funding sources outside the U.S. (presuming Personal/Family are from outside the U.S.), although that figure is down from 75% in 2015/16. In contrast, a large increase occurred in the Current Employment category. The number of students in this group jumped from about 69,000 to almost 178,000, a growth of 250%. Is this dramatic growth primarily the result of students shifting to OPT, or might there be other factors at play?

 

Study Abroad

 

The IIE Generation Study Abroad initiative appears to be having a positive effect as the number of students studying abroad increased by a greater percentage than it had the previous year. The increase from 2.9% to 3.8%, while not a huge increase, is still an increase. This is particularly notable in view of the overall decline in numbers of students enrolled in higher education.


The diversity of students’ majors remained relatively unchanged from the previous year. Both STEM and Business continue to lead the way, each growing at more than double the rate of the overall increase. The pieces of the overall pie held by each of the top five major fields of study, however, remained mostly unchanged; STEM did make a slight increase, now representing one in four study abroad students. After a year of decrease in 2014/15, Social Sciences majors did return to positive growth, while the number of students in the Foreign Languages and International Studies moved the opposite direction with negative growth. 


While the diversity of students’ majors did not change, the diversity of our study abroad students’ race and ethnicity continued to make positive strides. Segment comparisons of the overall percentages of the study abroad population do not sufficiently demonstrate the real growth within the non-white populations. With 63% of the growth in study abroad students over last year occurring among non-white students, we continue to see that the future growth of study abroad is significantly dependent upon attracting students of color. Hispanic students alone grew at more than three times the overall growth over the previous year. If this growth is sustained, we may likely see Hispanic students breaking the 10% mark of the overall number of study abroad students in the next Open Doors report, the first underrepresented group to do so. Other underrepresented groups also grew at relatively strong rates. African-American students studying abroad grew at 9.4%, more than twice the national average; and Asian/Pacific Islander students grew 7.6%, twice the average. In contrast, the percentage of white students grew by only 2%, approximately half the 3.8% overall growth.


The composition of our study abroad population may be changing, but the length of time abroad is not. The breakdown among the three duration lengths – long-term, mid-length and short-term – remained virtually unchanged from last year, varying by less than 1% each. This is to be expected since any shift of 1% would require a shift of well over 3,000 students in study length, or a quarter of the total growth in study abroad since last year.


Finally, changes in host countries for study abroad students continued to offer insights in what may be students’ slightly shifting preferences. The top four destinations – the UK, Italy, Spain and France – all retained their respective spots; however, Germany edged out China for the number five spot and Australia edged out Costa Rica for the number eight spot. Germany and Australia each experienced 8% growth over 2014/15, whereas China experienced an 8% decrease and Costa Rica remained mostly unchanged.


Europe remains the destination of choice for students with just over half of all study abroad students, and is growing at a rate almost equal to the overall growth. Of the major destination regions, Sub-Saharan Africa saw the largest percentage increase, led by a 10% growth in South Africa enrollments and a doubling of the numbers in Ghana (following a dramatic drop of two thirds between 2013/14 and 2014/15 when an Ebola outbreak was reported in West Africa). While still representing very small numbers, further increases in interest in these countries may be worth watching: Ethiopia, Madagascar, Malawi, Rwanda, Senegal, and Uganda.


Australia’s aforementioned gain, along with a 14.5% gain in New Zealand enrollments, realized almost the entire 9.5% gain by the region of Oceania. Latin America & the Caribbean region grew by 5.6%, despite a two-year drop in Brazil enrollments (Olympics related?), and those in Chile and the Dominican Republic. These decreases were offset by an almost 60% increase in Cuba enrollments, a sustained increase in Mexico enrollments, and increased enrollments in Argentina, the Bahamas, Colombia, and Jamaica.


As a region, Asia remained mostly flat with an increase of only 1.3%. Within the region, China continued to decline as a destination from its peak in 2011/12 and interest in India similarly decreased despite their importance to U.S. business. Those decreases were met by an almost 20% gain in Japan enrollments and combined increases in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Countries to watch may be Cambodia and Malaysia which both saw relatively large increases. Finally, the Middle East & North Africa was the only region to experience a decrease, due almost entirely to a drop in Israel enrollments to its lowest figure since 2008/09.

 

Conclusion

 

If you have lasted this far, you are to be congratulated. A review of Open Doors data, especially when viewed beyond the one-year snapshot, is not for everyone, and requires a certain amount of perseverance. The numbers can be mind numbing. However, as we investigate beyond the summary findings, we begin to see the nuanced trends that may be occurring within our international and study abroad student populations. These trends are what can be impactful in the strategic planning for your office and your campus. As we observe increased competition for international students and growing expectations of opportunities abroad, data will be important. As Carly Fiorina, former head of Hewlett-Packard Company once observed, “The goal is to turn data into information, and information into insight.”