Introduction
Uncertainty plays a large role in the admission cycle as the start of the 2017/18 academic year draws near. Recent debates over visa and immigration policy have raised concerns among U.S. higher education institutions regarding the desire and ability of international students to travel to the United States for their education. This report presents findings from a national survey of U.S. higher education institutions to gauge whether shifts have occurred in the admissions yield of international students who have been accepted to academic programs starting in Fall 2017. In the admissions field, yield refers to the enrollment rates of admitted students. Calculations of yield serve as a useful tool for higher education institutions to track the progress of their admissions recruitment and enrollment processes.
The survey findings described in this report build upon a similar joint international applications survey conducted in March 2017 to gauge shifts in applications received from international students at U.S. higher education institutions. That study – led by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admission Officers (AACRAO) in partnership with four U.S. higher education associations – found a mixed picture, with 38 percent of surveyed institutions indicating a decrease in international student applications, 36 percent seeing an increase, and 26 percent seeing no change compared to the prior year (AACRAO, 2017).
As a follow up to the previous joint survey, in May 2017 IIE again partnered with AACRAO, the Council of Graduate Schools, the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), and NAFSA: Association of International Educators to conduct a survey of U.S. higher education institution that focused on the next steps in the admissions process – offers of admission and yield rates. Information was also collected on the concerns of institutions regarding international student enrollment for Fall 2017 and their strategies for maximizing international enrollments. The findings of this survey provide information for U.S. higher education institutions to benchmark their own international student admissions patterns and to inform their ongoing outreach and recruitment strategies.
Key Findings
Despite fears of a potential large drop in new international students’ willingness to enter U.S. higher education institutions in Fall 2017, the findings of the survey, based on responses received from 165 colleges and universities, suggest that interest among international students remains steady overall, with no single trend evident across the broad range of U.S. colleges and universities. Modest drops in yield at some institutions may be offset by steady or increased yield at other institutions. Following are the key findings that emerged from the study:
International and Domestic Undergraduate Yield: Overall, international undergraduate yield appears to have dipped slightly from 26 to 24 percent from Fall 2016 to Fall 2017. The 2 percentage point decline is comparable to shifts in the domestic (U.S.) student yield reported by institutional respondents, which fell from 30 to 28 percent over the same time period. Among domestic students, today’s yield is lower than it was fifteen years ago as students apply and are accepted to more institutions than in previous years.
While there is no definitive national data on the factors impacting international student yield, it may be the case that international student yield trends are driven by similar application patterns as domestic students.
Variations in Yield by U.S. Study Destinations: The U.S. higher education landscape is extremely diverse, with multiple institution types, academic programs, and locations, each with a range of factors playing into potential shifts in student enrollment interest. The findings of this survey suggest that variations in international undergraduate yield are being felt by some institutions more than others. Admissions and
yield patterns in the top four host states – California, New York, Texas, and Massachusetts – appear to compare favorably to national patterns, with the exception of Texas. Yield rates in New York and Massachusetts remained steady from the prior year at 22 percent and 31 percent, respectively. California institutions reported a slight increase in yield, which grew from 23 percent to 25 percent in Fall 2016 to Fall 2107.
In contrast to the other three top host states, respondents from Texas reported a sizeable decrease in yield from 44 percent to 35 percent. While Texas institutions reported large declines in yield, their yield remains notably higher than the national average.
Graduate Student Yield: According to an independent survey conducted separately by the Council of Graduate Schools in May 2017 (Okahana, 2017), graduate yield is showing evidence of similar shifts among international master’s students. Overall, yield among international master’s students are showing declines at 46 percent of responding institutions. Given that the large majority of international graduate students are offered admission into master’s degree programs, this may have implications for first-time enrollment of international graduate students for Fall 2017.
Institutional and Student Concerns: Concern about international student yield is widespread and varies by students’ countries or regions of origin, several of which have seen substantial fluctuations in admission offers and yield. Institutions are most highly concerned about whether admitted students from the Middle East will arrive on campus in the fall. In light of the recent June 2017 Supreme Court opinion about temporarily upholding the President’s executive order to bar foreign nationals from six Muslim majority countries unless they have a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States, the path to U.S. study appears to remain open for all international students to enter higher education institutions this fall. Nevertheless, broad concerns still remain, including uncertainty about the outcome of the Supreme Court’s review of the travel ban case, which is scheduled to commence in October 2017, and extreme vetting processes of visa applicants. This uncertainty raises valid concerns as to whether students from the Middle East may be deterred from U.S. study. Securing and maintaining a visa is reported as the top concern among these students and was reported by 46 percent of institutions, while feeling welcome in the United States was an almost equal concern, with 41 percent of institutions noting so from their conversations with students.
Survey findings suggest that Indian students have a high level of concern about potential study in the United States, with 80 percent of institutions responding that physical safety is the most pronounced concern for Indian students, while 31 percent of institutions indicated that feeling unwelcome is also a concern.
The survey findings indicate that Chinese and other Asian students (not including students from India, who are described above) are mainly concerned with post-graduation employment opportunities and program affordability. Thirty percent of institutions reported that Asian students are concerned about obtaining a visa, with lower concern reported among Chinese students.
Methodology
This survey was intended to capture a snapshot of international student yield rates as of May 15, 2017. Yield is defined as the percentage of students that attend a college or university from the admitted student population. For purposes of this survey, yield is calculated by dividing the number of admissions deposits received by the number of offers of admissions made by the institution. Because not all academic programs require financial deposits from students to secure their enrollment spots, institutions were also permitted to include counts of students who have officially accepted offers of admissions without submitting deposits. For the purposes of calculating the admissions yield in this report, students who submitted official acceptances were combined with
the number of deposits received to compute the admissions yield. Final admission yield can only be determined once students enroll on campus in the fall, so the yield figures in this report reflect a snapshot of expected yield as of May 15, 2017.
All five partnering higher education associations distributed the survey to their member institutions in the United States in May and June 2017. Survey respondents were asked to provide the number of admissions offers made to international students and the number of deposits received/admissions offers accepted for both Fall 2016 and Fall 2017, to enable a comparison over one year. Data on domestic student admissions and deposits were also collected to provide context about overall admissions patterns. Survey respondents’ data were merged with selected data from Open Doors?1 and the U.S. Department of Education to conduct in-depth analyses by institutional characteristics and international student profiles.
The survey captured 165 valid responses from institutions in 33 states, reflecting both undergraduate and graduate respondents. Not all respondents provided complete data, so valid item response rates are lower for some questions. Complete undergraduate data were provided by 112 respondents reported and 54 respondents reported full graduate data. Complete country level data were provided by 88 institutions. With a low response rate, country level data should be interpreted with caution.
Due to a low response rate for graduate data in this survey, this report covers joint survey findings pertaining just to undergraduate admissions and institutional perceptions. In order to provide a picture of yield of international graduate students, this report incorporates information from a survey conducted independently by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) in May 2017 (See Okahana, 2017). The CGS survey collected similar, but not directly comparable, information on substantial change in admission yield from 2016 to 2017 by graduate degree level and place of origin. Responses to the CGS survey were received from 176 CGS members in the United States2.
To allow for comparability with related surveys, throughout this report the description of “no change” is defined as a rate of change within 2 percentage points. This definition was also used in the joint international applications survey (AACRAO, 2017) and the Admission Yields of Prospective International Graduate Students Survey (Okahana, 2017).
Respondent Profile
The 112 institutions that provided valid responses on undergraduate admissions reflect a broad range of institutional types and locations. Public institutions accounted for 32 percent of survey respondents, private not- for-profit institutions accounted for 66 percent, and the remaining 2 percent were private for-profit institutions. Institutional respondents were distributed around the United States, with slightly lower proportions of colleges and universities from the West represented: Northeast (28 percent), South (22 percent), Midwest (33 percent), and West (17 percent).
1 Open Doors? is conducted by IIE with support from the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. For more information, visit /opendoors.
2 Of the respondents, 38 percent were Doctoral Universities - Highest research activity (R1), 33 percent were Doctoral Universities - Higher or Moderate research (R2, R3), and 29 percent were Master’s Colleges and Universities and other institution types.
Figure 1. Respondents by Carnegie Classification3 Figure 2. Respondents by Institution Size
The survey respondents accounted for about 16 percent of the new undergraduate international student population reported in Open Doors 2016 (Farrugia & Bhandari, 2016). It is important to note that about 15 percent of survey respondents indicated their data were an incomplete account of yield. At the time the data were collected, the admission and deposit cycle was not complete and fluctuations were expected throughout the summer due to ongoing rolling admission, transfer students, and “summer melt”, an industry term used to describe incoming students that accept offers of admission in the spring but who do not ultimately enroll in the fall for a variety of reasons.
Understanding Yield within the Full Admissions Cycle
While the bulk of this report focuses on changes in international student yield, it is important to frame those changes within the larger context of shifts in the numbers of applications received from international students, as well as the number of offers of admissions extended to them. Survey respondents reported a 2 percent decrease in the number of admissions offers given to international undergraduate students for Fall 2017 compared to the Fall 2016 admissions cycle. Forty percent of institutions reported decreased admissions offered to international undergraduates, while 51 percent of institutions increased international admissions offers and 9 percent indicated a flat level of admissions offers.
These patterns in international student offers of admission are roughly comparable with the increases and decreases found in the earlier joint international applications survey (AACRAO, 2017). In that survey, 38 percent of higher education institutions reported a decline in the number of applications from international students while 36 percent of institutions reported an increase and 26 percent reported stable number of international applicants.
Figure 3. Proportion of Institutions Reporting Changes in International Undergraduate Applications and Admissions Offers
Note: Statistics on international applications are drawn from AACRAO (2017).
3 Based on the 2015 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. For more information, see /index.php.
Because students typically apply and are accepted to many institutions, modest shifts in these numbers do not necessarily portend an eventual drop in enrollment, which can only be measured once the students arrive on campus.
Figure 4. Change in International Student Yield by Institutional Characteristics
Undergraduate Yield
As the absolute numbers of admissions offers made and accepted have declined among international undergraduates, their admission yield rates have also appeared to drop slightly from Fall 2016 to Fall 2017. For Fall 2016 admissions, institutions saw an average 26 percent yield among admitted students, compared to 24 percent yield in 2017.
The domestic student yield among survey respondents also had a comparable decline of two percentage points, falling from 30 percent to 28 percent, which was lower than the national average domestic yield rate of 36 percent in fall 2015 (NACAC, 2016). Among all first-time U.S. students, yield rates experienced a steady decline over many years, falling from 49 percent in 2002 to 37 percent in 2015 (NACAC, 2016). This is attributed to students applying to many more schools than in the past. Although undergraduate yield has begun to tick back upward since 2013, the overall pattern of students applying to a large number of schools remains. While there is no national data specifically on international student yield it may be possible that this survey’s drops in international student yield are driven by similar factors as those among domestic students.
Yield by Institutional Characteristics
The survey findings suggest that shifts in international student yield vary by institution, with a portion of institutions reporting declines and others indicating steady or increasing yield. Decreases in international yield were reported by 48 percent of institutions, while 31 percent saw an increase in international yield, and 21 percent of institutions maintained a steady international yield. The remainder of this section describes in further detail the notable variations in international student yield by institutional characteristics and location.
The U.S. higher education landscape is extremely diverse, with multiple institution types, academic programs, and locations, each with a range of factors playing into potential shifts in student enrollment interest. The findings of this survey suggest that variations in international student yield are being felt by some institutions more than others. For example, reported admission and yield patterns at public and private institutions varied. Private not-
for-profit institutions saw a 5 percent growth in admissions offers to international students and yield slightly decreased from 26 percent to 25 percent compared to last year, while public institutions reported a 6 percent decline in offers of admissions and a drop in yield from 26 percent to 23 percent from Fall 2016 to Fall 2017.
International yield also varied by respondents’ institutional type4. Doctoral-granting institutions saw the largest drop in admission offers to international undergraduates, with a 3 percent decline. At the same time, doctoral- granting institutions’ international yield rates dropped only slightly from Fall 2016 to Fall 2017, shifting from 26 percent to 24 percent. Master’s colleges and universities reported a steady number of international admissions offers, but saw a relatively large drop in international student yield from 26 percent to 19 percent.
Yield by U.S. Region
The survey results indicate different trends in the top host states as well as U.S. regions. According to Open Doors?, the largest host states of international students are California, New York, Texas, and Massachusetts (Farrugia & Bhandari, 2016). Admissions and yield patterns in most of these top host states compared favorably to the national average, with the exception of Texas. Admissions offers increased in both New York and Massachusetts and yield rates remained steady. Respondents in New York reported an 8 percent increase in admissions offers to international students, with yield remaining consistent at 22 percent in both years.
Massachusetts institutions reported a 4 percent increase in admissions offers made to international students and a consistent 31 percent yield in both years. California saw a minimal 1 percent increase in admissions offers to international students from Fall 2016 to Fall 2017, with yield increasing slightly from 23 percent to 25 percent.
In contrast to the other three top host states, respondents from Texas reported a significant decrease of 18 percent in offers of admissions to international students and a sizeable decrease in yield from 44 percent to 35 percent. While Texas institutions reported large declines in yield, their yield rates are notably higher than the national average.
Institutions were grouped into four geographic regions, using the Open Doors classification (Northeast, South, Midwest, West) to understand the admission and yield trends in each region. The largest decrease in yield (-5 percentage points) was reported by institutions in the South. Institutions in Southern states also reported a drop of 13 percent in admissions offers to international students.
Midwestern institutions reported a 5 percent decrease in admissions offers, and decreased yield from 23 to 21 percent. Respondents in Northeastern states reported a 2 percent increase in admissions offers with a flat yield rate of 24 percent. Western institutions reported a 2 percent increase in admissions offered and a small decline in yield from 26 percent to 24 percent.
Figure 5. Change in International Undergraduate Yield by U.S. Region, Fall 2016 to Fall 2017
4 Based on the 2015 Carnegie Classification of Instituti