A new report shows that the United States played host to a record breaking 886,052 international college students, but how will this effect the campus of Saint Xavier University.
The 2014 Open Doors Report on International Exchange is a survey that is published with the help of the U.S. state department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
The aim of the survey is to help inform the public on the trends within the international student community and how this affects the United States collegiate school system.
The latest report for 2014 has recorded record breaking numbers and students coming from overseas are cited as mostly coming from China.
The students who are traveling from China to the U.S. are undergraduates who are seeking their first degrees at popular U.S. institutions.
One of the top institutions for these foreign students was the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana which records having over 10,000 international students.
The University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana is just one of the university’s in the state of Illinois who have been directly marketing themselves to Chinese students overseas.
Saint Xavier University has also made strides towards enrolling international students on campus with the renovations to Pacelli Hall and formation of a plan aimed at increasing internationally born Chinese student enrollment at the university.
The Pacelli renovations were specifically aimed at allowing the hall to house international students.
The program has been pushed back until Fall of 2015 at Saint Xavier University however due to issues arisen during the international student recruitment process.
As the report further breaks down the trends in international student growth there are new regions where international students are coming from.
One of the fastest growing regions is the Middle East that has seen a large upswing in students leaving the region to obtain their degrees internationally.
The trends within the published report are showing that the growth of international students is now a rising them in higher education today.
This means that more universities have had to build their curriculum and infrastructure around the idea that international students will be now part of their overall student body.
Saint Xavier University has also worked on preparing for an international student program through the hiring of new faculty such as Han Xiao who is the university’s Chinese Program Coordinator.
While the short term goal of the university is to work on enrolling students from China, it has been expressed by faculty such as Provost DeVito that this program can grow past just students from China.
As of right now the university has not expressed any more detailed plans on bringing in more students besides the students from China at this time.
For more information on the 2014 Open Door Report student and faculty can visit iie.org for more info.
And for more information on the international student population on campus and the university’s push towards international student enrollment growth continue to read the Xavierite for the latest news.
Jake Alleruzzo
Senior News Editor