Examination of international student achievement

These stories are quite far apart in terms of time and geography, but they share the same feeling and the implications for higher education institutions: International students are not just about income.

• "It is time to stop milking cows in cash", October 2007 - The Age, Australia;
• "University" by foreign students as a cash cow '', September 2012 - The Telegraph, UK;
• "American colleges to cash in on foreign students", March 2015 - CNBC, USA.

One clear trend fueled by the global financial recession increases pressure on the recruitment of foreign students to create a new revenue line. Due to intense pressure to increase enrollment, many institutions failed to detect and adapt to other major trends, and a shift in international student communication patterns, search behavior and expectations for studying abroad.

For example, in June 2008, Apple's siphoned 3G sold one million units in just three days. That number jumped to 13 million with Apple 6s in September 2015. Also, the total number of Face book users increased from 100 million in August 2008 to 1.35 billion in October 2014. For both Face book and Apple, most users have in their international markets.

Clearly, technology has affected the search and communication behavior throughout the world, including among foreign students. Almost six years ago, I argued for the use of social media to attract foreign students and deepen their understanding of the process of decision-making student. However, many institutions are still struggling to adapt to the changing needs and expectations of international students.

The result is that the gap between institutional strategies and student expectations is an extension. Although the decision-making processes student changed, anecdotal evidence and feelings and stereotypes continue to drive institutional strategies and practices.

These reactive strategies are overly reliant on a few countries, and in turn could hurt the campus climate, its institutional reputation and experience of the individual student. Therefore, it is important not only to understand the students, but also proactively strategies and prepare for emerging markets and trends.

Segmentation

International Student segmentation is a framework that helps us understand the changing needs and behavior of international students.

The first was launched in 2012 with the study not all international students are the same, segmentation framework aims to inform entry strategies and practices in the context of the different needs, motivations and preferences of international students.

Since then, subsequent research tried to answer the following questions:

• How do different segments of international students differ in terms of their academic preparedness and financial resources?
• What information value of international students when researching colleges and universities to study abroad? What sources are used to get information?
• How can higher education institutions effectively attract and enroll the best fit of potential foreign students?

The framework identified four segments of students with two dimensions: academic preparedness and financial resources.

• Strivers: high academic preparedness; low funding
• strugglers: Low academic preparedness; low funding
• Researchers: Low academic preparedness; high funding
• Highfliers: high academic preparedness; high financial resources.

The core contribution of this framework is to encourage higher education institutions to understand the students outside the group numbers and recognize the diversity of their needs and expectations. This framework also provides a lens to understand the "glacial" students in transnational education or in a transboundary context.

Several researchers have further investigated the framework for deepening our understanding of international students. However, it must expand in scope if we discover and define the international success of students.