International Student Support Services Benchmarks study presents detailed data and commentary about how colleges are supporting their international students to maximize enrollment and retention.  50 colleges and universities participated in the study equally divided between public and private colleges

The 115 page study covers issues such as: how large are the staffs devoted to international students? How many colleges have separate departments dedicated to the needs of international students? How are preadmission programs handled? What has been the recent trend in international student enrollment? How have support programs contributed to retention? How are such programs financially supported?  How much do colleges take in from special fees for international student support? What has been the recent trend in such fees? How popular are non-degree programs among foreign students.  What is the foreign language speaking expertise among the staff in international student support services? How many have staff who speak Chinese? Arabic? French? Hindi?  What are the orientation requirements for foreign students and how do these requirements differ from those for domestic students?  What problems emerge among the foreign student population and how are these problems dealt with?  Do specific cultures tend to engender particular types of issues that can be planned for in advance? How are international student support services staff allocating their time?  How much staff time is spent on visa and immigration issues? How is staff time split among the needs of foreign undergraduates, graduate students and faculty?

Just a few of the report’s many findings are that:

• Only 28% of the colleges in the sample offer a special preadmission program through which the college has developed its own department or contracted with an independent company to offer English language or other forms of training to foreign students prior to their being admitted to the college itself. 

• Mean staff size for international student support services was 2.83 FTE.

• Financial aid and tax matters, including release of funds from other countries , accounted for a mean of 11.64% of staff time.