The role of rankings in shaping the institutional enrollment of international students

Abstract

College and university rankings have received considerable attention throughout the world. To date, very little inquiry has examined the role of these rankings in shaping international student enrollment, which is surprising given many institutions’ desire to recruit these students. The present study explores this issue by examining data from U.S. News and World Report’s rankings of national universities and liberal arts colleges. Specifically, it explored how changes in each of these rankings over time were associated with changes in international student enrollment; as a comparison, it also considered these same relationships among domestic students, who comprise the vast majority of U.S. undergraduates. Within a total analytic sample of 4,698 observations from 502 institutions, improvements in national university rankings consistently predict increases in international student enrollment, and these relationships are stronger at universities that were ranked more favorably. Improved rankings are also sometimes associated with increases in international student enrollment at liberal arts colleges. Regardless of institutional type, the link between rankings and international student enrollment has become even stronger in recent years. In contrast, the corresponding patterns for rankings and domestic student enrollment are weaker, nonsignificant, or occasionally in the opposite direction.