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Case Study: International Student Retention Problem Proposal

Michael Whitener

Step One:

McGregory educational agency helps students, both local and international secure placements in community colleges and universities. We guide students to identify a course of their choice and make necessary arrangements to facilitate placement. We offer professional guidance according to students' specifications. For example, a student identifies the path they want to do. We provide a range of colleges and universities offering the came, including cost and accommodation facilities for international students (Sá & Sabzalieva, 2018). Once a student identifies their college or university of choice, we take them through all the processes to ensure they get a placement. Student retention has, however, been a recurring problem with international students.

During my tenure in the educational agency administration for various community colleges, we encountered international student retention problems. Most international students apply to a college and get admitted, but they get a cheaper course in another college and transfer to that particular college once they are placed. A transfer would mean the process has to be started worldwide, a major international student recruitment challenge. Low retention rates could hurt the agency's reputation.

Step 2

The agency is divided into two departments, one that deals with local students and another that deals with international students. The international student's department has over ten staff, and we specifically handle students from selected countries in Africa, Australia, and other non-American students in eligible countries. In the last ten years, we have managed to facilitate the transition of 5,987 local students to universities and colleges and 2,341 international students to get placements in colleges and universities around the US.

During the last two years, student retention has been dropping significantly. The previous year was the worst, with the agency recording a 35% drop from the previous year. The problem had escalated to the point that authorities were concerned about our student retention rate, which would cause dire consequences if not addressed on time. Therefore, a team was selected to identify the cause of low retention rates and find possible solutions to the problem. The group, thus, embarked on extensive student analysis and identified some loopholes that needed to be filled immediately to avoid escalation of the situation.

We identified that our application process was not thorough in identifying students who can complete a course of choice since course selection was not fully informed. Additionally, international students had no idea of America's education structure, and once admitted, they experienced a challenge in coping with the learning mode(Ammigan & Perez-Encinas, 2018). Students' financial ability was not identified as this was a significant challenge that made students switch to a new course amid admission in a class. Assessing student's financial ability was also suggested to be thorough and comprehensive. Finally, we identified behavioral variation among students.

The team formulated various solutions to handle the case of retention in McGregory Educational agency. Student assessment had to be thorough to source students who have the potential to complete the selected course. When students choose a course, a team in our institution would be tasked with taking the student through that particular course's requirements to gauge if they could handle the learning requirement. Students from countries that use a different education system besides American would also be with the system t ensure they do not get culture shocks restoring to seeking the other course elsewhere.

In conclusion, problem-solving is essential for educational agencies, especially when dealing with students from different backgrounds. It is crucial to assess the problem before they get out of hand. Student retention risk is one problem I was involved in problem identification to finding a workable solution.

References

Ammigan, R., & Perez-Encinas, A. (2018). International student services. Encyclopedia of international higher education systems and institutions, 1-4.

Sá, C. M., & Sabzalieva, E. (2018). The politics of the great brain race: Public policy and international student recruitment in Australia, Canada, England and the USA. Higher Education, 75(2), 231-253