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.

中文翻译：

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排名在影响国际学生院校招生方面的作用

摘要

学院和大学排名在全世界受到广泛关注。迄今为止，很少有调查研究这些排名在影响国际学生入学方面的作用，考虑到许多机构都希望招收这些学生，这一点令人惊讶。本研究通过检查《美国新闻与世界报道》的国立大学和文理学院排名数据来探讨这个问题。具体来说，它探讨了这些排名随时间的变化如何与国际学生入学率的变化相关；作为比较，它还考虑了国内学生之间的相同关系，这些学生占美国本科生的绝大多数。在来自 502 所机构的 4,698 个观察结果的总分析样本中，国家大学排名的提高一致预示着国际学生入学人数的增加，而且这种关系在排名更有利的大学中更为明显。排名的提高有时也与文理学院国际学生入学人数的增加有关。无论何种类型的院校，排名与国际学生入学率之间的联系近年来变得更加紧密。相比之下，排名和国内学生入学率的相应模式则较弱、不显着，或者偶尔呈相反方向。