Beyond Justification

Nearly $33 billion in U.S. economic benefits created. More than 400,000 U.S. jobs created or supported.

Those numbers, summarizing the contributions to the national economy of the 1,043,839 international students studying at U.S. colleges and universities during the 2015–2016 academic year, are enormous. And yet, before they were totaled up, they were essentially hiding in plain sight: “Many people are surprised by the economic impact of international education in their own districts,” says Alfred Boll, branch chief for EducationUSA in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Against a backdrop of increasing global mobility on the one hand and an increasingly unpredictable political environment that has the potential to threaten recruitment of international students on the other, the push is on for international higher education professionals to develop better tools and tactics for measuring, analyzing, and communicating the importance and value of international education.

“I believe it is time to reexamine how we make our case,” says Brad Farnsworth, vice president of the American Council on Education’s (ACE) Center for Internationalization and Global Engagement. “Local communities, local businesses, and local and state governments often need more convincing. As you get farther away from higher education institutions, people are more skeptical about the value of international engagement.” 

To make their case effectively, experts and leading practitioners say, international higher education professionals need to match the efficacy of their work with a robust set of metrics and messaging. By harnessing relatable data and compelling human narratives, they say, international education advocates