Kent State University is welcoming about two-thousand international students this fall, and the school is planning ways to bring Kent State to the world, even if global students are hesitant to come to the U.S.
International enrollment is down from India, China and Saudi Arabia, but it’s up from every other country that sent students to Kent State this year. That’s one reason President Beverly Warren tells the Board of Trustees that they’re planning an arrangement with the Catholic Pontifical University of Purana, Brazil, a country where education is organized differently.
“They don’t have a general education program. So we would go and deliver the core general education, first-two-years’ experience. Then, those students who finish that could come to the States and study at Kent State.”
Warren says it’s a model that could be replicated to other countries to help reach her goal is of creating a student body that reflects diversity in all its forms: age, race and sexual orientation.
“I think it’s a way to really reach out to students who, I think, still want to experience an American education. So, taking Kent State to the world is a way to do that. The other thing is to diversify the number of countries that we recruit students to come to the States.”
Kent State’s international enrollment is down 27 percent, but overall enrollment is down only about four percent.
