International student population growing

By Kamryn Sanderfer

Contributor

In the past 10 years Trevecca’s international student body has grown by 11%, moving from 18 students in 2014 to 206 students in the fall of 2023, but Trevecca’s international student body is lacking the cultural diversity that national averages statistically reported from 2023.

“It’s better for Trevecca and for the international students too if we have more countries with larger populations,” said Rebecca Merrick, Trevecca’s Director of Global Engagement. “Behind Honduras, the countries represented only have single-digit numbers of people that are at Trevecca. We don’t even have another country that’s in the 10 to 20

range.” According to Merrick, 99 of the 206 international students enrolled at Trevecca last semester were Honduran.

Outside of Trevecca, national US averages recorded by the Open Doors 2023 Report on International Educational Exchange showed strong growth during the 2022-2023 year in international student enrollment from multiple new places, such as sub-Saharan African countries. Ghana joined Nigeria last year in the list of top 25 countries that send the most students. Of the top 25 countries, 8 of them reached all-time highs in 2023: Bangladesh, Colombia, Ghana, India, Italy, Nepal, Pakistan, and Spain.

Some international students have noticed the lack of this representation in the Trevecca student body.

“The Colombians here are a very small community,” said Isabella Duque, a Colombian transfer student. “I mean, you have a lot of international students here, but my culture is not very remarkably present here.”

Won Seo, a South Korean student here at Trevecca, has said the same when it comes to his cultural representation. “There’s not a lot of Asians here—there’s only two South Koreans that I’m aware of,” Seo said. “It was quite shocking… I thought there were going to be a lot more international students. There are [a lot], but just the majority are from one place rather than spread out.”

Seo said that finding a Korean community outside of Trevecca is equally as hard since he does not have a car. Incorporating a more diverse international student body is something that Merrick is continuing to encourage and hope for. She said that reaching out to different areas of the world, such as India, South Korea, different areas of Africa, and really anywhere that there are students who can pay to come here, is something that she wants for the Trevecca community.

“There are a few departments on campus already working on building relationships…to help us recruit from one or two of those places,” said Merrick. “We’d have to go there and build relationships because those are the types of places where you have to have relationship.”

The Open Doors 2023 Fall Snapshot reports that 92% of U.S. institutions would like to grow their international student totals in the next five years. To accomplish this goal, those institutions note the need to hire additional support services staff, expand student housing, and add majors to increase capacity.

“One of the reasons we are not seeing exponential growth in international students is the fact that our cost is increasing year over year, and around the world right now there are some economic challenges,” said Melinda Miller, vice president of traditional undergraduate enrollment. “Our overall goal is always growth, but with international students we understand that there is a limit to what we can do with institutional aid to assist them… We have a challenge ahead of us to try to find international students who are able to afford Trevecca, and also for Trevecca to continue to fundraise so that we have scholarships available to all of our students, including international students.”