An international solution to a national crisis: Trends in student mobility to the United States post 2008

Since the 2008 financial crisis, news outlets have discussed the importance of recruiting international students to augment funding. This article explores trends in international student mobility (ISM) to the United States post-2008 through a secondary data analysis of educational appropriations, international students, tuition revenue, and the economic benefit derived from ISM. The intent is to build an empirical bridge between popular news coverage and available data. Findings indicate that there is a significant, inverse relationship between declining educational appropriations and the growing influx of international students to the U.S. Notably, the majority of the growth in ISM following the financial crisis has been from the developing world, a reflection of the world-systems perspective of core-periphery inequality.