UW-Milwaukee Committee Reviews International Student Enrollment Issues After 20% Fail to Enroll Following Admittance

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s International Committee met with Provost Andrew Daire this semester to review the process on international student enrollment and retention following concerns about the number of students who received visas to enter the U.S. because they were admitted to UWM but then do not ever show up to enroll in classes.

For Spring 2024, approximately 20 percent of international students who were admitted to UWM never enrolled, according to Jennifer Gruenewald, the Interim Executive Director for International Education at UWM.

Of that 20 percent, about half are transfers to other universities, so the university has a record of where they chose to enroll, she said. For the other half, information is not available about their plans, according to Gruenewald. Gruenewald also serves as director for the International Student and Scholar Services Center for International Education. 

“We have an increasing number of students that come for one semester – don’t pay a penny and then leave,” said Gruenewald. 

A student who does not report to UWM and attend or request a transfer is considered a “no show” and is recorded in a federal government database called the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), she told Media Milwaukee. All international students who enter the US in a student visa status have records in the SEVIS database, Gruenewald said.

University officials say this situation is not unique to UWM but rather it is happening at many universities around the country.

In response, Daire and some members of the IC are proposing an international application fee as part of the admission process to help mitigate any extra costs. This process fee for student transfer visas would help reduce the unnecessary amount of processing applications that are uncommitted, according to Daire. 

“Some students will apply to get the visa with no intention of coming here,” said Daire. “Right, so there’s some who have no intention of coming here. There’s some that apply here because our acceptance rates are more generous – come here knowing that they’ll have a better shot of getting into where they really want to go during the spring semester. So, there’s some that come in with the intention to leave at some point.” 

UW-Milwaukee is the second leading institution in Wisconsin hosting 1,578 international students, according to an Institute of International Education Open Doors data report of state facts and figures from 2022-23 in Wisconsin. This is a 14.2% difference from the previous year which was 4.5%, ranking Wisconsin as 21st in the U.S. for international enrollment data. According to the reports, some of the leading places of origin from international students coming to UWM include China, India, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Taiwan.

Asked for the aggregate number of international students admitted to UWM in spring 2024, Gruenewald said, “The person who issued I-20s for Spring 2024 has resigned. The last data I have from her is that as of December 20, 2023, approximately 125 students had visas. I think you would be safe to say approximately 150 students have visas.” She added that “not all who have visas actually enter the U.S.”

According to an Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange Annual Census of International Students from Fall 2023, nearly 120 students admitted to UWM have unknown “new and continuing international enrollment” status, meaning that the status of some international students is unaccounted for and marked as ‘do not know’ and produced by the Institute for International Education and sponsored by the Department of State.

Gruenewald said that although not all students meet this majority, it is a sizable amount that has captured the university’s attention. Gruenewald said that many of the international students that have been granted visas to attend UW-Milwaukee do not come to the university and do not request the transferring of records, eventually resulting in the cancellation of the record altogether. As a result, some international students are left with no status in the country, according to Gruenewald. 

The International Committee (IC) is an advisory committee that is backed by faculty and staff around UW-Milwaukee’s campus. It primarily focuses on the recommendation and approval of agreements related to international academic programming. The committee’s charter is made up of different department areas that study and compare the general internationalization of projects and programming at the university as well as incoming and outgoing study abroad agreements.

Daire shared his review surrounding the influx of international students who apply on student visas and are accepted to UWM only to later depart from the university within, or after, their first academic year.

Other Wisconsin Universities Are Also Affected

In addition, the international student enrollment and retention rates have not just impacted UW-Milwaukee’s campus. Some UW-System schools have met this past spring to review the impacts it’s had on the school system as a whole, according to Mark Pitsch, the director of Media Relations for the Universities of Wisconsin. 

International students who receive admissions offers must apply for a U.S. visa using an admission letter from their top school choice, according to Pitsch, via email with Media Milwaukee. Students must also submit a visa application document known as form I-20 associated with their school choice months in advance, according to Pitsch. 

 A world map of UWM International Student Data from Fall 2023 indicates that over 1,500 international students make up the enrollment on UW-Milwaukee’s campus. 

“After they receive the visa, it is legal for them to change their mind about their school of choice,” said Pistch. “Even after arriving in the U.S. If a student changes their mind about which school to attend after arriving in the U.S. their first school of choice transfers an electronic record in a federal database to their new school. In this way, the federal government can track all students on student visas while they are in the U.S.”

Some schools in the Universities of Wisconsin System have seen a recent increase in applications along with a subsequent trend of transfers after one semester of studying or U.S. arrival, according to Pitsch. At UW System schools, there are minimal – or in some cases, no cost to apply. This is a potential contributing factor to the retention of enrollment; some UW System schools have begun applying fee-based strategies as a response in order to encourage students to select their top school carefully before applying for admission, and traveling to the U.S. on a visa, according to Pitsch. 

Daire has also proposed further exploration of charging an international processing fee and international-student tuition differential to mitigate the university’s international costs at the provost meeting from the last board of regents. 

“It’s an incredible taxation on the team,” said Daire. 

The IC also features two sub committees serving on Inter-Institutional Partnerships and International Travel Safety, according to Larry Kuiper an associate professor in Global Studies specializing in the French program. Kuiper also serves as the committee’s chair which met in Garland Hall on UWM’s campus just down the hall from the Center for International Education (CIE) on Feb. 27.

Two other main motions also discussed at the committee meeting were regarding potential partner institutions abroad and how they can effectively collaborate with UWM. The International Partnership Agreements collaborates with the Subcommittee on Inter-institutional Partnerships to form and review such exchange agreements such as Kookmin University in South Korea, and the Erasmus+ agreement with Justus Liebig University in Germany, according to Tracy Buss the recently retired and former Associate Director for International Partnerships and Market Development at CIE. The Erasmus+ Programme is a European study abroad program that offers partner university exchanges in or outside of European institutions. Both motion agreements were passed unanimously by the committee.

Daire said one of his biggest priorities as provost is to have strong international partnerships; he intends to identify strategic model partnerships that offer opportunities that engage with the UW-System through advanced research collaborations with a focus on bi-directional international partnerships.