Exploring regional and institutional factors of international students' dropout: The South Korea case

Abstract With an increasing number of international students in South Korea, the issue of retaining these students and reducing their dropout rates has become important. This study explores the multilevel factors that affect the institutional dropout rate among international students in Korea. The research questions are as follows: (a) to what extent do international students drop out from undergraduate or short‐term programmes in Korean universities?; (b) what are the regional and institutional factors that determine international students' dropout rates? This study uses the panel data on educational institutions as found in the Higher Education in Korea report, which has been updated annually by the Ministry of Education since 2013. According to the pooled ordinary least square and panel analyses, the results indicate that a range of institutional factors (such as type, size, tuition and research performance of academics) and regional factors (such as regional gross domestic product, inflation and the numbers of foreigners in the region) are all associated with the dropout rates of international students. This study suggests that we need to consider various factors to improve the international students' learning experiences both inside and outside of the campus.