Environmental and institutional factors and strategies of response in electrical and computer engineering departments at research and doctorate universities in the United States and their association to international graduate enrollment

The electrical and computer engineering (ECE) academic field is among the top fields in the U.S. that can claim predominance in international graduate student participation. This study hypothesizes that academic ECE departments in the U.S. depend on international graduate enrollment for their operation, and that such departments and their parent institutions have strategies in place to manage the uncertainties of changing enrollment. Thus, it is the percent of international graduate enrollment that is considered as the dependent variable, while environmental factors, institutional characteristics, and response strategies followed by individual institutions and ECE academic programs play the role of independent variables. The objectives are: (1) to explore categories of environmental characteristics related to international graduate enrollment fluctuations in electrical and computer engineering departments from 1982 through 2003; (2) to explore whether and to what extent, institutional characteristics influence the departmental strategies to manage international graduate enrollment. Following regression analysis of survey results and follow-up phone interviews with administrators and ECE department chairs from selected research universities, some of the findings of the study are: (1) Growth of graduate enrollment has slowed and the change of the niche in the environment of the ECE field-caused by developments in Asian higher education, paradigm shifts in the electrical engineering field, and uncertain future employment estimates-has alarmed ECE chairs and administrators responsible for international student issues in the institutions examined in the study; (2) response to changing enrollment is subject to departmental discretion and is not the outcome of a concerted action among administrative units; (3) the most popular strategies for controlling international graduate ECE enrollment is the collaboration of U.S. ECE departments with specific "feeder" institutions in developing countries.