Exploratory Data Analysis of International Student Demographics:

Trends, Insights, and Implications

Sekar Kidambi Raju 1, Marwa M. Eid2, ∗

1School of Computing, SASTRA Deemed University, Thanjavur 613401, India

2Department of Communications and Electronics, Delta Higher Institute of Engineering and Technology,

Mansoura 35111, Egypt

Emails: sekar1971kr@gmail.com, mmm@ieee.org

Abstract

This paper focuses on Exploratory Data Analysis of the data from the “International Student Demographics,”

which is available on Kaggle and comprises data collected through the academic years, as well as total students,

U. S students, undergraduate, graduate, non-degree students, and OPT columns. In the given work, the

author intends to provide a chronological overview of the demographic data of international students. Operations

like handling missing values and outliers were done to prepare the data for a more elaborate analysis.

All descriptive analyses during the study included time series plots and bar charts where time series was used

to evidence key trends and distributions. The analyses of the research questions indicate that there has been

growth in international student enrollment over the decades, particularly in undergraduate and OPT student

categories, with influences from world events such as COVID-19 and the alteration of immigration policies.

Country-wise contribution reveals that the maximum number of articles originated from East Asia and South

and Central Asia, with a special focus on engineering, social sciences, and humanities. Solutions: The paper

articulates the finality of trends affecting educational institutions and policymakers by focusing on the implications

of international students’ demographics. Based on the findings above, future research directions are

proposed to improve the findings and support evidence-based practice relating to international education.

Keywords: International Students, Demographic Trends, Exploratory Data Analysis, OPT Programs, Higher

Education Policy