Abstract
This paper aims to delve into the effects of the Trump administration of the mindset of international undergraduate students and determine whether the change in administration had an effect on the overall academic quality of international applicants to US undergraduate degrees. This paper collects data from international applicants at The University of North Carolina Asheville from 2013-2018. Using a Difference in Difference setting, the paper finds that the stricter immigration policies and uncertainty in the future labour market increases the quality of international applicants. More restrictions to the path of US labour market act as an additional screening mechanism so that only the high-quality international students apply. Besides academic quality, the paper also explores how intended majors of international students have changed. The estimation result shows that international students are more likely to choose STEM majors which the current immigration policies favour, indicating additional self-selection of international students.
How to Cite
McFadyen, F. R., (2021) ““To what extent does the change to a Trump administration affect the academic quality of international undergraduate applicants to the United States?””, Capstone, The UNC Asheville Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship 34(1).
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