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ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic caused unique challenges to international students. Student Affairs and Services (SAS) across the higher education sector played a key role in supporting students and institutions during the pandemic. This article reports the findings of an exploratory survey with SAS practitioners from around the globe on the ways in which SAS responded to the pandemic and sought to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on students, in general, and international students specifically. The results demonstrate that international students were among the primary groups of students impacted by the pandemic. Specific challenges identified include mental well-being, inability to return home, financial hardships, fear, and uncertainty. Discrimination of certain groups was also noted. SAS intervened to assist international students in navigating these challenges across world regions, including services declared essential for international student support. Finally, financial implications and the future of international student support are explored.
Keywords: COVID-19, international students, mobility, student affairs services, student support
COVID-19 wreaked havoc on higher education (HE) as it did on most areas of society, communities, and nations (Blankenberger & Williams, 2020; Ly, 2020; Marinoni et al., 2020; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD], 2020). In the course of 2020, an overwhelming number of national and international reports from various institutions, and governmental and not-for-profit organizations demonstrated how the pandemic was impacting international student experiences, travel, and overall mobility, describing it as a "Seismic Impact" (Fischer, 2020, p. i). Tesar (2020) argued that universities can no longer expect large numbers of international students on their campuses and need to adjust to different realities, as the implications from COVID-19 "shattered the overall structure of our degrees and programs and units, our plans, our academic rules and processes" (p. 556). The international student experience has changed along with the higher education context, and student affairs and services (SAS) practitioners who work in the international student domain have to adapt. International students are defined throughout this study as any student "who has crossed borders for the purpose of study" (Rebolledo-Gómez & Ranchin, 2013, p. 1).
The study's objectives are to capture how SAS colleagues around the world were responding to the impediments facing international students during this extraordinary time in history, establishing a base knowledge of contextual differences, and...