School Belongingness Scale (SBS)
Category: Student Well-Being
This study addresses an underexplored aspect of diversity at four-year research universities: the impact of international students on their domestic peers. I explore the peer effects of international students, assessing how their presence influences domestic students' academic outcomes. Using the classroom setting as a natural experimental framework, I estimate the impact of exposure to international students on domestic students' course performance, persistence, and degree completion. Leveraging variations in international student representation in introductory math courses, the study finds that their presence is associated with lower course grades among domestic students and a slight decline in degree completion rates. Further heterogeneous analyses reveal a more pronounced negative effect on degree completion among students from less selective institutions, who plausibly have weaker academic backgrounds.
Keywords
international student, research university, peer effect
Education level
Document Object Identifier (DOI)
10.26300/qh8c-q769
