After years of steady increases, internationalization at colleges and universities slipped backwards during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new report released Thursday by the American Council on Education (ACE). The report found that although 47% of institutions saw accelerating internationalization between 2017 and the start of the pandemic, only 21% described acceleration between 2020 and 2021. The percentage of institutions self-reporting a “high” level of internationalization dropped 15 points, to only 11%. Institutions reporting a “moderate” level of internationalization dropped nine points, to 29%.
The report was based on a survey of 903 institutions of higher education and is conducted every five years.
Internationalization means far more than study abroad programs and foreign exchange students. ACE defines it as a university’s integration of policies, programs, initiatives, and people to become globally oriented and internationally connected. This includes partnerships with overseas institutions, faculty with international background and expertise, and curriculum. Internationalization is designed to encourage collaborations between institutions across borders to solve global challenges and to prepare students for a globally connected world—opportunities that were missed during the pandemic.
The most immediately impacted forms of internationalization were those involving student mobility, according to Dr. Maria Claudia Soler, senior 
Dr. Maria Claudia Soler, senior research analyst at ACE
“[It was] not easy,” he said. “Some of them wanted to stay.”
Meanwhile, as campuses emptied, international students had to remain.
“They couldn’t go home,” said Garfunkel. “That required massive challenges.”
