International Student Retention: Separate Published Attrition from First-Term Tracking

To act on international student attrition, separate published statistics from the current intake’s support record. Published data follow survey definitions. An operational tracker follows the same entering group at a defined date. Combining them can mix cancellation before entry with interruption after registration.

Different records answer different questions

KEDI’s linked-data categories distinguish foreign enrolled students and attrition. The public student-data description also lists registration, enrolment, attendance status and attrition separately.

Read published values using that year’s population, definitions and reference date. “Are this intake’s students continuing their first term?” requires an intake-based observation. Give the internal measure its own name and formula.

Fix the entering group and observation date

GEA proposes this internal example: students verified as actively enrolled on the observation date divided by the intake’s confirmed initial registrants. Show students on leave separately rather than counting them as active.

For a hypothetical intake of 20, with 17 active, two on leave and one withdrawn, the defined active-enrolment share is 17÷20=85%. Examine leave and withdrawal separately, including return plans and processing. A mid-term observation is not a first-term completion rate.

A GEA tracking-table example

Decide how pre-entry payment cancellations affect the initial group. Keep later refunds and status changes as events rather than silently deleting registered students. Retain the basis for duplicate corrections so changes to earlier totals can be explained.

Investigate changing numbers in order

First compare programme, intake and date. A language-course group is different from a degree cohort; all enrolled students are different from new entrants. Then check leave treatment, duplicate removal and whether an application awaiting approval was treated as final.

Next examine support needs such as study, language, finance, living conditions or direction. Keep an unconfirmed reason pending with an owner and review date. Detailed counselling records should stay outside the summary table.

Start with one intake

Confirm its initial registrants and attach status as of one date. Reconcile active, leave, withdrawal and unclassified cases, then assign each outstanding support action. At the next review, check both the totals and what happened to pending work.

For cooperation with GEA, prepare the term, programme, status definitions and an anonymised summary. These provide a basis for connecting reporting and student support while preserving each record’s definitions.

Related guides

• From admission offer to first enrolment

• Connecting support after an academic warning

Sources

• KEDI 고등교육통계조사 — 연계정보

• 한국대학교육협의회 대학정보공시 학생 현황 — 공공데이터포털

Sources checked: 24 October 2026.

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