Case Study: International Student Retention Problem Proposal Michael Whitener Step One: McGregory educational agency helps students, both local and international secure placements in community colleges and universities. We guide students to identify a course of their choice and make necessary arrangements to facilitate placement. We offer professional guidance according to students' specifications. For example, a student identifies the path they want to do. We provide a range of colleges and universities offering the came, including cost and accommodation facilities for international students (Sá & Sabzalieva, 2018). Once a student identifies their college or university of choice, we take them through all the processes to ensure they get a placement. Student retention has, however, been a recurring problem with international students. During my tenure in the educational agency administration for various community colleges, we encountered international student retention problems. Most international students apply to a college and get admitted, but they get a cheaper course in another college and transfer to that particular college once they are placed. A transfer would mean the process has to be started worldwide, a major international student recruitment challenge. Low retention rates could hurt the agency's reputation. Step 2 The agency is divided into two departments, one that deals with local students and another that deals with international students. The international student's department has over ten staff, and we specifically handle students from selected countries in Africa, Australia, and other non-American students in eligible countries. In the last ten years, we have managed to facilitate the transition of 5,987 local students to universities and colleges and 2,341 international students to get placements in colleges and universities around the US. During the last two years, student retention has been dropping significantly. The previous year was the worst, with the agency recording a 35% drop from the previous year. The problem had escalated to the point that authorities were concerned about our student retention rate, which would cause dire consequences if not addressed on time. Therefore, a team was selected to identify the cause of low retention rates and find possible solutions to the problem. The group, thus, embarked on extensive student analysis and identified some loopholes that needed to be filled immediately to avoid escalation of the situation. We identified that our application process was not thorough in identifying students who can complete a course of choice since course selection was not fully informed. Additionally, international students had no idea of America's education structure, and once admitted, they experienced a challenge in coping with the learning mode(Ammigan & Perez-Encinas, 2018). Students' financial ability was not identified as this was a significant challenge that made students switch ...