Identifying Barriers of International Students’ Admission in Iranian Public Universities

Higher education has a strategic role as a driving force for sustainable development and moving towards an epistemological community. Identifying barriers of international students’ admission is one of the important issues in the field of higher education promotion. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify barriers of foreign students’ admission in Iranian public universities.

This research has been done in terms of applied purpose and qualitative method. Participants in this study consisted of all experts in the field of higher education in comprehensive and specialized universities at the level of one Ministry of Sciences, whose field of scientific and executive activity was the internationalization of higher education. Sampling was continued in a targeted manner until reaching the theoretical saturation level, in which 11 people participated in the study. To collect data, Semi-structured interview method was used and data were analyzed by using Brown and Clark (2006) six-step content analysis method.

Based on findings, in terms of barriers of international students’ admission in Iranian public universities, 32 basic themes, 6 organizing themes and 3 comprehensive themes were extracted. Political, cultural and social weaknesses of universities as well as weakness of the educational, research and technology authority of universities and research institutes at the regional and international levels also the lack of authority of universities and professors in attracting students and interacting with Foreign professors were identified as the main barriers to the admission of foreign students to Iranian public universities.

Identifying Political, cultural and social factors also weaknesses of the educational, research and management as the barriers of international students’ admission It seems that adopting appropriate policy and strong strategy program together proper operational planning and strengthening educational and administrative structure is the best solution.