The local population may play an important role in the social integration of international students. This paper focuses on the study of local community members' attitude toward the benefits brought by international students. In addition, comparisons between the U.S. and Chinese data are made. Data were collected in Bemidji, a U.S. small city and Wei fang, a Chinese small city respectively. The statistical analysis was applied using SPSS. The findings show both Chinese and U.S. local community

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... mbers held positive attitude towards international students: generally, economically, and culturally. While the Chinese respondent's perspective towards international students was positive, the cultural and economic benefits are not statistically significant. Compared with Chinese respondents, U.S. community members held statistically significant positive attitude toward the general and economic benefits; however, the cultural benefit were positive but not statistically significant. U.S. respondents thought international students could bring more economic benefit than cultural benefit to the local community, but the Chinese respondents held the converse attitude. This research will both help international students adapt to the social environment (including social integration) and assist universities with strategies to enhance international education.