Arkansas State University focused on their global exposure in mid 80s, when a former congressman, Ray Thornton joined the university as the president. During Thornton's tenure from 1980 to 1984, he introduced a strong international element to campus through a contact with the Saudi Arabian government to train Customs officials. Under this contract a huge number of Saudi-Arabian Students started coming to ASU every year starting from 1982.
The international affiliation of ASU has increased with time. In the 2000s, the ASU Factbook shows that, other than Saudi Arabia, a great number of students, both in undergraduate and graduate programs, are coming from abroad including from India, South Korea, Vietnam and South Africa through the international offices set in those countries.

The growth of ASU's satellite campuses led to the official creation of a system office in 2006, with Dr. Les Wyatt remaining as president of the System, and Dr. Robert L. Potts becoming the first chancellor for the ASU-Jonesboro campus. Dr. Potts' term emphasized enrollment growth, continuing expansion of research efforts, diversity initiatives, new facilities to accommodate enrollment growth, and aggressive fund-raising efforts to meet growing campus needs.
ASU established a dedicated service to the international students which contains all the possible information needed for a foreign student who is coming to the university and also to a local student who intent to study abroad.