This paper reviews data mining applications of students' databases in educational institutions. Data mining techniques that predict and improve students ' retention rates and success is presented. Moreover, the Missions Administration at the Ministry of Higher Education in Egypt and previous analysis done on the missions databases is described. The paper further describes the methodology used for analyzing the database for the ministry of higher education in Egypt. The process starts by extracting a subset of data including the missioners and the mission’s data, countries, specialties, departure and arrival dates and finally the extension requests from the missioners. These data were extracted into a data warehouse for the analysis purpose. The used model discovered the best and the worst countries for student mission. A detailed analysis discovered the best and the worst specialties in the previously discovered countries. Moreover, the analysis revealed the effect of the marital status on the mission of students in foreign countries. A visual display using a chart was used to express the information to business users. This model may help in achieving effective decision making in the reallocation of Egyptian students to other countries.
