Foreign Enrollment Declines at Universities, Surveys Say

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Foreign Enrollment Declines at Universities, Surveys Say

November 10, 2004
 By SAM DILLON

Many of America's top research universities suffered steep
declines in foreign student enrollment this fall, according
to two new surveys, and alarmed educators blamed delays in
processing American visas as well as increased competition
from universities overseas.

Educating international students is a $13 billion industry
for the nation's 4,000 colleges and universities, and in
many science and engineering departments a majority of
graduate students are foreign.

The number of Chinese students who applied to attend
American graduate schools this fall dropped 45 percent
compared with fall 2003, according to a survey of its 450
member institutions by the Council of Graduate Schools.
Applications from India fell 28 percent, the survey found.
The decline in actual enrollments of students from those
countries was less severe, however: 8 percent for Chinese
and 4 percent for Indian students, the survey found.

The declines represent a troubling turnaround after three
decades in which American colleges and universities
experienced a boom in the enrollment of foreign students.
The uninterrupted growth ended in the fall of 2003, when
the country registered its first decline in foreign
enrollment since 1971, 2.4 percent, according to the
Institute of International Education.

"This is a serious problem for our country," said Peter D.
Spear, the provost at the University of Wisconsin, where
foreign enrollment declined by 3.8 percent, to 3,435 this
year from 3,571 last year. "We depend on international
students to provide a good portion of our science and
engineering work force," Dr. Spear said.

At Arizona State University, which has about 60,000
students, the number from foreign countries fell 7 percent
this fall over last. "It's a major issue for us, and it's
going to get worse," said Michael M. Crow, the university's
president. "We need workers in our scientific and
engineering laboratories, and Americans tend to go into
business, economics and law, while international students
go into science and engineering. So our pool of talent is
going down."

The countries contributing the most students to Arizona
State's total enrollment are China, Taiwan, India, Pakistan
and Saudi Arabia, Dr. Crow said, and for students from all
those countries, obtaining an American visa has become
frustrating.

"For students from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, it's
extremely difficult," he said.

Other causes of the decline in foreign enrollment include
increasing competition from universities in Britain,
Australia and New Zealand, as well as a large expansion of
university capacities in the countries that send the most
students to the United States, India and China.

"Both countries are dramatically increasing their capacity
to train their own graduate students at home," by expanding
existing universities and building new ones, said Peggy
Blumenthal, a vice president at the Institute for
International Education.

The institute released its annual report on student
mobility, financed by the State Department, which surveyed
enrollment data for the 2003-4 term. It found that total
foreign student enrollment at 2,700 accredited institutions
fell by 2.4 percent in the fall 2003 term, the first such
drop since 1971.

At the same time, Nafsa: Association of International
Educators released a survey, conducted with four other
groups, of foreign enrollment this fall at more than 400
institutions. It found that some universities experienced
impressive growth, like the University of Southern
California, which has the most foreign students in the
United States, 6,647, an enrollment that represents a 6
percent jump over fall 2003. But about two-thirds of the 25
universities with the most international students reported
declines.

Similarly, in a survey released last week, the Council of
Graduate Schools said 7 out of 10 graduate schools reported
declines in first-time international graduate student
enrollment.

Many universities that responded to all three surveys
attributed the declines, at least in part, to visa denials
and delays. Since Sept. 11, foreign students applying for
visas have faced stringent review at American embassies.
But science and technical students must also now be cleared
by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central
Intelligence Agency. Educators have been warning that the
process keeps thousands of students away, and officials in
the Bush administration are trying to fine-tune it, said
Vic Johnson, a spokesman for the Association of
International Educators.

"But there's a perception in the world now that students
can't get a visa to study in the U.S. anymore, and that may
take a long time to fix," Mr. Johnson said.

Visa problems are keeping away not only students, but
eminent visitors, too, said Larry Faulkner, president of
the University of Texas. J. M. Coetzee, a South African
author and the 2003 winner of the Nobel Prize for
Literature, who was once a doctoral student at Austin,
cited the headaches of applying for a visa in declining to
attend a ceremony to honor him there this fall, Dr.
Faulkner said. And also citing potential immigration
problems, the International Astronomical Union decided to
hold its 2009 general assembly in Brazil, rather than
Hawaii, said Ken Marvel, a spokesman for the union.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/10/education/10college.html? 
ex=1101390260&ei=1&en=d45e64a4f7e694b9

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