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International Education MattersA
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International Educator
U.S. higher education is a hot commodity that unfortunately is also out of the reach of most of the world's qualified, potential students. While record-setting figures for international enrollments in the United States have been common in recent years-the latest Open Doors data from the Institute of International Education (HE) indicating that nearly 600,000 international students studied in the United States-the majority of those students represent the political and economic elite of their home countries. Unlike domestic US higher education, where affirmative action is a reality, US institutions are going where the money is abroad when recruiting students due to the high cost of US tuition. The free-market approach to international student recruitment is clearly at the heart of this development; however, the spirit of international student mobility seems to have taken a back seat. A glance at the Open Doors data reveals that only 13 percent of the nearly 600,000 international students in the United States in 2001-02 were from Africa (6.5 percent) and the Middle East (6.6 percent), respectively, while 56 percent were from Asia. These are damning and shameful statistics, especially in view of the appalling ignorance of the history, cultures, and languages of Africa and the Middle East at all levels of American society, including the federal government. As Damtew Teferra, lead researcher of the African Higher Education Project at the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College, notes in "Africa and the US Higher Education Market," "the nature of the market is that most of Africa and other poor countries have remained and will remain at the margins of the international knowledge landscape" (International Higher Education, Fall 2002). Ignorance is not bliss but rather a dangerous and costly condition both in human and monetary terms. In some countries and regions of the world, it is not only in the interest of the United States to sponsor students -- future leaders of their countries and widely acknowledged "foreign policy assets" -- it is also a way to repay a debt, a long-term strategy to undo the damage caused by past US foreign policy. As a senior US diplomat in Vietnam once explained to me, part of the mission of the embassy is to "fill in the gaps and repair the damage caused by war," recognizing that Vietnam is desperately in need of "new ideas, information, knowledge, and skills" (International Educator, Spring 2001). In fact, Raymond F. Burghardt, US Ambassador to Vietnam, announced in a January 2003 speech to the Asia Society that the US government spends more on the Fulbright Program in Vietnam -- with an annual budget of $5 million -- than any other Fulbright program in the world. The horrific events that unfolded on the morning of September 11, 2001, had the potential to exacerbate a problem that has been brewing on the international education scene for the past two decades-the declining share of students from around the world who choose to study in the United States. The US share of internationally mobile students-the proportion of all international students who select the United States as their destination of choice-decreased by almost 10 percentage points (from 39.2 percent to 30.2 percent) from 1982 to 1995, the last year that HE released this figure. In January 2003, NAFSA's Strategic Task Force on International Student Access, issued the report "In America's Interest: Welcoming International Students," in which the task force highlighted four barriers to access: problems with recruitment, US government visa and student-tracking regulations, the complexity of the US higher education system, and the cost of US higher education (see article, p. 6.). It is cost, which the report classifies as a "lesser barrier," and its implications that concern us here.(1) (The issue of "access to what," of no small import to students from countries where locally relevant and useful knowledge and skills are essential for development, transcends the scope of this article.(2)) Access and Equity According to IIE'S Open Doors 2002, a record 582,996 students from more than 200 countries and territories studied at US colleges and universities in 2001-02. International student enrollment grew by 6.4 percent, the highest increase since 1980. Of this number, nearly 70 percent are "self-financing." Twenty percent, mainly graduate students, receive support from their host institutions in the form of assistantships and tuition waivers, while the remaining 10 percent are sponsored by their home institution/government, a private US sponsor, the US government or an international organization. International students contribute $12 billion dollars to the US economy, making it our country's fifth-largest service-sector export, behind travel, transportation, financial services and professional services, according to the US Department of Commerce. At the University at Buffalo (UB), The State University of New York, which ranks 23rd among the leading host institutions in the United States, the total annual contribution of 3,237 international students is a hefty $51.5 million, or roughly $16,000 per student. At the University of Southern California, which leads the nation with 5,950 international students, or 20 percent of its enrollment, the annual contribution to the institution and the greater Los Angeles economy is a whopping $134 million. (Information about how to estimate the economic impact of international students at a given institution and the estimated contribution in every state in the union is available on the NAFSA Web site. It includes tuition, fees and living expenses but does not take into account a "multiplier effect.") The Financial Barrier The cost of these tours at one of the leading companies in the sector can range from around $9,000 for a "basic" three-week tour to Latin America to nearly $11,000 for a comparable package to the Middle East. These fees are a small price for universities and colleges to incur in view of the potential pay-off. Once the quotas are met, provosts and presidents smile approvingly and proceed to raise the recruitment targets for the following year, hoping "there's more gold in them thar hills." Ironically, for some state universities, it is easier to recruit international students than out-of-state students, especially if the pipeline is open and flowing freely. Universities send representatives, usually multilingual and internationally experienced staff members from their office of international education, to educational fairs in cities that are likely to have the largest number of prospective students who are interested, qualified, and able to afford the price tag of a US higher education. While this international student recruitment strategy does not guarantee results, it does increase the chances of a return on the investment that is the cost of the trip, staff time, promotional materials, and telecommunications. The recent success of some institutions considered to be models of best practice is evidence that this approach to international student recruitment is a wise investment with immediate returns. In this age of dwindling state resources and shrinking endowments, institutions are under growing pressure to boost tuition revenue and other income and, in some cases, simply to diversify their student populations. Since US higher education is a service and product that is far beyond the reach of most of the world's qualified young people, the majority of the nearly 600,000 international students attending US colleges and universities tend to be the sons and daughters of their countries' political and economic elites. (There is no distinction in many cases.) What this essentially means is that US institutions are selling their services to the highest bidders, who are also prepared to succeed academically, or who can afford the necessary remedial training to be "brought up to speed." In a sense, US institutions are contributing to the reproduction of often unjust social and economic systems, structures, and relationships in students' home countries, especially in the developing world. Most institutions recognize and embrace the myriad tangible and intrinsic benefits of internationalization, and pay lip service to service and global development as essential elements of this process. An Ivy League school with a sizable international enrollment boasts that it "provides students from the United States and around the world with the depth of understanding and intellectual flexibility they need to respond to the challenges we all will face in the years to come." Institutions sing the praises of diversity noting, in one instance, that its students "hail from all corners of the globe, making for a dynamic and diverse student population." One highly selective liberal arts college highlights its commitment "to a diverse student body that includes international citizens who contribute so much to the vitality of the classroom and campus life here." Scholarships In most cases, the dollar amounts are insignificant when measured against the total cost of tuition, fees, and living expenses. The end result is that these institutions are able to attract more talented students from the same pool of recruits whose families could otherwise afford the full ride. There are, however, some notable exceptions to this rule. To its credit, Swarthmore College, one of the finest liberal arts colleges in the land, offers full scholarships to a select group of international undergraduates. On the FAQ section of its Web site for international students, Swarthmore offers this nugget of valuable information:
I know of one academically gifted Vietnamese student who, while in high school in Hanoi, took the TOEFL and the SAT, applied, and much to her amazement was admitted with a full scholarship. Her family's contribution to the total annual cost of $36,092 is minuscule by US standards and manageable by Vietnamese. The chance to study at Swarthmore has benefited her and the campus community of which she is a member. As if studying in the United States at an institution of this caliber were not enough, she was afforded the opportunity to participate in a study abroad program at Oxford University -- also funded by her scholarship. This young woman's intelligence, work ethic, and language aptitude enabled her to do the impossible, thanks to Swarthmore's vision and largesse. Mount Holyoke College, a highly selective liberal arts college in Massachusetts, offers Foreign Fellowships valued at nearly $36,000 a year (including tuition, housing, stipend, and meals) to a select group of native speakers of Chinese, French, German, Italian, and Spanish to study at the undergraduate or graduate level. In exchange, they work 6-10 hours a week in their respective language departments. In an effort to attract academically talented undergraduate international students "from diverse national and economic backgrounds," Wabash College offers a limited number of International Merit Awards worth an estimated $20,000 that cover full tuition. (The estimated comprehensive cost for one year is $28,000.) On its Web site, the college points to its "long tradition of welcoming international students to its campus," but with one caveat: "Because the cost of an American education may be prohibitively high for many students, you must first explore all options of financing your education from outside resources and personal funds before applying for aid from Wabash." Similarly, The College of St. Catherine, the largest Catholic college for women in the United States, offers scholarships to selected international students ranging from $1,000-10,000, which, along with income from an on-campus job, help defray the total annual cost of $21,307. In each of the above cases, not only do these institutions benefit from the students' presence and active involvement in the academic and social life of the campus, they also reap a public relations bonanza. Recommendations To the last category I would add "targeted aid" to qualified and deserving students to further the development objectives of the sending countries in the spirit of the Ford Foundation's International Fellowships Program (IFP). In a pioneering and visionary initiative, the IFP is investing $280 million over 10 years through 2010 to provide opportunities for advanced study in the United States and other countries "to exceptional individuals who will use this education to become leaders in their respective fields, furthering development in their own countries and greater economic and social justice worldwide. To ensure that Fellows are drawn from diverse backgrounds, IFP actively seeks candidates from social groups and communities that lack systematic access to higher education." In particular, the program refers to individuals who come from groups or communities that historically have had little access to advanced education. Those groups, depending on the culture, can include women, minorities (ethnic, racial, and religious), and people from rural areas or in countries "in conflict or post-conflict situations." The sending countries, many of which are underrepresented in the Open Doors statistics, include Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, China, India, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda in Africa, Brazil, Chile, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Egypt, Palestine, and Russia. There are several ways to increase the percentage of sponsored students, some tried-and-true, others novel. One is for a professional association like NAFSA to craft a voluntary formula that takes into account an institution's status (e.g., private vs. public), number of international students as a percentage of total enrollment, and other relevant factors. This can then be used as a rational basis for recommending how many scholarships that school could create in support of the goals outlined in this article. Institutions themselves could encourage international alumni of means to consider establishing scholarships for qualified students from their home countries who are could not otherwise afford to study in the United States. At UB, a wealthy Turkish alumnus recently donated a substantial sum of money to set up a scholarship program for outstanding Turkish high school graduates from economically disadvantaged backgrounds to attend UB. For its part, the university agreed to charge tuition at an in-state rate as an in kind contribution. Similarly, the University of Michigan offers several full scholarships earmarked for Russian, Guatemalan, and Chinese students. Each year, for example, one Kosacheff Scholarship is awarded to an incoming freshman or transfer student from Russia who pursues a course of study "that will provide knowledge useful in assisting Russia through its current state of transition and into the future." The award covers tuition and fees, room, board, books/supplies, and personal expenses for up to four years. Another alternative is to partner with a recognized and reputable nonprofit organization -- large or small -- to create scholarship packages that consist of cash and in-kind contributions. The U.S.-Indochina Educational Foundation, Inc., or USIEF, which I founded three years ago, has adopted this approach with considerable success, albeit on a very small scale. One of our "academic partners," Mississippi State University, from which a Cambodian "USIEF Scholar" graduated last December with an MBA, made a commitment to offer in-state tuition, health insurance, and a discounted dorm room to graduate students from Cambodia. Yet another approach is to work with corporations to fund new scholarships. In this respect, the Fulbright program is a source of inspiration and a model worthy of emulation by institutions of higher education. Beyond the Numbers My intent here is not to criticize the free market approach to international student recruitment -- that is, so long as more attention is paid to the quality of programs and services for the incoming students rather than to the numbers. Rather it is to spark discussion about a crucial yet neglected issue, and to challenge my colleagues around the country who are in appropriate decision-making positions to give serious consideration to offering combined merit- and need-based scholarships to undergraduates and graduate students in the countries where their recruiting efforts are the most active and successful, as well in regions of the world that are not among our current "markets." Those institutions that profit the most from international students could take the lead in cooperation and collaboration with alumni, foundations, corporations, and governments. As recent events have reaffirmed, it is not only about America's interests (governments and their policies come and go), but also about the interests of the global community. The United States continues to break statistical records and reap financial benefits and countless other rewards as the destination of choice for the world's "internationally mobile students," but U.S. educators can and should be doing more on behalf of those who have been excluded. We must have the vision to look beyond numbers and revenue streams to creative and cost-effective ways in which we can expand access to students from underrepresented regions of the world and sectors within countries that are already sending large numbers of their young people to study in the United States. These are young men and women with a different set of life experiences who, in many instances, can offer unique perspectives and views of their countries to Americans and return to their home countries with different priorities and goals than some of their fellow citizens who studied abroad. Indeed, it is our pragmatic and moral responsibility to open the doors a little wider to those who have the intellectual resources and mindset but not the financial means to benefit from U.S. higher education. -- Mark Ashwill is a Fulbright Program adviser and director of the World Languages Institute at the University at Buffalo, The State University of New York. He is also executive director of the U.S.-lndochina Educational Foundation, Inc. (www.usief.org), and recently became the first U.S. educator to be awarded a Fulbright Senior Specialists Grant to Vietnam. Endnotes (2) This is an important area of inquiry in the foreign student literature and represents an international variation on one of the major themes discussed in "Beyond Dead Reckoning: Research Priorities for Redirecting American Higher Education" (National Center for Postsecondary Improvement, 2002). Used with permission of International Educator. This file was updated on November 8, 2003 |
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