It Comes For A Price

It looked like another scorching hot summer day as Satish Chetty took his place, for the seventh consecutive morning, in that endless queue outside the American Consulate in Madras. In the leather briefcase by his side were his passport, the admission letter from the American University in Washington D.C. and financial documents, signed by his fathers accountant, showing that the family had sufficient money to cover his expenses.

It was quite a sight there were thousands of people, many of them students, all neatly dressed in sombre suits, waiting in that dusty street to apply for visas, recalls Satish Chetty, now a masters student in Washington D.C. and one of the 33,450 Indian students studying in the US. In all, there are 450,000 foreign students in the US.

While the number of students coming to the US continues to be large, the last few years have seen a tapering off as a result of tough immigration policies, increasing tuition fees and the emergence of alternative destinations. In the seventies, the number of students coming to America was growing at 10 per cent a year, by the eighties it was growing at only 3 per cent. Last year the growth rate was down to 0.3 per cent.

The US doesnt get as many foreign students as it could is because their immigration officers are so reluctant to give visas to foreign students, says Vishal Lall, an engineering student at the University of Cincinnati. The number of Indian students in the US has dropped 3.6 per cent from 1994 to 1995.

Chetty finally managed to enter the US Consulate in Madras after seven days of standing in queue and was actually given a visa. But he remembers countless others who werent. The authorities turned down a lot of students, he recalls.

The visa-refusal problem isnt unique to India. Xiao Yuhong, a graduate from China says, The US Embassy in China refuses visas to over 70 per cent of the students, even when they have got admission to universities here. John Hart, foreign student adviser at American University, says, We do get a lot of `Help, Ive been refused a visa calls from students in developing countries.

Tim Gerhardson, executive director at the Foreign Students Service Council, a non-profit agency that provides service to foreign students, says, US immigration is very tough when it comes to giving visas to foreign students. They demand proof of sufficient funds for their entire degree thats a lot of money. Immigration also wants proof that students will return to their own country after completing the programme.

The irony of the situation is that even as the US immigration office continues to be strict about issuing visas, universities are going out of their way to court foreign students. Monetary considerations and a desire to ensure high academic standards in classrooms are two motivating factors.

According to the Institute for International Education (IIE), foreign students bring in $ 7 billion a year, making the US the largest exporter of educational services. Other countries, such as Japan and Australia, seem to have woken up to the economic potential of education export and are energetically marketing themselves to international students.

In the US, universities finance only about 16 per cent of foreign students and the government funds an additional one per cent, according to IIE. Financing for the remaining 80 per cent of students comes from sources outside the US such as family resources and home governments. In the case of foreign undergraduates, eight out of every ten are completely supported by families back home.

Now, rising costs in the US are changing the destination for foreign students. The enormous increase in tuition costs over the past few years is discouraging students, says Gerhardson. We had a monopoly on the international student market for over 40 years, but thats not true any more. Data gathered by the IIE shows a rise in the number of students going to Australia, Japan and France.

In spite of this, the US still retains its position as the country with the highest number of foreign students. It makes sense for families to pay for a degree from an American college because it usually assures one of a well-paid job in the long run, says Mateusz Tuniewicz, a Polish student in Washington. Families cough up $30,000 to $50,000 a year to pay for a saleable American degree.

The huge financial burden of an American education partly explains why the largest contingent of foreign students comes from rich Japan. Of the 45,000 Japanese students here, 70 per cent are undergraduates, mostly supported by their families. On the other hand, poorer China and India send graduate students who tend to get more university funding.

The US also attracts a lot of students from the oil-rich Middle East most of them are funded by sources at home. One out of every seven graduates students in Kuwait are educated in the US and most of them come here on scholarships from the government of Kuwait, says Abdullah Essa, a masters student from Kuwait.

Given the financial stake, it isnt surprising that universities actively court foreign students: they place advertisements in papers in far flung areas of the globe and send representatives to college fairs in Hong Kong, Bangkok, New Delhi and dozens of other cities.

Admission officers trot around the globe attending recruitment fares, Gerhardson says, adding, In fact, most universities have a substantial amount of funds set aside for international student recruitment.

With over 4,700 students from other countries, Boston University tops the list in terms of foreign student enrolment. University of Southern California, University of Wisconsin-Madison, New York University and Ohio State University follow in ascending order.

Apart from the money students bring in, there are other, less obvious advantages to having a large international student community. The IIE estimates that expenditures made by these students create more than 100,000 jobs in the US. According to IIE, in California alone, the state with the largest international student population, foreign student expenditures were responsible for 14,400 jobs.

Other advantages include the intellectual capital that international students bring to their departments. Foreign students raise the average standard in classrooms, says Gerhardson. I come from a small town in Minnesota, where the university has very few foreign students and I think as a result its academic quality suffers.

Jean Johnson at The National Science Foundation, a government agency responsible for promoting science and engineering, says, Doctoral students contribute to research at their departments, and those who stay on for postdoctoral training contribute to the US basic research infrastructure.

On a more prosaic note, Lall says, Were a cheap source of labour. As a research assistant, we get paid only $ 600-1,000 a month for what can often be 60-80 hours a week of technically skilled work. This is particularly true for graduate students.

According to the IIE, the international market for education is expected to grow as a result of increased global economic integration. If the US wants to maintain its position as the largest educational service exporter, it needs to align its immigration policies to this goal and ensure competitive tuition costs, because for every student who is here there is likely to be someone back home who was denied a visa or couldnt pay the exorbitant tuition fees.