02/12/2004: 
Arcanum
The Melting Pot Is Leaking
from Des Moines Register
referred by alert reader Thomas Pain(e)
An international battle for college students is playing out on Iowa campuses.
More foreign students are bypassing American universities to study in Australia and other countries where national security screenings are less rigid and the price of an education is considered a bargain, university officials said.
At stake for Iowa schools are award-winning researchers, student recruits and the thousands of dollars the students bring each year to Iowa State University, the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa.
A bigger worry is that fewer foreign students even have the Iowa universities on their radar. Graduate applications to ISU from international students are down 31 percent for fall 2004. U of I officials reported a 36 percent dip in graduate applications for next fall.
"It's a phenomenal drop-off," said Scott King, director of the U of I's Office of International Students and Scholars. "Students are saying, 'It's not a friendly atmosphere, so I'll go somewhere else.' That's scary."
This has been a major advantage in the US for decades, that top foreign scientists want to come here. (Einstein, Von Braun, etc.) File this under unintended consequences.
More
Security redirects foreign studentsMany are choosing to study in nations where screenings are less rigid - and prices are cheaper.
By STACI HUPP
Register Staff Writer
02/12/2004
An international battle for college students is playing out on Iowa campuses.
More foreign students are bypassing American universities to study in Australia and other countries where national security screenings are less rigid and the price of an education is considered a bargain, university officials said.
At stake for Iowa schools are award-winning researchers, student recruits and the thousands of dollars the students bring each year to Iowa State University, the University of Iowa and the University of Northern Iowa.
A bigger worry is that fewer foreign students even have the Iowa universities on their radar. Graduate applications to ISU from international students are down 31 percent for fall 2004. U of I officials reported a 36 percent dip in graduate applications for next fall.
"It's a phenomenal drop-off," said Scott King, director of the U of I's Office of International Students and Scholars. "Students are saying, 'It's not a friendly atmosphere, so I'll go somewhere else.' That's scary."
Most of ISU's decline stems from China and Pakistan, two top suppliers of international students.
University officials blame the federal government's rigorous national security regulations.
Screenings of visa applications tightened after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, making travel to and from the United States a waiting game. The government also is keeping close tabs on foreign students while they are in the United States, with a special emphasis on students enrolled in scientific or high-tech fields.
Meanwhile, Australia has pumped about $113 million into a program to expand international education, government data show. It also is cheaper to get undergraduate degrees in Britain and Australia, which require a three-year commitment instead of four.
At least one American education group wants to measure the damage. The Association of International Educators is surveying its 8,700 members this week.
"Our concern is that we are beginning to see a situation where students are looking at other countries and are applying elsewhere," said Ursula Oaks, a spokeswoman for the educators association.
In a survey of 300 schools last fall, the association found that two-thirds of the colleges and universities had seen fewer new international students enroll. Meanwhile, the group's research shows more international students are enrolling at schools in Britain.
UNI recruiters have seen interest in their school dip, although foreign student enrollment went up this year.
Foreign students "hear it's impossible to get a student visa to study in the U.S.," said Kristi Marchesani, UNI's assistant director of admissions.
UNI officials have stepped up recruitment efforts just in case.
"Fortunately, we don't have any of those programs that are a little more suspect to the government," said Marchesani, who has courted students in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
Iowa universities also stand to lose foreign students who have already enrolled, university officials said.
National security regulations kept at least a dozen ISU and U of I students who left the country over winter break from coming back.
ISU graduate student Li Xun went home to China six weeks ago to visit his elderly parents, despite warnings to stay in Ames. He's still there, awaiting a new visa.
Li blames the delay on his area of study, plant pathology, which is on the government watch list of academic fields. Government officials fear foreign students will take sensitive knowledge back to their home countries and use it against the United States.
Li expects to be back in Ames in a week. "I fully understand the hard situation that the U.S. faces," he said in an e-mail interview. "I just hope the system can be improved and then people don't have to wait for four weeks or more."
Such predicaments leave academic departments in limbo over pay and jobs for stranded graduate students, who often teach or do research for professors. Universities are all but powerless when foreign students get stuck.
"It's a crapshoot as to what's going on with all of this," the U of I's King said.
Even the foreign students who were able to get back to Iowa reported hassles.
Imran Pirwani, a Pakistani U of I doctoral student, was delayed for hours in airports on the way back from a vacation in South Africa. He had to provide fingerprints, photographs and interviews.
"There should be a certain level of trust for people who cross the borders more often," said Pirwani, who has studied at the U of I since 1993.
Government officials insist that many wrinkles in the visa-screening process have been ironed out. Eighty-five percent of visa application reviews are completed in less than three weeks, said Stuart Patt, a U.S. State Department spokesman.
The top reason federal officials turn down a visa is a student's failure to prove he or she will go home after graduation, Patt said. Less than 2 percent are denied because of security reasons.
