Foreign Student Enrollments Up Last Year!

Source: "Foreign Science and Engineering Students in the United States," Joan Burrelli, NSF 10-324, July 2010

In 2008, about 568,000 foreign students (those holding temporary visas) studied at U.S. universities and colleges, 248,000 of them in science and engineering (S&E). There was an expectation (ACE 2009; Fackler 2009; IIE 2009) that fall 2009 foreign enrollments might be negatively affected by the 2008–09 world financial crisis because of schools' restrictions on enrollment, declines in institutional funds available for graduate student financial support, and declines in the value of foreign home currencies compared to the U.S. dollar, as well as the price of education in the United States compared to other countries and the increased capacity for education in the home countries.

The figures show that there was an increase in the numbers of foreign students in all fields, although a smaller percentage increase than in the previous two years. There was also an increase in the number of S&E foreign students, and indeed the increase was greater than the previous two years. Perhaps in the difficult economic conditions there was more willingness to invest in S&T education than in other types of university education.

Jump in Fall 2008 Enrollments of First-Time, Full-Time S&E Graduate Students

The NSF reports that foreign science and engineering enrollment in the United States recovered after the Bush administration policies imposed after 9/11 and began to grow again in the second half of the last decade. Good news! The students that stay increase our scientific and technological capacity leading to economic advantages as well as strengthening our educational system, and the ones who go back abroad build scientific and technological linkages, leading in turn to economic linkages advantageous to the United States.

Woops: What is happening here?

The Economist accompanies this chart with the following text:

Students flock to American universities from all over the world. But according to the OECD, a think-tank, over 40% of the 106,123 foreign students in the country during the 2007-08 academic year came from just three Asian countries: China, India and South Korea.

The Institute for International Education in its 2009 Open Doors report says that the number of international students at colleges and universities in the United States increased by 8% to an all-time high of 671,616 in the 2008/09 academic year.

I rather doubt that the number of foreign students increased by a factor of more than six in a year. So either the OECD number is too low, or the IIE number is too high, or both.

The IIE reports that in 2007-08 the number of foreign undergrads in the United States was 243,360 and the number of foreign graduate students was 276,842, so the OECD number is not simply one or the other reported mistakenly. (Some foreign students in colleges and universities are in non-degree programs. Of course there are also foreign students in the United States in secondary and even primary schools as well as other institutions of learning.)

I looked up the number on the OECD website, and got 595,874. This is closer to the numbers reported by the IIE, but still different.

As the debates over the U.S. Census estimates show, any count is subject to error and statistical means may be used to improve estimates of total populations by repeated sub-sampling. I suppose that the difference between the OECD and the IIE estimates may be simply such a statistical error. Perhaps there was a misunderstanding between the OECD and The Economist.

The IIE number is determined by a process used for many years which surveys U.S. colleges and universities. The OECD must be using figures provided by the U.S. government, and I don't know the process by which the government obtains its estimate.

I suppose the lesson here is not to believe everything (or anything) you read. The Economist, the OECD, and the IIE are all credible sources of information, yet The Economist value is radically different than those I found on the two other organization'sl websites.

I still feel safe in concluding that foreign students in our institutions of higher education bring a lot of money to the United States for tuition and expenses and that they contribute significantly to our higher educational system. The graduate students contribute to the research and the teaching of those institutions. And of course, large numbers of the best students from abroad remain in the United States as migrant workers and contribute to our economy in other ways after they leave school.

In another article, The Economist notes:

Migration matters. Economic growth depends on productivity, and the most productive people are often the most mobile. A quarter of America’s engineering and technology firms founded between 1995 and 2005 had an immigrant founder, according to Vivek Wadhwa of Harvard Law School. A quarter of international patent applications filed from America were the work of foreign nationals. And such measures ignore the children of immigrants. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is the stepson of a man who fled Cuba at the age of 15 and arrived without even a high-school diploma.

Richard Florida, the author of such books as “The Flight of the Creative Class” and “Who’s Your City?”, argues that countries and regions and cities are engaged in a global battle for talent. The most creative people can live more or less where they want. They tend to pick places that offer not only material comfort but also the stimulation of being surrounded by other creative types.

Foreign Students in the United States

Source: "University students abroad: And is there honey still for tea?" The Economist, November 19th 2009

America leads the world in attracting foreign students to its campuses, Britain and Australia are not far behind. Almost 672,000 foreigners were enrolled in American universities in the autumn of 2008, compared with 183,000 in Australian universities and 342,000 in British ones in 2007 (the most recent year for which data are available).

Comment: The numbers for the United States look good until you realize that the limits placed on foreign students by the Bush administration greatly reduced the rate of growth of their population in the United States for eight years. If you compare the size of Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States you will see that we are not as successful as the other Anglo nations in attracting students, even though the U.S. higher education seems to be considered as the global standard for excellence. JAD

Visa problems and the United States

In February, a letter was sent to all ICSU Members regarding delays in the processing of visa applications for scientists entering the USA. This problem related particularly to some nationalities and was not only limited to the USA.

In June, Deliang Chen, the ICSU Executive Director, paid a visit to the US State Department, with the assistance of the National Academy of Sciences (ICSU's National Member in the US). The issue of visa difficulties was raised with David Donahue, Deputy Assistant Secretary at the Bureau of Consular Affairs. Many international scientists have experienced problems when applying for visas, particularly for attending conferences in the US. During the open discussion Mr Donahue outlined recent progress on this issue and encouraged ICSU to help identify specific cases so the problems can be redressed.

Foreign S&T Graduate Students in the US

According to a new publication of the National Science Foundation:

Graduate S&E enrollment reached 516,199 in 2007 . Of these students, 72% were enrolled full-time, 56% were men, and 71% were U.S. citizens or permanent residents.

Thus there were about 145 thousand foreign graduate students in science and engineering in the United States that year. They help pay for the system, and they staff the laboratories of the graduate universities. Many of them stay when they achieve their degrees, and the external benefits of thousands of scientists and engineers are important to our economy.

It is time to reassert US leadership attracting foreign students

According to UNESCO:

More than 2.8 million students elected to study outside their own country in 2007. The largest number came from China (421,100), India (153,300), and the Republic of Korea (105,300). Their main destinations were the United States (595,900), the United Kingdom (351,500), and France (246,600).

The population of the United States is about 306 million. The populations of the United Kingdom and France are respectively about 60.8 million and 63.5 million. Thus the United Kingdom and France, with a joint population about 40 percent that of the United States, together attract more foreign students than does the United States.

Of course the former colonial powers have long established educational ties with their former colonies, but the United States is generally considered to have most of the world's greatest universities. The Bush administration's visa policies not only reduced the rate of increase of foreign enrollments in the United States, but actually made the enrollments decrease for a few years.

Now is the time to reassert the United States as the best place for students to seek international educational opportunities. The short term earnings from these students are nice, but the long term economic and political benefits of the ties they form are priceless!

Economic benefits of international education to the United States

Source: Jason Baumgartner, GlobalHigherEd, May 13, 2009.

For the 2007-2008 academic year it is estimated that international students contributed approximately $15.54 billion to the U.S. economy.

The graph outlines the growth of this economic impact over the last 30 years.

Comment: That is a lot of money, but I suspect it is a huge underestimate of the real economic benefit to the United States. How much demand for U.S. products comes from the hundreds of thousands of people who were once students in the United States, developing tastes for American goods and services while they were here, who now live abroad? How much have the students who came and stayed contributed to our economy since they chose to stay? JAD

"U.S. Visa Delays on the Rise, Scientists Abroad Report"

A news article in Science magazine reports:

Procedures instituted after the 11 September 2001 attacks require the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, CIA, FBI, and other agencies to vet most scientists from countries whose citizens must obtain visas to enter the United States. In 2003, visa delays prompted scientific societies to warn of an erosion of U.S. competitiveness if top foreign talent were to eschew travel to the United States. By last year, U.S. security agencies had managed to whittle average visa-processing time for scientists from 7 weeks to 3 weeks. It has since climbed back up to 8 weeks.......

Visa-processing delays are not the only complaint. U.S. managers say it is harder than ever to secure H-1B visas for foreign researchers they wish to employ in the United States. "It is nearly impossible to bring in the best people in the world and build a company without spending a huge amount of time and money to get these people to the States," says biomedical engineer and entrepreneur Jonathan Rothberg, who founded 454 Life Sciences and several other biotech start-ups. Reaching out to U.S. legislators has done little good, Rothberg says. "They see it as a zero-sum game, where we are hiring 'one less qualified American.' "

Comment: The Bush administration appears to be incompetent to maintain the improvements it had made! JAD

Foreign students reciieving S&E doctorates in the United States

A recent National Science Foundation InfoBrief states the following:

S&E doctorate recipients from U.S. universities completed their undergraduate education at a wide variety of types of institutions in the United States and abroad. A large proportion of individuals earning S&E doctorates from U.S. universities had undergraduate degrees from foreign institutions: 37% in 2006, up from 28% in 1997.

Comment: Bringing PhD students to the U.S. for their graduate education results in enrichment of our domestic scientific and technological capabilities while they are here and by those who stay, and builds important international scientific and technological linkages to those who return to their original countries.

The detrimental impact of the post 2001 policies of the Bush administration on foreign student enrollment probably is not fully evident in the 2006 PhD numbers, since a science or engineering doctorate often takes five years or more. JAD

P.S. The following chart in interesting in showing how superior are the 50 small, private baccalaureate colleges termed the "Oberlin 50" in sending their students on to doctorates in the Social Sciences. JAD

Foreign Universities Turn out Talented Students!

Source: "U.S. GRADUATE TRAINING: Top Ph.D. Feeder Schools Are Now Chinese" by Jeffrey Mervis
Science 11 July 2008: Vol. 321. no. 5886, p. 185.

The five universities whose graduates won the most Ph.D's in the United States in 2006 were in decreasing order of number of doctorates:

• Tsinghua University (China)
• Peking University (China)
• University of California, Berkeley
• Seoul National University (South Korea)
• Cornell University and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Of course, in interpreting this information one must look at the size of the university (some smaller schools may have a higher percentage of graduates go on to PhD's) and the selectivity of the universities in enrolling undergraduates.

"Strict Visa Regulations Discourage Visiting Artists"

The Hallé's orchestra" Education Program
The orchestra, at 150 is Britain's oldest
The orchestra recently canceled a US tour
due to the cost and difficulty of getting visas.

Read the full article subtitled "Post-9/11 Process Adds Costs and Red Tape" by Sarah Kaufman in The Washington Post of October 20, 2007.

The article states:

To perform in this country, foreign artists of all stripes -- punk rockers, ballet dancers, folk musicians, acrobats -- are funneled through a one-size-fits-all "nonimmigrant" visa process whose costs and complications have become prohibitive, according to booking agents, managers and presenters, such as the Kennedy Center, who program and market the performers. Visiting businesspeople face similar security hurdles put in place since Sept. 11, 2001. But artists' visa petitions also require substantial documentation to satisfy the "sustained international recognition" requirement for the type of visa (called a "P-1") issued to many performing artists.

Comment: Cultural diplomacy has been a great way to build understanding among nations. Having visiting artists helps Americans appreciate the value of other cultures and understand other cultures. Artists don't seem likely to be terrorists, but the Bush administration seems to be afraid of anything foreign. JAD

The Internationalization of U.S. Science and Engineering

Chapter 3 in Science and Security in a Post 9/11 World: A Report Based on Regional Discussions Between the Science and Security Communities, Committee on a New Government-University Partnership for Science and Security, National Research Council, 2007.

The report notes that:

• Foreign-born PhD scientists and engineers constituted 37.3% of the U.S. S&E workforce in 2000, and increase from 23.9% in 1990.
• Foreign student enrollment in U.S. universities decreased in the years following 9/11, in part due to the security measures introduced by the U.S. government.
• Thirty years ago the U.S. accounted for 54% of the world's PhD degrees, but by 2001 that portion had dropped to 41%.
• Participants in the meetings held during the preparation of the report were concerned about increasing difficulties in attending scientific meetings abroad and bringing visiting faculty and scholars to the United States.
  
• Participants also complained about the expansion of the Technology Alert List which regulates access to dual-use technologies.
  

Comment: Innovation is increasingly taking place in international networks, rather than within companies. I would guess that foreign-born scientists and engineers in the United States and U.S. educated scientists and engineers abroad are the best assurance that U.S. industry will be plugged into these networks.

Read the News Release on the Report.

Listen to an Audio Webcast made at the release of the Report.

International Education and Foreign Languages: Keys to Securing America's Future

International Education and Foreign Languages: Keys to Securing America's Future
Committee to Review the Title VI and Fulbright-Hays International Education Programs, Mary Ellen O'Connell and Janet L. Norwood, editors, National Research Council, 2007.

From the press release:

The 14 U.S. Department of Education programs designed to strengthen education in foreign languages and in international and area studies -- known collectively as Title VI and Fulbright-Hays -- have made some progress but lack the resources necessary to keep pace with their mission, says a new report from the National Research Council. And the Education Department does not appear to have a master plan for these efforts, which may not bode well for the nation's security and competitiveness.

More support from all levels of the U.S. education system is needed to develop an integrated approach to improving foreign language skills and expertise on other cultures, beginning in the primary grades, the report says. Also, the Department of Education should consolidate oversight of its foreign language and international education programs under a high-ranking official who would provide strategic direction and coordinate its work with related activities at other federal agencies. To be most effective, that position should be a presidential appointment and require Senate confirmation.

"Foreign Science and Engineering Presence in U.S. Institutions and the Labor Force"

Christine M. Matthews, Congressional Research Service Report for Congress (97-746), Updated January 12, 2007.

From the Summary:

The increased presence of foreign students in graduate science and engineering programs and in the scientific workforce has been and continues to be of concern to some in the scientific community. Enrollment of U.S. citizens in graduate science and engineering programs has not kept pace with that of foreign students in those programs. In addition to the number of foreign students in graduate science and engineering programs, a significant number of university faculty in the scientific disciplines are foreign, and foreign doctorates are employed in large numbers by industry.

Comment: I should disclose that I am basically retired, and not in the science and engineering workforce any longer. But in this case, I think the U.S. born scientists and engineers may be protecting themselves rather than this country. In terms of our foreign policy and international development policy, there are few things we can do as positive as offering graduate training to scientists and engineers. The graduates who return will often be intellectual and business leaders in their countries; they will tend to be pro-American and to open markets for U.S. products. Those who stay here will often be educators and innovators in our economy. Certainly a drop in the number of U.S. citizens seeking doctoral degrees in science and engineering should be of concern here, but not an increase in the number or percentage of foreign students in doctoral programs. However, professional associations are probably seeking to assure that there is not too much competition with U.S. scientists and engineers that would affect their remuneration. I suggest it is better to keep the U.S. economy strong through innovation and export of high tech products, than to protect the salaries of our scientists and engineers at the expense of the rest of the workforce. JAD