US losing out on foreign students?
The annual global migration to overseas universities involves two million students. Countries like the UK and Germany are increasingly attracting a larger chunk of this number.
The annual global migration to overseas universities involves two million students. Countries like the UK and Germany are increasingly attracting a larger chunk of this number
Certainly many American universities continue to be extraordinary global brand names. Shanghai Jiao Tong University has compiled an online academic ranking of 500 world universities, using criteria like the number of Nobel Prizes won by faculty members and academic articles published (ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2004/2004Main.htm).
Of the top 20 on the list, 17 are American.
Of the top 500, 170 are American.
T his appeared in a news report US Slips in Attracting the Worlds Best Students in the New York Times last month.
During 2002, the most recent year for which comparable figures are available, some 586,000 foreign students were enrolled in universities in the United States, compared to about 270,000 in Britain, the worlds second-largest higher education destination, and 227,000 in Germany, the third-largest.
Foreign enrolments increased by 15 per cent that year in Britain, and in Germany by 10 per cent.
The countries exporting the most students were China, South Korea and India, but the annual global migration to overseas universities involves two million students from a number of countries, who travel to various countries.
That number is exploding - by some estimates it will quadruple by 2025 - as economic growth produces millions of new middle-class students across Asia.
Last October, the Organisation for Economic Development and Cooperation - an economic forum of 30 leading industrial nations - took note of this global movement in a study.
Stephan Vincent-Lancrin, an analyst at the organisations headquarters in Paris and an author of the study, said that traditionally most countries, including the United States, had tried to attract foreign students as a way of disseminating their nations core values.
But three other strategies emerged in the 1990s, Dr Vincent-Lancrin said. Countries with aging populations like Canada and Germany, pursuing a skilled migration approach, have sought to recruit talented students in strategic disciplines and to encourage them to settle after graduation.
Germany subsidises foreign students so generously that their education is free.
Australia and New Zealand, pursuing a revenue generating approach, treat higher education as an industry, charging foreign students full tuition.
They compete effectively in the world market because they offer quality education and the costs of attaining some degrees in those countries are lower than in the United States.
Emerging countries like India, China and Singapore, pursuing a capacity building approach, view study abroad by thousands of their nations students as a way of training future professors and researchers for their own university systems, which are expanding rapidly, Dr Vincent-Lancrin said.
The rapid changes in India and China have special importance. The number of Indian students in the United States has more than doubled in a decade to 80,000 - the largest representation from any country.
The 62,000 students from China make up the second-largest group. Graduate students and degree holders from those countries play a critical role in American science, engineering and information technology research.
These facts have been excerpted from the New York Times. These trends are a cause for concern for the US economy and therefore there has been a spurt of student recruitment initiatives.
The writer works as an independent education adviser
