Immigration News: January, 2005 - Volume 12

Foreign Students, J-1s

US dominance of international higher education may be eroding, as universities in English-speaking countries such as Britain, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand court foreigners willing to pay for college and advanced degrees, and European universities are adding courses taught in English and allowing graduates to remain and work.

In 2002, the US had 586,000 foreign university students, compared with 270,000 in Britain and 227,000 in Germany. Attracting foreign students has been transformed from a Cold War-era emphasis on promoting democracy to a door for attracting skilled immigrants (Canada and the UK), as a way to earn money by charging foreign students full tuition (Australia and New Zealand), and as a means to quickly get professors and researchers for universities at home (China and India).

In 2000, some 11 million students were enrolled in universities, including two million enrolled outside their country of citizenship; those abroad were led by students from China, South Korea and India, countries in which most middle-class families expect to pay for higher education. By 2005, university student enrollment is expected to rise to 16 million, according to the OECD.

US enrollments of foreign students fell in Fall 2004 for the first time in 30 years, with the drop most pronounced for foreign graduate students: applications dropped 28 percent, and enrollment dropped six percent. One reason is that the post 9/11 Visa Mantis program, intended to prevent the transfer of sensitive technology, slows the issuance of visas to foreigners in scientific fields.

Major US science organizations have complained that these new US visa rules are discouraging foreign students and scientists, who must pay a nonrefundable $100 visa application fee and another $100 to register in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), the US database that tracks them while they are in the US. Before September 11, 2001, there were 77,000 US educational institutions authorized to admit foreign students; now there are about 7,000. All foreign student visa applicants must have a personal interview with a US consular officer before obtaining an F-1 student visa, but Australia, Britain, Canada and New Zealand no longer require foreign students to obtain visas for courses under six months.

India sends the most university students to the US, 80,000, followed by China, 62,000. The most popular fields of study for international students in the US are business and management (20 percent), engineering (15 percent), and mathematics and computer sciences (13 percent). China has announced plans to create 100 world-class universities, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University ranked 500 world universities; 17 of the top 20 are in the US, as are 170 of the top 500 (http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2004/top500list.htm)

The US has a large for-profit higher education sector: 1,100 for-profit colleges enroll over a million students, 70 percent of whom are the first in their families to go to college. About 70 percent of the revenues of for-profit colleges come from the federal government in the form of loans to students under Title IV of the Higher Education Act, and issue stock. For example, Career Education Corp (CECO) is a for-profit with 75 campuses and more than 85,000 students, including foreigners and US students attending with loans from the US government; half of the school's $1.2 billion revenue in 2003 were student loans.

Many of the US students who begin college at these for profits do not finish. In Fall 2005, over 60 percent of high-school graduates are expected to begin college, but only half are expected to receive two- or four-year degrees.

J-1. The J-1 exchange-visitor visa allows foreigners to come to the US for "work and a cultural experience." US-based institutions create work-and-learn programs that are approved, and the US Department of State allows the programs to recruit foreigners to come to the US as teachers, researchers, working holidaymakers, au pairs, and graduates of foreign medical schools seeking additional US training (US sponsors of J-1 visa programs must show that they can send Americans abroad under reciprocal arrangements).

After being in the US on a J-1 visa, the foreigner must normally return home for two years, and this return requirement is often highlighted as a "best practice" to promote truly temporary migration. However, this two-year home country requirement can be and is waived for foreign medical graduates (foreigners who graduated from one of the 1,600 medical schools outside the US and Canada that graduate 350,000 doctors a year). If J-1 doctors are employed in medically underserved areas for several years, they can get an immigrant visa if a US institution issues a letter asserting that the foreign doctor's continued presence is necessary to avoid hardship to US patients. This happens frequently: foreign medical graduates are 25 percent of US doctors and a third of hospital-based, full-time physicians.

Instead of requiring returns but making exceptions for the types of workers most likely to be needed in developing countries of origin, it has been suggested that incentives be used to promote returns of J-1 doctors. These might include having industrial countries refund social security tax payments, providing return incentive payments, or allowing migrants to return again within five years if things do not work out at home. Sending countries could keep in touch with J-1 doctors abroad and have jobs waiting for them, and set aside funds to encourage returns. However, successful return programs would likely cost more in both sending and receiving countries.

OECD. The OECD estimates that foreign students contribute about $30 billion a year to host countries, including tuition as well as travel and living costs, making foreign students three percent of global service exports.

English-speaking countries hosted a million foreign students in 2003, and are expected to host 2.6 million by 2020. Germany and Sweden do not charge tuition for residents and foreigners enrolled in universities, and Sweden advertises this fact (www.studyin.sweden.se). Sweden had 13,000 foreign students among its 318,000 students in graduate or undergraduate studies in 2002, and says that their presence helps to prepare Swedish students for an increasingly international economic environment. Swedish institutions have increased the number of master's degree programs taught entirely in English from 60 in 1998 to 150 in 2002.

The number of foreign students in German universities rose from 37,000 in 1998/99 to 56,000 in 2002/03; the number studying engineering rose from 5,900 to 11,200 over this period. A German law enacted in 2002 forbids public universities from charging tuition.

About 30,000 foreign students a year arrive to study in France, usually in Paris, and 195,000 were enrolled in the French higher education system in the academic year of 2001-02, including 159,000 among the 1.4 million university students. About half were from Africa; about 26,000 from the European Union; 15,500 from elsewhere in Europe; nearly 24,000 from Asia; and 11,000 from the Americas (www.edufrance.fr). Students pay 280 to 350 euros a year.

The European Commission in July 2002 launched the 200 million euro Erasmus World Program, similar to the US Fulbright Program, to attract foreign students to universities in the EU. The program is expected to support 4,200 foreign students and 1,000 visiting scholars. EU countries spend 1.1 percent of GDP on higher education, compared to 2.3 percent in the US.

The British government wants to raise fees for students at 122 universities in 2006; fees are currently L3,000 a year ($5,300). Students and many others counter that a university education is a citizen's right, as much as, say, health care.

Australia had 174,732 overseas students in 2003, according to overseas student recruiting agency IDP Education Australia, which is co-owned by 38 universities. IDP reported that foreign students usually pay full fees, generating an impact of $4.3 billion in 2003, making education the third largest services export behind tourism and transport. The leading countries of origin included Malaysia, 24,761 students; followed by Hong Kong, 23,316; and China, 23,180.

Australia hopes to use distance learning to enroll Asian students in overseas centers for most of their students, and then bring them to Australia for their last year of study and degree. Under one IDP plan, this will result in one million foreign students enrolled in Australian universities by 2025, 56 percent in Australia and 44 percent abroad, raising the foreign student share of Australian university students from the current 13 to 50 percent. Australia accepts another 210,000 foreigners to study at language, vocational and other schools.

Sam Dillon, "U.S. Slips in Attracting the World's Best Students," New York Times, December 21, 2004. OECD. 2004. Internationalization and Trade in Higher Education. Opportunities and Challenges. Paris. OECD.