Enrollment of Foreign Students Declines
By Wendi Maloney
Fewer international students are enrolling in U.S. colleges and universities, according to three reports issued last fall. Open Doors, an annual report of the Institute of International Higher Education, announced a 2.4 percent enrollment decrease in 2003-04. Published in November, the report cited the drop as the first absolute decline in foreign enrollment since 1971-72, although several years of minimal growth occurred in the mid-1980s and mid-1990s.
Also in November, the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS) reported a 9 percent decline from 2003 to 2004 in enrollment among first-time international graduate students at the twenty-five U.S. universities that enroll the most international students. Among institutions outside the top twenty-five, the decrease was only 4 percent. The council attributes the variance to the fact that the top twenty-five institutions also enroll the most students in engineering, where some of the steepest declines occurred.
The CGS's enrollment findings follow its report in September 2004 of a 28 percent drop in international graduate applications and an 18 percent decrease in admissions. The CGS says the decline in admissions did not lead to a comparable decrease in first-time enrollments because admissions yields increased markedly. Thirty-eight percent of admitted international graduate students enrolled in U.S. graduate schools in 2003, while 43 percent did so in 2004.
The CGS cautions that the enrollment decline among first-year international graduate students must be placed in the context of larger patterns of graduate enrollment. Its survey found total international graduate enrollment (which includes first-time and continuing students) down only by 3 percent and domestic first-time and continuing enrollment down by 2 and 1 percent, respectively.
A third study released jointly in November by five higher education organizations reported the results of an October 2004 survey of 480 institutions. When institutions that indicated a decline in graduate enrollments were asked to cite the top contributing factor, 47 percent noted a decrease in applications and 29 percent noted delays in visa issuance or visa denials. The five organizations that conducted the survey were NAFSA: Association of International Educators, the Association of American Universities, the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, the Institute of International Higher Education, and the CGS.
"Two main concerns stand out regarding the data on declining enrollments," says Robert O'Neil, chair of the AAUP's Special Committee on Academic Freedom and National Security in a Time of Crisis. "First, the decrease not only is apparent among students from 'sensitive' or 'suspect' countries but seems nearly universal, suggesting that many foreign visitors who might not personally have experienced hostility or tighter scrutiny have been deterred by the general perception of a less welcome climate in this country. Second, although it may be too early to tell, the fear is that the enrollment declines will become permanent, if only because other developed countries have been aggressively wooing international students at a time when we are not only not wooing them but actually turning them away."
The AAUP's Committee on Government Relations has announced its intention to promote "fair and timely procedures for noncitizens who seek visas . . . to study, teach, or collaborate with researchers in the United States."
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