Aug. 28, 2007

Catching Up in International Grad Students

Graduate schools are reporting a continued rebound in applications from and admissions offers to those from outside the United States, but levels at most institutions still have not reached 2003 levels, according to a report being released today by the Council of Graduate Schools.

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The council conducts a series of surveys of its members each year to track trends in international enrollments, which are crucial to many universities, especially in the sciences. Graduate schools this year are reporting a 9 percent increase in international applications and an 8 percent increase in offers of admission. Both of those figures are down from a year ago, when applications and admissions offers were each up 12 percent. And 78 percent of graduate schools reported that they have fewer international applications than they had in 2003.

Kenneth E. Redd, director of research and policy analysis for the council, said that he was pleased to see the increases, but the slowing of the growth rate — before the post-9/11 losses have been regained — was a matter of concern. He said that “we’re not quite sure why” the rate of increase is slowing, although he speculated that increased competition from universities in other countries is a key factor.

Of the top countries and regions sending graduate students to the United States, increases were above the overall average. In terms of field of study, life sciences and business saw the greatest increases in applications, but engineering saw the greatest increases in admissions offers.

Changes in Applications and Admissions Offers for Foreign Students, 2006 to 2007

	% Change in Applications	% Change in Admissions Offers
Total	+9%	+8%
Countries or Region
—China	+19%	+24%
—India	+12%	+17%
—South Korea	+0%	-2%
—Middle East	+17%	+12%
Field of Study
—Business	+15%	+10%
—Education	+12%	+11%
—Engineering	+13%	+16%
—Humanities and arts	+8%	+10%
—Life sciences	+18%	+11%
—Physical sciences	+12%	+8%
—Social sciences	+0%	+4%

Karen DePauw, vice provost for graduate studies and dean of the Graduate School at Virginia Tech, and chair elect of the Council of Graduate Schools, said she was seeing similar trends at her institution. DePauw said that the numbers suggest that not only the quantity, but quality, of applicants from India and China is going up. A strategy used at Virginia Tech has been to increase ties between faculty members there and at selected universities in India, China and elsewhere. The quality of undergraduate education varies widely in those countries, DePauw said, but through these relationships, Virginia Tech faculty members know enough about the institutions applicants have attended to judge their ability to succeed.

“We know a lot more about the quality of preparation now,” DePauw said. “We know these institutions.”

China and India offer a contrast in the breadth of universities to which students are applying and being admitted. For the first time, the council looked at trends at institutions by enrollment of international students. The greatest increases in applications and admissions from Chinese students took place at institutions that were not among those already enrolling the most foreign students. For Indian students, applications were up the most at the institutions already attracting the most foreign students, although admissions increases were marginal.

Changes in Applications and Admissions Offers by Country of Origin, 2006-2007

	China	India
Largest 10 institutions
—Applications	+11%	+20%
—Admissions	+8%	+2%
Largest 25 institutions
—Applications	+14%	+17%
—Admissions	+10%	+16%
Largest 50 institutions
—Applications	+17%	+17%
—Admissions	+15%	+14%
All other institutions
—Applications	+23%	+38%
—Admissions	+5%	+21%

Another new feature of this year’s study was to ask how many institutions have collaborative programs with foreign institutions. Graduate schools were asked about dual degree programs (in which students enroll at and receive degrees from institutions in two countries) and joint degrees (in which multiple institutions offer a program and award a degree). Of respondents to the survey, 11 percent reported having only dual degrees with foreign partners, 7 percent reported only having joint degrees, 3 percent had both kinds of degree programs, and another 7 percent said that they had other collaborative relationships.

Europe was the region involved in the largest share of collaborative programs and business is the top field, followed by engineering.

Redd said that the council asked these questions to get a baseline for future study, and to encourage the development of common definitions for such programs, which appear to be on the rise. About 24 percent of graduate schools reported that they plan to establish new collaborative degree relationships with foreign partners in the next two years.

— Scott Jaschik

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Comments

But what about???

I notice that there seems to be parts of the article missing — what about the costs for international students to attend U.S. universities? What about the difficulties experiences by international students just in obtaining visas to study? I think it is misleading to write this article and not include those points.

As a college counselor at an international institution, I see every year wonderful students who apply and are admitted to these same universities and yet are held back from attending for financial reasons especially.

Anne, Special Projects at The American School of El Salvador, at 9:40 am EDT on August 28, 2007

With regard to financial needs of foreign students —

American colleges are faced with qualified domestic students who cannot afford the cost of education; starting salaries make loan repayment difficult. So much appears in the United States media about the high cost of education and student loans that lay people [to the field of education] are aware of the problem. It would be nice to cover the financial needs of foreign students, but we struggle to take care of our own.

Scg, at 3:30 pm EDT on August 29, 2007

Displacement of Americans from Engineering

It should be deeply troubling that admissions for students from countries which have previously been enthusiastic consumers of American education is up (apparently in double-digit percentage increases), especially in fields where American student participation has already declined dramatically, and in which international student participation already exceeds 50%.

It is facile and ingenuous to claim that this is a problem related to a lack of competitiveness on the part of American students. The real issue is whether the departments in question have been compromised to the extent that they no longer function for the populations that they were built to educate. Ohio University’s experience over the last two years indicates that such a compromised culture flourished for over two decades in its graduate mechanical engineering department — allowing international students to plagiarize with impunity and thus “outcompete” US citizens. Ohio is not alone and the problems detailed there may be spreading.

Realistically, American students really have very few other options to fulfil their educational needs. Degrees taken in most other nations (with the exceptions of the UK, Canada, and Australia) are usually not considered equivalent to US degrees in the US job market, and most nations are not particularly open to the notion of welcoming immigrant labor. There is also a certain amount of resentment and hostility generally directed at Americans abroad primarily owing to political issues — even in nations that are presumably allies — and it would be foolish to assume that this does not have a negative impact on those subjected to it.

There are other substantive issues involved, including the indiscriminate dissemination and loss of intellectual property, the exploitation of graduate programs to provide means and opportunity for international espionage, and the probability of successful integration of people from countries where ethnicity and religion are conflated with national identity. There are issues of representation and not-so-subtle racism — is it sound for a nation to enroll large numbers of people from a given nation (e.g. India) when it has substantial minority populations that are underserved (i.e. Hispanic, African-American, or better yet, Native American)? Not least is the issue of whether a nation has a duty to at least try to ensure the productive employment of its citizens, and whether large-scale international participation interferes with that duty.

Scrawed, at 3:40 pm EDT on September 5, 2007

Any claims of “American” students being as competetive and qualfied as other ‘internaional’ students should look at the average GRE scores of americans v/s people from other countires. Add to this the fact that most international students come from Asia where English is not their native language, and you’ll know why international students are being admitted to your universities. And as to the matter of catering to your own, that is for the universities to decide of course, but the matter of grad school is more like a business nowadays than anything else, and business competetion is the best artificial selector known to mankind, the survival of the fittest and all that. In short, if your own universities are of the opinion that those from other places are worthy of a place in their institution ahead of your own students, then either : 1. the american students are stupid, they dont get in because they are too stupid for the grad school rigours. 2. the universities are stupid, and doesnt know how to differentiate stupidity from intelligence, or american from international, take your pick. 3. both of those above are very clever indeed, and this is a great way to obtain cheap skilled labour. Indeed, this is a scam worthy of the great land of opportunities, given the whole hullaboo raised over american students not getting in just to make it all the more attractive to international students. bravo! bravo! ...we’re catching on soon enough now. peace.Just another Indian Student.

_indians___, Mr. at —, at 9:05 am EST on December 10, 2007

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Catching Up in International Grad Students

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Comments

But what about???

With regard to financial needs of foreign students —

Displacement of Americans from Engineering

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