Thursday
Apr072011
Competing Objectives in Higher Education:International Students
Thursday, April 7, 2011 at 8:00AM
I opened the Chronicle of Higher Education today and found an interesting article “Commerce Dept. Takes Greater Role in Promoting U.S. Higher Education Overseas” (April 3). Fifty-six American colleges from Columbia University to the University of Texas will send their staff to Indonesia and North and South Vietnam to establish educational partnerships with universities in these countries, for the purpose of recruiting more international students. This effort is being organized by the Commerce Department. Francisco Sanchez, under-secretary of commerce is quoted as “Education is one of our most valuable exports”.
In a related commentary by Sanchez, “No Better Export: Higher Education”, educating students from Indonesia is seen as a long term benefit to U.S. companies as they look for U.S. educated professionals who have returned to these countries to establish a strong business presence. Sanchez also states that the international students pay full tuition and this “opens opportunities for more American students to receive financial aid and scholarships” and that from his perspective, this is part of a strategy as President Obama stated in his State of the Union address to “ out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world”.
One reason universities like international students is because they do pay the higher out-of-state tuition and are often the cream of the crop students in their countries, so they tend to do well in the college classrooms. However, they tend to stay in the U.S. for graduate work and compete directly with American students for fellowships, assistantships and financial aid. In all U.S. engineering colleges , 58% of the 2008 Ph.D. graduates were international. In many engineering programs, this percentages is much higher so that the American students really are a minority (Profiles of Engineering and Engineering Technology Colleges, ASEE).
What is being ignored here is that there are a limited number of seats in the college classrooms. For every international student who is accepted, another American student is sent a reject letter, not admitting them to the same college, or forcing them to attend a college that does not offer the same quality of a program the student was interested in. The competition is real. National leaders along with a number of foundations like the Lumina Foundation are supporting the educational goal of 55-60% of the traditional college age students completing a college degree. This number is currently at about 41% and has been consistently in this range for a number of years. To “out-educate” means to educate American students(not international students) , so that they can provide the innovation needed for the economic success of the U.S. (This is not a suggestion that we should not admit international students)
At the same time, as reported by the Chronicle (April 1) in the article, “Elite Colleges Fail to Gain More Students on Pell Grants”, the same elite universities that are exploring international partnerships are not recruiting low-income American students at the rate they should. Pell grants are awarded to students whose families have a low income. Here are some examples of the percent of students on Pell grants from the colleges participating in the Commerce Department’s international program and also with some of the largest endowments: Columbia University 15%, Penn State University, 15%, and Indiana University 13%.
Where should our priorities be for recruiting students?
Would not the efforts at the Commerce Department be better placed to help colleges and universities improve their graduation completion rates by devoting the same amount of effort to promoting the systems thinking of the Baldrige Program for Excellence at these 56 universities? See http://www.nist.gov/baldrige/enter/education.cfm for more information on the Baldrige program.
In a related commentary by Sanchez, “No Better Export: Higher Education”, educating students from Indonesia is seen as a long term benefit to U.S. companies as they look for U.S. educated professionals who have returned to these countries to establish a strong business presence. Sanchez also states that the international students pay full tuition and this “opens opportunities for more American students to receive financial aid and scholarships” and that from his perspective, this is part of a strategy as President Obama stated in his State of the Union address to “ out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world”.
One reason universities like international students is because they do pay the higher out-of-state tuition and are often the cream of the crop students in their countries, so they tend to do well in the college classrooms. However, they tend to stay in the U.S. for graduate work and compete directly with American students for fellowships, assistantships and financial aid. In all U.S. engineering colleges , 58% of the 2008 Ph.D. graduates were international. In many engineering programs, this percentages is much higher so that the American students really are a minority (Profiles of Engineering and Engineering Technology Colleges, ASEE).
What is being ignored here is that there are a limited number of seats in the college classrooms. For every international student who is accepted, another American student is sent a reject letter, not admitting them to the same college, or forcing them to attend a college that does not offer the same quality of a program the student was interested in. The competition is real. National leaders along with a number of foundations like the Lumina Foundation are supporting the educational goal of 55-60% of the traditional college age students completing a college degree. This number is currently at about 41% and has been consistently in this range for a number of years. To “out-educate” means to educate American students(not international students) , so that they can provide the innovation needed for the economic success of the U.S. (This is not a suggestion that we should not admit international students)
At the same time, as reported by the Chronicle (April 1) in the article, “Elite Colleges Fail to Gain More Students on Pell Grants”, the same elite universities that are exploring international partnerships are not recruiting low-income American students at the rate they should. Pell grants are awarded to students whose families have a low income. Here are some examples of the percent of students on Pell grants from the colleges participating in the Commerce Department’s international program and also with some of the largest endowments: Columbia University 15%, Penn State University, 15%, and Indiana University 13%.
Where should our priorities be for recruiting students?
Would not the efforts at the Commerce Department be better placed to help colleges and universities improve their graduation completion rates by devoting the same amount of effort to promoting the systems thinking of the Baldrige Program for Excellence at these 56 universities? See http://www.nist.gov/baldrige/enter/education.cfm for more information on the Baldrige program.
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