Foreign student numbers rising

Even before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the growth of international student enrollment at MU each year was, at best, stagnant. This fall, however, even as foreign students’ interest in attending college in the U.S. appears to be declining, MU saw its first significant rise in international enrollments, from 1,373 to 1,414.

Foreign student enrollment at MU has steadily declined from 5.4 percent of total enrollment in 2002 to 4.9 percent in 2005. The greatest decline has been among undergraduates, which has been dropping since the mid-1990s. About 80 percent of foreign students at MU are in graduate programs.

“The expense of sending a student to the U.S. to study is of higher value to send a grad student because they are going to be qualified for leadership positions,” said James Scott, interim associate vice provost for International Initiatives at MU and director of the International Center. More than 30 percent of the new students enrolled at the Truman School of Public Affairs are international, Scott said.

Shengying Zhang, a master’s student in counseling psychology, is here at MU from Singapore. She said the preponderance of graduate students among the international student population at MU is a factor of their commitment to getting the best education. “They are more purposeful in seeking their education,” she said, “and more common since you are looking for something specific as a grad student.”

Last month, the American Council on Education reported that colleges in the United States are facing increasing competition for students from other countries. While the U.S. still draws more international students than any other country, the annual growth has been lower than in Britain, Australia, Germany, France and, especially, Japan, which saw its foreign student population grow 108 percent between 1999 and 2005. The report says that some of the lack of growth can be attributed to government-coordinated recruiting campaigns in other countries.

China sends more students to MU than any other country — 338 in 2006 — followed by India, Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. Five countries — Swaziland, the West Bank, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Kiribati and Yemen — have sent students to MU for the first time in 2006.

“MU has long-standing, deep connections with several institutions in Korea, Thailand, China, South Africa and other countries,” Scott said. “These ties have led to lots of faculty and student exchanges, alumni networks, international student associations and research collaborations that make MU an attractive destination.”

David Currey, director of MU’s International Student and Scholar Services and Assistant Director of the International Center said the federal government needs to develop an international education policy and work with state and local governments to help encourage international students to take advantage of the educational system in the U.S. He said greater enforcement of second-language learning requirements in the United States would help the country remain competitive.

“For example, it has been reported that over 300 million Chinese people are studying English, many beginning as early as primary school,” he said. “That’s the same number of Chinese learning English as the entire population of the United States.”

Zhang said that, when she was considering which U.S. university to attend, she was able to learn more about well-known institutions, such as Harvard and UCLA, than schools in the Midwest. “In Singapore we get quite a number of admissions officers that come and invite students to enroll in U.S. colleges,” Zhang said. “Mizzou was not one of these universities. More outreach programs from Mizzou can be marketed to pre-colleges outside of the U.S.”

Currey is optimistic that the United States will remain the destination of choice for foreign students.

He also said the number of international students studying outside of their country of origin is predicted to grow from 2 million to about 8 million in the next 20 years.

“This shows a lot of potential for growth in the international education factor,” Currey said. “I am hoping MU will be a part of that growth.”

This week, the MU International Center and the Council on International Initiatives will host International Education Week 2006, “Building a Global Community.”

IEW is a joint initiative of the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Department of Education to promote programs that prepare Americans for a global environment and attract future leaders from abroad to study, learn and exchange experiences in the United States.