Courting International Students

When rejecting students, colleges often use the excuse that they simply don’t have the resources to accept all qualified applicants.  Budgetary restraints, especially at public universities, are blamed.  Even private schools argue that campus housing and class size would suffer if student levels increased.  

Yet in the face of these limitations, colleges are recruiting students from outside the US.  There is no doubt that international students enrich a college campus and contribute to the US economy.  However, when faced with limited resources, how many spots should colleges reserve for international students?  Are the new recruits filling spots once available to qualified US applicants? 

The number of international students at US universities has been steadily increasing in the past few years, largely due to overseas recruiting.  This trend was tracked in the 2010 Open Doors report by the Institute of International Education.  In the 2008/09 school year, new international student enrollment at US colleges increased by 15.8%.  In 2009/10, the rate increased by 1.3% over the previous year.  The number of new students is still increasing, although the economic downturn has slowed the pace.  The top five countries of student origin were China, India, South Korea, Canada and Taiwan, and the college with the highest number of international students was the University of Southern California (http://www.iie.org/en/Research-and-Publications/Open-Doors).


Universities in the US should be open to students from around the world.  What puzzles me is that US admissions officers are actively recruiting international students, often at a high price tag.  The London Times reported in 2008 that US colleges are hiring recruiting agencies to market themselves “aggressively” to British students. Coincidentally, today NPR aired a story about state schools hiring for-profit recruiting agencies to target international students.  Public universities in New Hampshire and Massachusetts are using international students to buffer budget cuts in education.  The full tuition paid by these students helps replace funds cut by state government.  

A 2007 article in The London Times claims that Harvard is offering top British students very generous financial aid packages, and by not adjusting the amounts for the exchange rate, the aid often surpasses the need.  What is not covered by financial aid is picked up by scholarships, waived fees and stipends for airfare, lodging and even medical insurance.  Try not to choke as you read the following quote from the article:

“The surprising fact is that for low and even middle-income families, sending a child to one of America’s most prestigious universities may be less expensive than sending them to Oxford, Cambridge or any other of the better British universities.  Exploiting its vast wealth and the financial pressures on UK colleges, Harvard has begun promoting itself as a “low-cost” alternative to students in Britain.”  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article1289006.ece

Harvard is now a “low-cost” option for some British families, but out of reach for most Americans.  Something isn’t right about that. 

In 2010, Brown established an office in Mumbai, India to lure more Indian undergraduates to Providence.   The officer of the Brown Mumbai office explained, "We want to set up an office and have Brown's representative here. We have had record number of applications to our undergraduate programs from India. But we feel we haven't been able to reach out to as many schools as we want.” As of 2010, Brown had 249 undergraduates students who had done their secondary education in India, up from 98 five years ago. 

I am no xenophobe, and I appreciate the benefits of education flowing across borders.  Yet the “aggressive” recruiting of international students still feels like a slap in the face of qualified US students, especially Asians-Americans.  Many Asian-American immigrants struggle and sacrifice to give their children a first-rate education in America.  After all of their hard work, their children are at a disadvantage because elite colleges are flooded with applicants from overqualified Asian-Americans.  Perhaps their chances of acceptance would be higher if they had never come to America in the first place.  Is this the messages colleges want to send? 

Additional Reading:

“Colleges Hire Firms to Court Foreign Students,” Sheryl Rich-Kern, NPR, March 16, 2011.   http://www.npr.org/2011/03/16/134585499/U-S-Schools-Hire-Companies-To-Court-Foreign-Students

“Ivy League Targets Britain’s Top Students,” Nicola Woolcock, The London Times, September 5, 2008. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article4678019.ece

“Ivy League University to Set Up Mumbai Office,” Times of India, August 17, 2010. http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-08-17/india/28315229_1_office-site-indian-students-schools