Regional

OECD: Global International Mobility Continues to Grow

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development released its annual Education at a Glance report in September, and data on international mobility trends reveal that the number of students traveling internationally for educational purposes continues to grow to record numbers.

According to the report, more than 4.1 million students were enrolled in higher education outside their country of citizenship in 2010, up from almost 3.7 million in 2009, and representing 99 percent growth since 2000. In 1975, there were just 800,000 students enrolled in foreign degree programs worldwide.

Students from Asia make up 52 percent of students studying outside their home country, with the most popular host countries being the United States (17 percent of all international students), the United Kingdom (13 percent), Australia (7 percent), France (6 percent), and Germany (6 percent). The United States’ share of international students has declined from 23 to 17 percent over the last decade.

The QS World University Rankings echoed the OECD’s findings with the same-week release of its ranking. Compilers of the influential ranking reported an “unstoppable rise” in the numbers of students crossing borders to study.

“Even after considerable growth in recent years, the latest rankings show an extraordinary rise of almost 10 percent in international student numbers at the top 100 universities,” wrote John O’Leary, an academic adviser to the London-based Quacquarelli Symonds, which produces the annual QS World Universities Rankings. This year’s ranking saw Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) overtaking Britain’s Cambridge University as the top global university, based on a range of factors that include the opinions of academics and prospective employers.

– OECD
September 2012
– QS
September 2012

Brazil

Representatives from 66 U.S. Colleges and Universities Visit Brazil

U.S. Commerce Undersecretary Francisco Sanchez led officials from 66 U.S. colleges and universities to Brasilia, Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in early September on what he told Reuters was the biggest trade mission of the Obama administration.

The seven-day visit capitalized on Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s “Science Without Borders” initiative aimed at reducing her nation’s skills deficit by sending as many as 101,000 students to study abroad over the next four years.

“She’s stated publicly that she wants half of those to go to the United States and specifically to study in the STEM areas: science, technology, engineering and math,” Sanchez said.

Brazil’s skilled-worker shortage is a major challenge on the country’s path to developed-nation status. In addition to spurring Brazil to seek educational opportunities abroad, the shortage has encouraged the government to explore ways to ease immigration rules to attract more foreign professionals. The Science Without Borders program, which provides scholarships for Brazilians to study abroad for one year, meshes with the Obama administration’s drive to attract more foreign students as part of its effort to double exports. About 650 Brazilian students started U.S. studies under the program in January, and that was followed by a second wave of more than 1,500 students for U.S. summer and autumn course work.

– Reuters
August 29, 2012

Government Passes Law on Quotas

Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff signed into law a bill in late August that requires at least 50 percent of the places at federal institutions of higher education, which are tuition free, be reserved for graduates of public high schools. Currently 90 percent of high school graduates in Brazil graduate from the country’s public school system. Yet, at the university level, only 10 percent of college students come from the country’s public school system.

In 2010, 302,000 students enrolled in federal universities, according to the Higher Education Census, which is conducted annually by the Anísio Teixeira National Institute for Educational Studies and Research (INEP). If enrollment levels remain steady, the new law means more than 150,000 incoming college students would arrive from the country’s public school system, where children from low-income families often receive their education.

Half of the seats reserved under this quota system (25 percent of the total) will be allocated to students whose family income does not exceed 1.5 times the minimum wage, regardless of ethnicity. The other half will be given to students who graduated from a public high school and identify themselves as black, pardo (a mix of black, white and indigenous) or indigenous Brazilians, regardless of their family income. If the spaces reserved for these groups are not occupied, they will be filled with graduates from the public school system, regardless of ethnicity or income level.

Rousseff vetoed only Article 2 of the bill, which stipulated these students should be selected based on their high school grades. As a result, the criterion for selecting students for the quotas will be the same as it is for all other applicants: their score in the National Secondary Education Examination (ENEM).

– Infosur Hoy
August 30, 2012

Canada

Government Advisory Panel Issues Report Calling for Redoubled Efforts to Internationalize Institutions and Students

Facing stiff competition from around the world for the best global talent, Canada should strengthen its efforts to recruit international students, with a goal of doubling their number within a decade, recommends a report released in August by an advisory panel to the Canadian government. The report also calls for a significant increase in the number of Canadians traveling abroad to study, with the help of financial aid from the government.

The report, “International Education: A Key Driver of Canada’s Future Prosperity,” says that international students are key contributors to Canada’s economy. The report singled out Asian students and researchers, in particular, as the people Canada needs to recruit. “Overall, the total amount that international students spend in Canada is greater than our export of unwrought aluminum ($6 billion), and even greater than our export of helicopters, airplanes and spacecraft ($6.9 billion) to all other countries,” stated the report, written by consultant Roslyn Kunin.

If education is considered an export, its value is striking compared to traditional exports to particular countries. Education accounts for 44 percent of exports to Saudi Arabia, 28 percent to India and 19 percent to Korea. Among its 14 key recommendations, the report suggests not charging foreign students with the highest possible tuition fees. Recognizing that foreign students bring more to Canada than just the dollars they spend during their studies, the report urges the government to create scholarship programs and re-examine the practice of differential tuition.

Government officials said they would consider the panel’s suggestions and stressed that developing an international-education strategy is a key part of their economic plans. Among its other recommendations, the report urges the federal government and academic institutions to jointly finance study-abroad scholarships, with the aim of getting 50,000 Canadian students to go abroad every year. To reach the goal of enrolling at least 450,000 foreign students, the report suggests offering at least 8,000 undergraduate scholarships and increasing the number of graduate and postgraduate scholarships and fellowships.

The report also suggests that priority should be placed on recruiting in developing nations, including Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Vietnam, and several countries in the Middle East and North Africa, like Turkey. However, it stresses that stepping up recruitment in those areas should not mean reducing efforts to attract students from the countries Canada has traditionally drawn from, including Britain, France, South Korea, and the United States.

– The Chronicle of Higher Education
August 15, 2012

United States

Domination of International Rankings By U.S. Institutions Continues

American institutions continue to dominate the ranking tables of international universities, with the academic ranking of the world’s top 500 universities, published in August by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, once again finding Harvard as the best in the world.

The perennial rankings-topper was followed in the table by Stanford, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of California at Berkeley. As was the case last year, all but two of the top 10 institutions are in the United States, with the Universities of Cambridge and of Oxford occupying the fifth and 10th spots, respectively. In total, there were 17 U.S. universities in the top 20, with the University of Tokyo (in 20th) the only other non-U.S. institution to figure.

Israel and Australia have both increased the number of universities they have in the top 100, with three for Israel and five for Australia, the third highest after the United States and Britain. Five Chinese universities have moved into the top 500 for the first time, in a demonstration of the rapid development of university systems in emerging economies.

– Shanghai Jiaotong
August 2012

China Continues to Lead Growth in International Offers of Admissions By U.S. Graduate Schools

American graduate schools made 9 percent more offers of admission to international students this year versus last, but offers to prospective students from India and South Korea remained flat, meaning growth was once again led by Chinese students, according to a report released in August by the Council of Graduate Schools. Applications by international students to American graduate schools also increased by 9 percent, according to an earlier report from the council.

The 20 percent increase in offers of admissions to Chinese students from 2011 to 2012 marked the seventh consecutive year of double-digit growth. Offers to students from Brazil and the Middle East also increased, but no country registered bigger growth than China, the number one market for U.S. universities at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Offers of admission to Indian students have now essentially been flat since 2007. The flattening trend in offers of admission to South Korean students, the third biggest market for U.S. schools, might be seen as a positive after five straight years of declines. Offers of admission to students from Brazil and the Middle East region grew by 13 percent and 17 percent, respectively. Governments in those countries have recently emphasized the importance of advanced degrees, with scholarship programs for studying overseas.

Offers of admission by American graduate schools to Canadian students climbed by 10 percent, while students in Europe and Africa experienced smaller gains. Offers to students in Mexico and Taiwan, however, declined.

For the first time since 2008, the graduate-school council also queried respondents about international joint- and dual-degree programs. Some 44 percent indicated that they had at least one such program with an overseas institution, up from 31 percent in 2008. However, slight changes in methodology and definitions mean that the results aren’t directly comparable.

– Council of Graduate Schools
August 27, 2012

Visa Processing Changes Cause Problems for Colleges and Students

An unannounced change in how customs officials process visas for incoming international students caused major headaches just as tens of thousands of them arrived in the United States in late August for the start of the academic year, reported The Chronicle of Higher Education.

In August, U.S. Customs and Border Protection stopped its practice of stamping the visa documents of foreign students entering the country, as part of a shift from a paper-based to an electronic immigration system. But the bureau, part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, failed to immediately notify colleges or other federal, state, and local government agencies that have come to rely on the stamps on documents known as I-20s as proof that students are in the country legally.

As a result, foreign students applying for driver’s licenses and Social Security cards have been turned away. Staff members in campus offices for international students, with no warning of the policy shift, were at a loss to advise students. And even some customs officers seemed unaware of the change—officials at some airports and border crossings continued to stamp I-20s, while others did not. Homeland Security officials have said they dropped the requirement of the stamp as part of a broader push toward paperless visa processing. Customs and Border Patrol discontinued the use of the I-20 stamp in early August, but it took nearly two weeks after the change took place before the agency issued policy guidance alerting colleges and other stakeholders.

– The Chronicle of Higher Education
August 28, 2012

University of California San Diego Tops National Ranking

The University of California, San Diego has been ranked by Washington Monthly as the top national university, as measured by indicators of what the magazine describes as ‘their contribution to the public good.’ Harvard ranks 11th, Princeton 20th and Yale 41st.

Now in its eighth year, the ranking measures schools according to three broad categories: Social Mobility (recruiting and graduating low-income students), Research (producing cutting-edge scholarship and PhDs), and Service (encouraging students to give something back to their country). For an explanation of each category, click here.

The magazine’s rankings include a ”social mobility” measure, which rewards colleges that enroll many low-income students and have better-than-expected graduation rates. And this year, that category also includes price. “Colleges that are both effective and inexpensive get the highest marks,” according to the creators of the guide in their introduction to this year’s rankings.

– Washington Monthly
September/October 2012

Australian Recruiting Agency Wins Big SUNY Contract

The State University of New York (SUNY) has awarded a contract to IDP Education to recruit international students from more than 25 countries worldwide.

IDP Education is best known for recruiting international students into the Australian education market, but over the last few years the company has branched out to recruit for universities in different countries, despite being jointly owned by 38 Australian universities. It has had a slow entry into the U.S. market, so the large SUNY contract – covering 36 of the system’s 64 New York campuses, can be considered something of a coup. As part of its entry into the U.S. market, IDP was among the first recruiting agencies to gain certification from the American International Recruitment Council (AIRC).

– IDP News Release
August 27, 2012