Outside the Beltway

Who Wants International Students?

Clearly not the Trump administration.

Steven L. Taylor
20

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Just in case the fear of being summarily deported over traffic violations or being held in detention for writing an op/ed isn’t enough to disuade international students from coming to America this fall, the Trump administration wants to make getting a visa even harder.

Via Politico: Trump team pauses new student visa interviews as it weighs expanding social media vetting

The Trump administration is weighing requiring all foreign students applying to study in the United States to undergo social media vetting — a significant expansion of previous such efforts, according to a cable obtained by POLITICO.

[…]

If the administration carries out the plan, it could severely slow down student visa processing. It also could hurt many universities who rely heavily on foreign students to boost their financial coffers.

“Effective immediately, in preparation for an expansion of required social media screening and vetting, consular sections should not add any additional student or exchange visitor (F, M, and J) visa appointment capacity until further guidance is issued septel, which we anticipate in the coming days,” the cable states. (“Septel” is State Department shorthand for “separate telegram.”)

If implemented, this will severely slow down an already slow process, and many universities will see their enrollments significantly impacted.

In the simplest of terms, international students need these visas or they can’t come to school. It is already the case that US schools admit more students than can get visas. This policy will make it all exponentially worse.

It will also protect from nothing.

This is foolish on any number of levels, including denying resources to colleges and universities across the country, dollars spent in those communities, and US influence globally.

It’s a real win, win, win scenario!

And yes, I am tired of all the winning.

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20 responses to “Who Wants International Students?”

  1. Just nutha ignint cracker Avatar
    Just nutha ignint cracker

    Good time to be old. And despite what both the pulmonologist and the hepatologist tell me, I pretty sure I’m not smoking or drinking too much. Probably not enough, all things considered.

    2
  2. gVOR10 Avatar
    gVOR10

    Education is a major U. S. export. I thought reducing the trade deficit was supposed to be a goal of Trump’s.

    13
  3. Sleeping Dog Avatar
    Sleeping Dog

    Ah yes, the winning…

    As the felon goes about destroying US soft power, basic, scientific research and the opportunity to create a favorable impression of the country among the youth that will likely assume leadership within their own countries, our former friends and enemies look to replace us. They won’t of course, not completely as US leadership in those areas was the result of opportunity and entrepreneurialism, in part happy accidents. But neither will the US return to the pinnacle of influence that we once enjoyed. Like Humpty Dumpty, what was destroyed won’t be put back together.

    1
  4. Grumpy realist Avatar
    Grumpy realist

    One of the policies that kept the US on the top, economically, was our enthusiastic welcome to international students who came to the US for their education, then hung around and contributed their own entrepreneurship to the American economy.

    If the best and the brightest decide to go elsewhere, like places in Europe or China, what do the Trumpistas think will happen to the US economy?

    I think a lot of them don’t care. As long as they don’t have to worry about those pointy-headed elites, they’ll be happy.

    3
  5. Jen Avatar
    Jen

    I have seen a few “well, this will open up spots for American students”-type of comments.

    This is yet another outgrowth of grievance politics. People thinking that their kids now have a shot at Harvard because “Trump is blocking out those foreigners.”

    As I’ve pointed out before, most international students pay full freight at US colleges and universities. So who is going to make up that deficit?

    7
  6. Sleeping Dog Avatar
    Sleeping Dog

    @Grumpy realist:

    While the Europeans and others are recruiting the this displaced generation of US researchers, what shouldn’t be overlooked is that among the next generation of native, US students, many could choose to pursue their advanced degrees someplace other than here.

    2
  7. Hal_10000 Avatar
    Hal_10000

    International students are a convergence of everything that makes America great: our exceptional higher education system, our ability to welcome new immigrants, our intellectual and economic might. Big fat target for an Administration that hates his country do deeply.

    13
  8. Grumpy realist Avatar
    Grumpy realist

    @Sleeping Dog: heck, I did that back in 2001–went to the U.K. for a Master’s program. (Main reason: only program of its kind in the world.)

    1
  9. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    Just in passing, let me note that I always thought the terms “international student” and “foreign student” were interchangeable, I was wrong, according to one college administrator. International students are U.S. citizens living abroad. Foreign students are citizens of other countries being educated here.

    That may have been this particular administrator’s interpretation of the terms.

  10. Joe Avatar
    Joe

    I live in one of the large research university towns that may take a significant hit if foreign students – especially Chinese students – decide the US is not worth the trouble. While I may harbor a little schadenfreude toward some of the Trumpy business owners who would be on the front lines of these hits, it is going to hit us all.

    1
  11. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @CSK:

    That may have been this particular administrator’s interpretation of the terms.

    We always referred to the foreign students who came to the US to study as “international students.”

    We usually categorized domestic students studying elsewhere as under the umbrella of “study abroad.”

    3
  12. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
    Steven L. Taylor

    @Hal_10000: So much this.

    1
  13. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    That makes more sense to me.

    1
  14. Just nutha ignint cracker Avatar
    Just nutha ignint cracker

    @CSK, @Steven L. Taylor: While I was in Korea, “foreign” was the vernacular used by the government to identify the whole category–students, professors/teachers, workers, and so on. The office that assisted students–Korean or otherwise–as to matters of educational opportunity is schools outside the countries of their births (are you still with me?) was the international students office.

    Teachers remained “foreign” throughout the process. “International” was only used as a designation of where schools looked for teachers. Some settings used the phraseology “international foreign teachers” to emphasize that scope. (And I would note that at Woosong University and Yeungjin College, not all of the foreign teachers were Western, English speakers.)

  15. Jen Avatar
    Jen

    @CSK: That’s a sort of bizarre distinction and one I’ve never heard before. We had an International Students Group at my college–“international” being anyone who considered home as outside the US.

    And, when I lived abroad, there were US DOD schools and International Schools, and the International Schools followed the IB (International Baccalaureate) program.

    1
  16. Eusebio Avatar
    Eusebio

    @CSK:
    FWIW, the college Common Data Set has the following instructions:

    Include international students only in the category “Nonresidents.”

    and

    Nonresident – A person who is not a citizen or national of the United States and who is in this country on a student visa or temporary basis and does not have the right to remain indefinitely. Do not include DACA, undocumented, or other eligible noncitizens in this category.

    More importantly, most universities publish this data online, although the racial/ethnic and international student numbers are only for undergrads.

  17. Franklin Avatar
    Franklin

    The administration is causing an incredible amount of brain drain, and it may take decades for America to recover from this self-sabotage. Besides slowing down or ending visas for the brightest international students, which U.S. citizens are moving abroad right now? The ones I know who have or are contemplating it are highly successful and educated.

    2
  18. CSK Avatar
    CSK

    @Just nutha ignint cracker: @Jen: @Eusebio:

    Yes, it was an extremely odd distinction that this person made. I daresay it was unique. She was the Director of Central Records at this particular college.

    1
  19. Richard Gardner Avatar
    Richard Gardner

    My county (Pierce County WA, population just under a million) has 3 Community Colleges Two are mostly technical/trades while the third (TCC) is your usual Freshman-Sophomore junior college (extension of High School) with a recruitment center in Japan for the past 50 years. Since 1970 over 10% of the students have been Japanese paying full “out-of-state” tuition. This means I can find real Japanese working class restaurants (er, run by Koreans, mostly Christian Koreans) next to the campus (not fancy ass Japanese that the international class wants) .

    This isn’t just elite colleges (oops, Universities as I went to the same one as Dr Taylor (UCI) where a fifth of the student records in Engineering 40 years ago were the letter N (Nguyen, Ngo – all refugees).

    They aren’t taking places, they are subsidizing it.

    2
  20. Matt Bernius Avatar
    Matt Bernius

    @Jen:

    As I’ve pointed out before, most international students pay full freight at US colleges and universities. So who is going to make up that deficit?

    100% this. This allows colleges and universities to open up more funding for in-State and US students.

    The idea that they are taking seats away from US students is a fundamental misunderstanding of how college admissions work.

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