Economy Tough on International Students

A recent article in The Daily 49er, the online newspaper for Cal State Long Beach, explores how the poor economy impacts international students, amid drastic cuts in California public education, a weak job market and rising tuition costs. Cal State Long Beach attracts students from around the world. Here is an excerpt from the article:

“The down economy, cuts to the university’s budget and fee increases have affected students on many levels. Job-seeking international students have not been immune.

Last summer, the state reduced the 2009-2010 California State University budget by $571 million. Cal State Long Beach’s share of the cut was $44 million. Faculty and staff
furloughs were implemented, about 1,000 classes were cancelled, and tuition jumped by 30 percent from the 2008-2009 price. Nonresident student fees also increased.

“When you have an economic situation where money is really tight, you’re going to see a reduction in opportunities for everyone,” Inemesit Williams, study abroad adviser for the
Center for International Education (CIE), said. “On top of that, when at the same time you have in increase in fees, students are going to scramble to find ways to cover these new
costs.”

Last fall, there were 1,236 international students on campus. That is about 3.5 percent of the nearly 35,000-student population. They come from more than 40 countries from Australia, to Brazil and Zambia, with more than half from East or Southeast Asia. International students have either an F-1 student visa or a J-1 Exchange Visitor visa.  Under U.S. law, these visas allow them to work on campus, or off campus in a field related to their studies for a set time during school and after graduation.

Those who aspire to work for several years need a company to sponsor their application for an H-1B Temporary Worker visa. As the U.S. Department of Labor defines it: “The H-1B
program allows an employer to temporarily employ a foreign worker in the U.S. on a nonimmigrant basis in a specialty occupation or as a fashion model of distinguished merit and ability.”

The spike in unemployment over the past year and a half in Southern California has  increased the stakes for international students who want to land a long-term job. The
seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Los Angeles County was 12.4 percent in March, up from 7.9 percent in August 2008.

The Career Development Center (CDC) on campus has hosted workshops targeting international students. These include seminars on finding an internship and writing an American-style résumé. CDC Counselor Wayne Tokunaga stressed the importance of doing all one can to be marketable.

“If your experience is the exact same as a U.S. citizen’s, they don’t have to sponsor a U.S. citizen for H1B,” Tokunaga said. “They’ll just go with a U.S. citizen because it’s
easier.”

To read the rest of the article, click here.

Click here to subscribe to our blog.

Sharing the American Dream

This story from the online Daily O’Collegian, the Oklahoma State University newspaper, does a nice job of touching on most funding options open to international students in the US, and some of the hurdles they face.

If $40,000 does not come into Khanh Lu’s bursar account soon to pay for her OSU tuition, her dream of becoming an aerospace engineer will soon end. Lu, like many of the 16,000 international students at OSU, came to the United States expecting the American dream that she had seen on television back home in Vietnam. But if her family does not have the money to show they can pay her next year at OSU when she needs to enroll, she may have to go home a little sooner than she expected.

“It is difficult for me to concentrate on my studies sometimes because I worry about the financial burden I am putting on my family,” Lu, an aerospace engineering junior, said.

Click to read the rest of the story in the Daily O’Collegian.

US News and World Report Releases Annual Ranking of US Colleges and Universities

Each year, US News and World Report ranks thousands of US colleges and universities based on a number of factors, school input and research. Although many critics continue to attack rankings in general and the US News approach in particular, there is no doubt that it is the most influential of all college rankings. (See our previous blog posts discussing problems with college rankings and an alternate approach to college ranking.)

Today, US News released their new rankings. Harvard and Stanford tied for number one overall among US business schools, while Thunderbird Global School of Management took top honors in the International speicalty among US business schools. MIT was tops for engineering graduate schools; Yale for law school; Harvard for medical school – research, and the University of Washington (Seattle) for medical school – primary care.

For national undergraduate university rankings, Harvard and Princeton tied for top honors.

Many of the top names will be familiar to international students; however, there are many other categories of rankings that showcase excellent schools that may not be so well known around the world. For instance, Bowdoin College and Pomona College are tied for 6th in the Liberal Arts category – excellent, well-respected schools in the US, but not as well known internationally; and St. Mary’s College of Maryland and New College of Florida are ranked 4th and 5th among public liberal arts schools.

To see all of the rankings and data, visit www.USNews.com/rankings.

Click here to subscribe to our blog and get an update when the next post comes out.

Sources of Funds for International Students in the US

Each year, the Institute of International Education publishes the Open Doors Report, packed full of information about international students in the US, US students abroad and trends in international education.

One of the tables I check out each year is the Primary Source of Funds table. This shows the primary source of education funding for international students in the US, and it really has not changed much over the past five years. The online table is great, and shows that most international students at US colleges and universities still must rely on their own funds to pay for their education — like family funds, loans and savings.

But the printed report is even better, as it breaks the data down by academic level. IIE just released the full printed 2009 Open Doors Report, and the data shows that the overwhelming majority (81.9%) of international undergraduates in the US are self-funded, while less than half (48.8%) of international graduate students cite personal and family funds as their primary source of funding.

The next set of numbers shows how those graduate students are funding their education – with help from their school. 43.3% of international graduates receive their primary funding from their US College or University, while the number is only 9.1% for undergraduates.

Here’s the full data table from the 2009 Open Doors Report showing the primary source of funds for international undergraduate and graduate students in the US:

Primary Source of Funds % undergraduate % graduate
Personal & Family 81.9 48.8
U.S. College or University 9.1 43.3
Home Government/University 3.9 3.1
U.S. Government 0.3 0.8
U.S. Private Sponsor 1.4 0.9
Foreign Private Sponsor 2.1 1
International Organization 0.1 0.3
Current Employment 0.2 1
Other Sources 1 0.8
Total 100 100

Graduate students are much more likely to receive financial assistance from their school, often in the form of assistantships, research grants, etc., whereas very few undergraduates receive any form of aid from their school. This information is quite helpful as you set expectations about how to pay for an international education. There are scholarships for undergraduates, but far fewer than the financing opportunities available to graduate students.

Click here to subscribe to our blog and get an update when the next post comes out.