The not-Trump effect edition

International student declines were deeper and started earlier than we realized

A Pre-Election Slump

Lots of ink has been spilled on the “Trump effect,” the idea that Donald Trump’s election sent international enrollments into a downward spiral. But visa issuance data from the State Department shows that international-student declines started earlier and were deeper than previously understood. In fact, the largest decrease in the number of new F-1 student visas was in fiscal year 2016, which ended on September 30, 2016. In other words, the slide in international enrollments preceded the Trump presidency by months.

This suggests that enrollment trend is, at the very least, more complicated than the common narrative. There are many factors – currency fluctuations, changes in foreign-government scholarship programs, the increased attractiveness of other destinations – that influence students’ choices and almost surely played a bigger role than we appreciated in 2015 and 2016. And if it wasn’t solely a Trump effect that drove down international numbers, then it will likely take more than an end to his presidency to reverse the slump.

That said, the idea that a Trump presidency might be a hostile one to international students didn’t catch fire only when he took the oath of office. His candidacy tapped into preexisting nativist sentiment and amplified it. In fall 2015 and winter 2016, as the campaign was heating up, I was hanging out with a group of female students from Saudi Arabia, and I observed firsthand how they were sometimes met with suspicion or hostility. One of the students was even confronted by a woman who angrily demanded that she remove her hijab. While none of these students second-guessed their choice to study in the United States, it’s not difficult to imagine younger friends or classmates hearing their stories and thinking twice.

The Institute of International Education’s Open Doors report also shows decreases in new enrollments over the past three years, but those declines, all in the single digits, percentage-wise, were not as deep as in the visa data. The differences can be chalked up in part to methodology (Open Doors is based on a survey) as well as visa policy (students from some countries are required to get a new visa every time they reenter the U.S. even if they would not count as new students). It’s perhaps more useful to compare apples to apples, to examine the last multi-year period of falling visa issuance, right after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In fiscal years 2002 and 2003, the number of new student visas issued dipped 27 percent, before rebounding in 2004. Over the past three years, the drop was 44 percent.

A positive sign, though – the declines are getting smaller. Student visa numbers plummeted 27 percent in 2016 but fell only 8 percent in 2018.

Still, we are in an era of unprecedented uncertainty in international enrollments. Visa processing has slowed during the Trump administration, which has imposed enhanced screening requirements on foreign visitors. Staying on to work, through optional practical training, has become tougher. The president has, at best, sent mixed messages when it comes to China, the source of a third of all overseas students in the United States. Though he has said he wants to attract the “smartest people,” his administration has tightened visa restrictions for some Chinese students and scholars, cracked down on colleges’ foreign ties, and warned repeatedly of the threat of Chinese academic espionage. The president may not have sparked the enrollment declines, but he has the potential to make them worse.

What do you make of this trend data? Tell me on Twitter @karinfischer or send me an email to latitudesnews@gmail.com.

Hearing on Visa Delays

If international students and American colleges have been complaining for some time about visa delays, it seems like some lawmakers share their alarm – the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship held a hearing last week on the immigration-agency backlog, with plenty of attention going to issues with student visas. 

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who chairs the subcommittee, noted that visa backlogs are at their highest rate since 2003 and singled out the wait times for approval of OPT. The delays, often as long as five months, mean that some students miss the start dates for their jobs or internships. Several higher-ed associations submitted a letter to the subcommittee that emphasized how the lack of predictability affects students, employers, and colleges.

As they have in the past, officials from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services largely blamed the wait times on an increase in applications. But Buzzfeed News reports a new development that could exacerbate the backlog – agency leaders have apparently asked staff to help with administrative tasks related to the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border instead of processing visa paperwork. In an email, the USCIS deputy director requested volunteers to aid U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field offices, including with a program to keep asylum-seekers in Mexico.

Bills, Bills, Bills

It’s been a busy few days for international ed on Capitol Hill. Tucked into a defense policy bill passed by the U.S. House are several provisions targeting potential academic espionage by foreign governments on American campuses. The measure would set up an interagency working group to evaluate current mechanisms and develop new policies for keeping federally funded research secure as well as require officials to develop a list of overseas entities that pose a threat of academic espionage. 

It also mandates that students who participate in Defense Department-funded language programs abroad be trained to recognize and report efforts by foreign governments to recruit them as spies. (An aside: I wonder if spy training will involve that FBI classic, Game of Pawns.) 

Meanwhile, an intelligence authorization bill also approved by the House contains an amendment requiring intelligence agencies review and report back to Congress whether they are protecting civil liberties when working to counter foreign espionage. The provision was sparked by concerns of potential profiling amid the uptick in wrongful prosecutions of Chinese-American scientists, such as Xi Xiaoxing, a Temple University physicist who was falsely accused of spying.

Neither measure, however, is a done deal, as the Democratic House now must negotiate with the Republican-controlled Senate to come up with final legislation.

Relatedly…

• In a letter to the secretary of state and the acting secretary of homeland security, Harvard’s president Lawrence S. Bacow wrote that “singling out one country and its citizens is incompatible with the culture and mission of higher education and our national ideals.”

• Is Canada also cracking down on researchers with China connections? Authorities are investigating a Chinese-born scientist with ties to a university in mainland China and have barred her and her students from a national microbiology lab.

Around the Globe

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos called the movement to boycott Israel a “pernicious threat” on college campuses that is fueled by anti-Semitism.

A local man has confessed to abducting, raping, and murdering an American scientist in Crete for an academic conference.

The man convicted of killing a Chinese scholar at the University of Illinois will spend the rest of his life in prison after a jury could not agree on imposing a death sentence. 

Deans and directors of some of the top graduate schools in international affairs and public policy say there must be an increased focus on diversity and inclusion in global-affairs education.

The trial of a University of California at Davis professor who signed a petition protesting the Turkish military’s treatment of Kurdish residents has been delayed and he won’t have to appear in person. Here’s Baki Tezcan’s written defense.

Am I the only one having trouble coming to terms with the fact that session and workshop proposals for both AIEA and NAFSA are due in a month?

Nevermind the trade war: Why Chinese parents are taking the Trump administration’s tougher student-visa rules very personally.

Got international-education news? Please pass it along, at latitudesnews@gmail.com.

And finally…

To appreciate the pull studying in America has on the Chinese imagination, consider this: There’s a Chinese TV show centered around a student – with his father in tow, for some reason – coming to an American college. And apparently, it’s very, very bad, according to RADII, a website focused on Chinese culture. Plot lines on the program, called Over the Sea I Come to You, have revolved around subjects such as the father “dressing like Steph Curry” to the pair breaking up a school shooting. Yikes.

Have any of you seen the show? If so, share your review. But beyond this particular program, most international students I know form their initial impression of the United States through television and movies. (Growing up in Canada, I thought much of America was Dallas.) Is there any piece of popular culture – I’d include books, blogs, and YouTube, too – that you think does a good job of portraying American culture to outsiders? Send me your recommendations, and a line or two of explanation, and I’ll pull together a list! 

’Til next week – Karin

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