The Brain Drain That Wasn't
SATLOFF, ROBERT
The Brain Drain That Wasn't Foreign students still flock to American universities. BY ROBERT SATLOFF IS THERE a foreign-student crisis in American higher education? Last November, the Institute...
...colleges was up to 30,000...
...And when one merges the Middle East and North Africa, putting all Arab countries under a single heading, that expanded region suffered only a 7.6 percent drop from pre-9/11 levels...
...it was southern Africa...
...The result was that by the time 9/11 occurred, there were only about 5,300 Saudis and just 1,800 Iranians at American universities...
...At one time, Saudi enrollment in U.S...
...On the one hand, numbers from the United Arab Emirates did fall by half and from Saudi Arabia by a third...
...After the oil price hikes of the 1970s, Gulf students flocked to America in droves, paying tuition with newfound petro-dollars...
...Of the sixteen countries that IIE includes in the region, five actually showed increases from before 9/11—Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Iran, and Turkey...
...From faraway, foreign observers reveled in their good fortune...
...Indeed, among countries that send more than 1,000 students to the United States, Morocco had the highest percentage increase in the world...
...universities," ran a headline in the influential scientific journal Nature...
...This trend applies across the globe, from major foreign-student exporters China and South Korea to the politically sensitive Middle East...
...visa procedures have become far too cumbersome and bureaucrats are turning down far more applicants than ever before...
...Last November, the Institute of International Education reported "the first absolute decline in foreign enrollments" at American colleges and universities in more than three decades...
...Among Muslim countries more generally, some certainly had steep drops, but no single thread ties them together...
...Increases over that period were registered in almost every region of the world, from Latin America (9.5 percent) to South and Central Asia (20 percent) to Central Africa (25 percent...
...With a longer time frame, fluctuations in foreign student enrollment are even starker...
...As for the charge that State Department officials are rejecting more student visa applications now than ever before, the evidence suggests otherwise...
...eign student enrollment should have been the last full academic year before the al Qaeda attacks, 20002001...
...colleges was up to 30,000...
...The two that registered declines were Japan (12 percent) and Taiwan (8 percent)—not countries whose citizens are usually associated with visa difficulties...
...Last year's blip in foreign student enrollment attracted headlines, but it obscured the real success story of post-9/11 American higher education...
...The result, he wrote, is a "dramatic decline of foreign students in the U.S...
...In fact, there were 4.5 percent more foreign students enrolled in the United States last year than there were before 9/11...
...Moreover, the bureau also reports that the absolute number of student visas issued is actually on the rise...
...on the other hand, countries like Pakistan and Senegal showed increases...
...Leading the pack was French-and Arabic-speaking Morocco, which had a phenomenal 126 percent jump (from 1,917 to 4,341...
...The combination of political tensions and the long-term decline in real oil prices convinced these countries to invest in local higher education, so fewer of their students would go abroad...
...Of the regions that suffered declines over this period, the most significant drop (19 percent) was, surprisingly, not the Middle East...
...Most stunning was the fact that the region of the world with the greatest percentage increase since before 9/11 was largely Arab North Africa, which showed a 35 percent rise...
...The facts, however, were anything but plain...
...Of the six countries that send the most students to the United States, four showed moderate to strong increases, led by India's whopping 46 percent rise...
...The 60 percent rise from African superpower Nigeria, a country with a huge Muslim population, was especially heartening...
...If post-9/11 visa restrictions were such an impediment, it stands to reason that the high point of forAfter the oil price hikes of the 1970s, Gulf students flocked to America in droves, paying tuition with newfound petro-dollars...
...U.S...
...By contrast, the Middle East had a 14 percent decrease, followed by Southeast Asia (12 percent) and Europe (8 percent...
...Disturbing anecdotes aside, evidence pointing to a dramatic decline in foreign stu-dents—or even a correlation between post-9/11 visa restrictions and last year's decrease—is remarkably thin...
...Even a close look at the numbers for Middle Easterners reveals a much more complex story than one might have imagined...
...Robert Satloff executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is the author of The Battle of Ideas in the War on Terror...
...According to information provided by State's Bureau of Consular Affairs, refusal rates—including for students—are essentially unchanged since before September 11...
...That's the real story —or, in this case, the nonstory...
...New data supplied by the State Department combined with a close look at the IIE report suggest that the situation is not nearly as dire as some contend...
...prior to the Khomeini revolution, there were more than 50,000 Iranian students here...
...In fact, four-fifths of all Middle East countries saw an increase in the number of students issued visas in fiscal year 2004 over the previous year...
...security restrictions lead foreign students to snub U.S...
...A decade or two from now, this, too, may change...
...But it wasn't—not by a long shot...
...At one time, Saudi enrollment in U.S...
...What should have been news is the fact that foreign students came to the United States in ever larger numbers after the 9/11 attacks and that the vast majority still brave the campaign of rumor and exaggeration to take advantage of the opportunities of American colleges and universities today...
...The facts are plain," declared a Newsweek columnist...
...Visa crackdown costs US cream of foreign students," chortled the London Times...
...While most commentators focus on last year's decline as proof of a systemic problem, a different story emerges when the most recent data are viewed against a pre-9/11 baseline...
...Overnight, the 2.4 percent one-year drop in foreign students became a national cause célèbre and America's tougher, post-9/11 visa requirements were cast as public enemy number one...
...In place of these Gulf countries, the Asian tigers had become the major players in the foreign student pool...
Vol. 10 • July 2005 • No. 42
