An interesting article at the Wall Street Journal notes that 975,000 international students are enrolled in US colleges and universities this year, up 10% from the year before. Since most of these are full-tuition students, they are attractive prospects for financially strapped US schools. But, it’s making it more difficult for US and in-state students to be admitted.
The article focuses on University of California schools, who accepted 62% of in-state applicants last year - down from 84% four years earlier.
According to the article, the UC schools are the most affected. Most other state schools have held in-state admissions steady. (The article doesn’t describe the effect on out-of-state US students. Presumably, a full-pay international student might be more desirable than a domestic student who would need financial aid.)
Declining state subsidies in California, UC administrators say, make it necessary to admit more full-pay international students to keep in-state tuition low.
To put some numbers down, various articles indicate that the spending per undergraduate at UC is about $10,000 to $12,000 more than the in-state tuition of around $12,000, for a total of $22,000 to $24,000 (these figures do not include living expenses, books, etc.; out-of-state tuition adds $24,000 more for a total of $36,000).
Note that the article claims that the per student subsidy has fallen from $25,000 in 2001 to $12,000 now. In 2001, the tuition was about $3,000 for in-state undergraduates and $13,000 for out-of-state undergraduates ($4,000 and $17,000 after CPI adjustment to today’s dollars). So the spending per undergraduate was presumably at least $29,000 in today’s dollars back then (the article does not indicate whether the $25,000 is after CPI adjustment or not).
I.e. over the last 15 years, both tuition has increased and spending per undergraduate has fallen. It would not be surprising if something similar were observed at other state universities where the states have reduced funding.
From what I have been hearing, the financial aid for OOS students has dried up in most places anyway. So I am not sure that there is much advantage to the state schools one way or another. I would think this would be a bigger issue at the private schools where US citizens often need financial aid in one form or another.
I think one also has to keep in mind that having more international students can be a positive factor for all undergraduates and the faculty, but like most things it has to be balanced against other considerations and shouldn’t be unchecked in its growth.
It should be recalled that many international students must meet a higher standard to gain admission to moderately selective universities. When the entire world beyond the US is allotted as many spots as a group of 5-6 mid-sized states, there’s a more rigorous threshold to meet for prospective students who are internationals. A significant number of them are capable of doing well in the challenging environment of upper-tier colleges in the US, but nevertheless aren’t admitted, while those that are will be highly qualified on the whole.
These students are liable to be disproportionately represented among the top tier of students at selective schools, and are exactly the sort of immigrant the US should be looking to attract. The efforts their native countries make to hold on to them and slow the brain drain are one indication of their value. We need more of them, not less.
I once smiled upon the international students filling my university (19%), but then I realized they were replacing low scoring US students. Since scores are associated with socio-economic class, I realized that my big state university was maintaining scores and raising money as it denied admittance to the very state residents who both pay taxes and need to subsidy. Now I am much more cynical about international students, especially at public universities.
I agree that state universities deserve scrutiny when their OOS and intl percentages get too high. They are trying to maximize tuition revenue but their real mission is supposed to be to taxpaying residents in their state. The same with publics, though, which all benefit from tax free status and receive many streams of cash from state and federal coffers.
Good point, mamalion, about the effect on lower scoring students and the correlation with socio-economic class. Also true of schools that try to raise their academic stats by trying to attract higher-scoring US students.
How well integrated are the international students, would you say? With that high of a percentage, there would be critical mass for students to hang out with others of the same nationality, at least for the larger countries.
We’re making a few assumptions. First, that these students have to meet a higher standard to gain admission. Other than the TOEFL test, in many cases, they have to met the same admission standards as domestic students.
Next, that these international (undergraduates) students are the best and the brightest. In some cases, the US schools (like UCSD) were a second choice for internationals not able to get into the preferred domestic university (like Peking University or one of the Indian Institutes) and able to afford the expense to study abroad.
To be honest, if the parents can afford it, I don’t blame them for wanting to avoid the whole “Gaokao” nightmare…
Finally, that some number of these international students are not “gaming” the system, in particularly the TOEFL and SAT. We’ve seen enough stories on cheating, to be cautions of any comparisons between international and domestic undergrads.
Of course, that doesn’t even touch on the issue of “maternity tourism”.
Although overall statistics are hard to find, there is considerable variation even within the UC system. At UCB, unlike UCSD, the international admit rate (~9%) is about half the overall rate of 18%.
Some time ago, Voice of America had a stab at comparing international admit rates with overall rates at some upper-middle-tier colleges. With some exceptions (USC and MSU), the international rate was lower by double digits, than the overall admit rate. At Georgia Tech and Texas A&M, the international % wasn’t even half the overall rate.
These are still just a few examples, but I feel - especially in light of the self-selecting nature of international applicants, as anyone who can pay US tuition is fairly well off - that the international pool is more competitive on the whole. The UC system seems an exception in that regard (though accepted international test scores and grades are a tad higher than those of admitted US students), perhaps because funding cuts have forced them to take more full-pay internationals to make ends meet.
I can’t speak to the issues with the TOEFL/SAT or the ‘maternity tourism’ question, but I also believe US schools are often an international student’s first choice, among the self-selecting population that is “kids mostly able to pay full tuition.” Our school has seen many students turn down top local schools, and a few turn down Oxbridge offers, in order to attend a US college.
The number of international students has been a boon and has cut our trade deficit significantly. If you assume each student spends $40,000 per year, that is nearly $40 billion in exports employing many American workers.
If state legislatures are going to enact steep cuts is the state university system budgets, the schools are going to look for other sources of revenue. You can’t have a strong state university if the dollars don’t come from someplace. Voters picked those legislators, and these are the consequences.
How is it our fault? Some of you make it sound like we are stealing spots from US kids? I had scores, GPA and everything my school asked for. That’s how I got in
@paul2752: In fact, isn’t it harder for international applicants to get in? This is what ends up happening when you have a place like America in which most of the top universities in the world are found. But for public schools, the residents of the state should not have to pay as much because they already pay taxes that support the school.
For top 40? schools, It is. It’s not like the selective ones(say, top 50?) have certain quota, but they do limit the int. student numbers. I don’t know why some people complain about we “stealing” their spots when they are evaluated under completely different categories; they separate domestics and internationals from the start!
But for many many state universities(excluding those like Umich, UVa, UCB, etc), I can’t fathom in state kids “losing” spots to international kids. It’s the states’ fault that the state schools don’t have enough funding.
@paul2752: Yeah, that’s a pretty big debate right now. A lot people (including me) believe the government should support these public schools a lot more than they do now.
Yeah, but if the state government doesn’t want to spend money, then schoos will have to accept OOS kids with money because otherwise will jeopardize the education quality.
Yet, people blame international/oos kids, not the government. It’s not like we eat your tax anyway
Its pretty clear that if you are in a business that sells the same product to people for different prices, there is going to be a serious force pushing you to sell the product to those who pay the higher price.
Schools need full and near-full tuition payers, and governments need taxpayers, especially those who pay much higher taxes.
There have been academic administrators who’ve proposed scrapping the in-state/ out-of-state tuition differential and simply dealing with it on an individual financial aid basis. The old president of Miami of Ohio spoke about this idea, but I think it died because people realized that raising tuition for instate students who were “getting a good deal” would lead to their reconsidering where to attend without the cost attraction.
Everyone needs providers instead of, or to balance, consumers. How you get there is the tricky question.
I don’t think in-state preferences will ever go away, since most state schools have educating the students of their own state as a big priority. But, nobody wants 100% in-state students - that would result in a less interesting, talented, and diverse cohort. And now there’s the financial motivation… striking the right balance is difficult.