September 11, 2001 has turned a spotlight on international education. Does U.S. higher education have adequate expertise in Middle Eastern issues to interpret recent events? How will foreign student enrollments in U.S. postsecondary institutions be impacted? These are the urgent questions now being asked by international educators. In this Digest, we will present some of the research that bears on these issues.
1. There is little consensus concerning the guiding theme of the field as well as its scope. Should the field stress internationalization, transnationalization, or globalization (Barrows, 2000; Committee for Transnational Competence, 2000; Hilary, 2000)?
2. International education is not a prominent feature of the contemporary higher education experience. Using enrollment in foreign languages as an indicator, 16 percent of all U.S. college students were enrolled in foreign languages in the peak period of the 1960s; the proportion is currently down to 8 percent (Hayward, 2000, p. 6).
3. There is imbalance in regional coverage. The regions and languages covered at a particular institution are a function of idiosyncratic patterns of faculty recruitment. Nationally, there is reasonable coverage of Western Europe and Latin America and most European languages compared to limited coverage of Africa and the Middle East. For students enrolled in foreign languages, Spanish is the most popular followed by the other major languages of Western Europe; 6 percent enroll in Asian languages. Languages of the Middle East make up only 2 percent (1.3 being Hebrew and .5 percent Arabic). The languages of Africa constitute only 0.15 percent of enrollments.
4. Because international education is not a primary concern of most scholars in the field, research is somewhat sporadic, non-cumulative, and tends to be carried out by national organizations as part of advocacy projects (e.g. Lambert, 1989; Brecht and Rivers, 2000). The most recent example is the American Council of Education's (ACE's) Internationalization of Higher Education: A Status Report. (Hayward, 2000).
Top corporate executives also are reported to be very positive about international education (Andersen, 1988), though corporate recruiters tend to see less value in international education or foreign language skills (Hawkins and Cummings, 2000).
While studies project a future need for international knowledge in the labor force (Bikson et al, 1995), there is little evidence that training in international education leads to better job opportunities or income for college graduates. Indeed, one survey of U.S. job recruiters indicates they prefer students with domestic work experience over those with international work experience (Van Hoot, 1999). However, Hayward (2000) reports that the proportion of federal job announcements that indicate a preference for multilingual recruits has increased in recent years.
While there are no comprehensive reports of state funding for international education, state funding for higher education on the whole (as a proportion of all state allocations) has decreased over the last decade (Hayward, 2000).
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of U.S. international education is the virtual absence of a focus on the Middle East as well as the considerable neglect of Asia and Africa. The major exception is a very recent upturn in study abroad in Japan and China (Davis, 2000). The lack of a focus on these areas is especially troubling when one considers the considerable importance of these regions for the U.S. economy and international affairs. THE FUTURE INFLOW OF FOREIGN STUDENTS
In the wake of September 11th, some national leaders proposed stricter controls on international students. Increased regulation may slow down the flow of international students, though recent experience with new regulations such as the international student tax suggests that the effect of new rules on the volume of student inflow may not necessarily be very great.
Fear for personal safety is also perceived as a potential damper on the inflow of international students to the U.S. Students from the Middle East may be apprehensive about studying in the U.S. because of concern about personal harassment. While this is a realistic concern, it should be noted that the Middle East's share of all international students has been relatively small and has been declining in recent years. More troubling may be the concerns of potential students from East Asia where there is a high premium on personal safety. When a Japanese student who mistakenly visited a California home was shot three years ago, the story was widely publicized in the Japanese press and had a definite short-term effect on applications.
While the current focus is primarily on fear, economic conditions have historically had the greatest impact on international education. The drop in the value of Asian currencies in the early 1990s led to a sharp decline in new students from that area. The current world recession is certain to have a significant short-term impact on foreign student enrollments. Given the worldwide scope of the recession, there is no reason to expect particular regional biases in this downturn.
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Baldi, S., Khalaf, G., Perie, M., & Sherman, J. D. (2000) International education indicators: A time series perspective, 1985-1995. NCES, 2000-021).
Barrow, L. M., (Ed.). (2000). Internationalization of higher education: An institutional perspective. Papers on higher education. Bucharest, Romania: United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. European Centre for Higher Education. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 450 662)
Barrows, T. S. (1981). College students knowledge and beliefs: A survey of global understanding. New Rochelle, NY: Council on Learning; Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 215 653)
Bikson, T.K.; Law, S. A. (1995). Toward the border less career. Corporate hiring in the 90s. (RAND Reprints RP-443). Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation.
Brecht, R.R. and Rivers, W.P. (2000). Language and security in the 21st century: The role of title VI/Fulbright-Hays in supporting national language capacity. Washington, D.C.: National Foreign Language Center.
Callan, H. ( 2000). The international vision in practice: A decade of evolution. Higher Education in Europe, 25(1), 15-23.
Chandler, A. (1998). Paying the bill for international education. Washington, DC: NAFSA: Association for International Educators.
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Cummings, W.K. (1991) Foreign Students. In Philip G. Altbach, (Ed.), International Higher Education: An Encyclopedia (pp. 107-126). New York: Garland.
Davis, T. (2000). Open Doors. New York, NY: Institute of International Education.
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Hayward, F. M. (2000). Internationalization of Higher Education: Preliminary Status Report 2000: Final Draft. Washington, DC: American Council on Education.
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Lambert, R.D. (1989). International Studies and the Undergraduate. Washington, DC: American Council on Education.
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