Everyone tends to assume that the growth of international students will go on unfettered. But I am not sure that, when all is said and done, it is going to be quite that simple. I was brought to this conclusion by a recent visit to Singapore.
There, it is quite clear that a halt is being called to the growth of international-student numbers in Singaporean universities as a result of the concerns of the Singaporean population that they are not getting their fair share of university places. Singapore’s universities will be capped at the present level of international students while 2,000 new university places will be added for local students by 2015 (chiefly from the two new universities that will be opening soon), so that gradually the proportion of foreign students will come down from 18 percent to about 15 percent.
This is hardly an unusual event. I could say sadly but it is not hard to see why Singaporean nationals might rail against funded places being given to students from overseas after coming to the conclusion that those could be their children’s places. The argument about trying to obtain the best talent worldwide tends to fall in the face of these kinds of arguments.
Nor is it necessarily an unusual reaction in other states. In Singapore, the reaction was exacerbated by the fact that so many international students are funded, and funded generously. But it has all kinds of echoes elsewhere in the world–for example, the tougher visa regimes being introduced in some countries which can treat international students as though they were the collateral damage that is necessitated by electorates obsessed by issues like order and safety.
Of course, some countries stay resolutely open to international students, including Canada and Australia (after a brief and rapidly reversed hiatus in its visa regime). And China’s commitment is growing. But other countries seem to be wavering. In the U.K., international students have become caught up in an election pledge which has proved difficult to renege upon. In the United States, a general hostility to immigrants in some states holds the danger of flowing over into action on international students, too. For the best universities in countries like these, this is unlikely to be a major problem but for other universities it is already proving to be a challenge.
I do not believe that these kinds of barriers to the flow of international students around the world can or will last, but they show that the greater internationalization of students does not have to be an inevitable process, as too many commentators have tended to assume. It can be halted or even reversed. As economic crisis bites in many parts of the globe, feelings of hostility to immigrants can often become stronger and international students can be caught up in the backwash. Universities are necessarily diverse institutions and they need to mount positive campaigns that make the case to electorates who feel beleaguered and who are looking for what look like obvious answers to their plight.
