Latitudes

International students drive grad-school growth

A strong post-pandemic resurgence from abroad buoyed first-time enrollments in American graduate schools, even as the number of newly enrolled domestic graduate students declined in fall 2021.

Nearly one in four incoming graduate students last fall was a student-visa holder, according to the new enrollment data from the Council of Graduate Schools. The number of new international graduate students climbed 95 percent from the previous year, while the share of Americans starting graduate programs dipped 4 percent.

Overall, first-time enrollments increased by 9 percent between fall of 2020 and fall of 2021, the council reported.

The foreign-student rebound, particularly at the graduate level, has been reported, of course. The Open Doors report, the annual census of international students in the United States, released earlier this month, found that for the first time in a decade, there were more international graduate students than undergraduates from abroad at American colleges.

What struck me in the latest figures was the contrast between international students coming back to the United States, despite real obstacles, and slow to return to campuses of many Americans.

As always, one of the big questions about data that represent a snapshot in post-Covid time is how much of the growth can simply be chalked up to pent-up demand. International graduate enrollments were clawing back up from a pandemic low, having fallen 37 percent the previous year, according to the council.

Real-time student-visa data don’t break out visa issuances by academic level, so we can’t answer that question definitively. Still, I think we can be confident that international-graduate enrollments have continued to increase this fall. That’s because of robust growth in visas issued to students from India, which is predominantly a graduate-student market.

Much of the discussion about the potential enrollment cliff for American colleges has focused on undergraduates, but the longer-term trends at the graduate level are also worth watching. Certainly, the divergence in international- and domestic-graduate enrollments in fall of 2021 was outsized, but the council’s data shows that the number of American citizens and permanent residents enrolling in graduate school has been flat over the past decade, increasing by less than 1 percent, while the number of international students was up 3.1 percent.

If Americans’ interest in pursuing graduate education continues to level off, or even declines, could that leave graduate programs more reliant on international students, and if so, what are the implications? For one, international students tend to cluster in certain fields — more than 60 percent of new graduate students in mathematics and computer science last fall were from overseas, while half of those beginning graduate degrees in engineering were from abroad.

And while international students are a current bright spot, the precipitous drop in foreign enrollments during the pandemic are a reminder of how susceptible their presence can be to factors beyond colleges’ control — a list that includes consular closures; shifting government policy, at home or abroad; and, of course, global health crises.

Readers, I’ll be continuing to explore questions around international graduate-student trends in my reporting. I’m interested in what a potential acceleration of foreign-graduate enrollments means for student recruitment, for campus programming, and for the long-term talent pipeline. You can share your insights with me at karin.fischer@chronicle.com.

Pandemic silver linings and more

The pandemic challenged international admissions like never before, but one upside was the expansion of online recruitment, Adam Sapp, assistant vice president and director of admissions at Pomona College, told a Chronicle audience: “Virtual has changed the game. To have that tool in the toolkit has really allowed us all to expand our reach well beyond what we even thought possible. And that’s been a nice silver lining of the pandemic that I don’t think will go away.”

Miss our Chronicle virtual forum on shifting international-enrollment trends? You can still listen on demand to my conversation with Adam, Jeong Powell, director of international admissions and recruitment at North Carolina State University, and Robert Summers, vice provost for international affairs at Middle Tennessee State University.

Meanwhile, corporate leaders and research-university presidents are jointly calling on the U.S. government to enact policies that would attract and retain more international students and other talented scientists and researchers from around the world. To be more globally competitive, the United States should exempt international graduates in science and technology from green-card caps and eliminate a requirement that foreign students demonstrate that they plan to return to their home countries after earning a degree, the Association of American Universities and Business Roundtable said, among other recommendations.

Chinese college students sent home amid protests

Chinese universities sent students home this week as the government sought to head off further protests against its strict pandemic policies.

Demonstrations flared across China after 10 people were killed and nine others injured in a residential fire in the Xinjiang region, and many questioned whether Covid lockdowns prevented victims from fleeing. Students at leading Chinese universities, including Peking and Tsinghua, signed statements protesting the government’s harsh Covid restrictions and calling for greater campus freedoms.

University officials said they dispersed students, who will take classes and exams online, to avoid potential infections as Covid case numbers in China have again begun to rise. But the decision stood in contrast to broader Chinese public-health policies against travel.

Campuses in China have been centers of activism before, such as during the 1989 pro-democracy movement. Could we see a new era of dissent? This Twitter thread, from a Businessweek reporter covering China, does a good job laying out some of the social and economic discontent among young Chinese.

Meanwhile, Chinese students studying overseas joined in protests (a few snapshots, here and here and here).

Around the globe

The Biden administration has dropped its appeal of a judge’s ruling reversing three convictions against a former University of Kansas professor charged under the federal government’s China Initiative with hiding his ties to China.

A top U.S. State Department official pledged that wait times for student visas would be reduced significantly in the next year.

College presidents are urging members of Congress during their lame-duck session to enact permanent legal protections for young people brought to the United States as children.

Republican leader Kevin McCarthy could appoint a select committee on China if elected speaker of the U.S. House that would examine, among other issues, allegations of intellectual-property theft.

Esther Brimmer, the outgoing executive director of NAFSA: Association of International Educators, will become a senior fellow in global governance at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The British government could limit the number of foreign students who receive visas to study there unless they have won admission from a highly ranked university as part of an effort to reduce migration into the country.

The number of international students studying in a British academic program outside of the United Kingdom experienced record growth during the pandemic, according to a new report on transnational education.

The Mitchell Scholarship, which each year sends recent college graduates to study at universities in Ireland and Northern Ireland, is at risk of shutting down if it doesn’t raise additional funding.

After concerns about potential belt tightening, the German Academic Exchange Service, which funds academic and research exchanges, got an increase in the new federal-government budget.

The Taliban government has renamed the American University of Afghanistan.

Australia’s education minister has announced a review of the country’s higher-education system.

Six protesters, including three students, have been convicted for their part in clashes with police on a Hong Kong university campus in 2019.

Will new world-class universities be Chinese, asks Harvard professor William C. Kirby in The Review. Kirby and I discussed this topic, and more on Sino-American academic relations, on the Chicago Council of Global Affairs’ Deep Dish podcast.

And finally …

Two international students who attended Earlham College, in Indiana, will reunite in Stockholm, Sweden, as part of a scholarship program inspired by the Nobel Prize.

Daryl Mifsud, who will graduate in December with a degree in peace and global studies, and Trevor Marimbire, who earned a degree in economics in May, were both selected as Future Nobel Laureate Scholarship recipients, two of just 10 awardees. The two friends, who first met as high-school students at the United World College Maastricht in the Netherlands, will participate in the 2022 Nobel Week Dialogue, an event that brings together Nobel Prize laureates, leading scientists and experts, and key opinion leaders and policy makers to explore scientific topics through a global lens.

Thanks for reading. I always welcome your feedback and ideas for future reporting, so drop me a line, at karin.fischer@chronicle.com. You can also connect with me on Twitter or LinkedIn. If you like this newsletter, please share it with colleagues and friends. They can sign up here.