scholarly journals The Global Market for International Students: American Perspectives

Author(s):  
John Douglass ◽  
Richard Edelstein

Though the United States is the number one destination for international students, a shift to other countries might occur because of an explosion of a demand for higher education worldwide as well as an emergence of new competitors. Some countries use higher education to accept educated immigrants for national workforce. Foreign students, who often used to choose to stay in the US after their graduation, are going back to their home countries. Therefore, the United States should set a national strategy on international higher education.

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. v-viii ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Johnson

The Institute of International Education (IIE) 2018 Open Doors report highlighted that the United States is the leading international education destination, having hosted about 1.1 million international students in 2017 (IIE, 2018a). Despite year over year increases, U.S. Department of State (USDOS, 2018) data show that for a third year in a row, international student visa issuance is down. This is not the first decline. Student visa issuance for long-term academic students on F visas also significantly dropped following the 9/11 attacks (Johnson, 2018). The fall in issuances recovered within 5 years of 2001 and continued to steadily increase until the drop in 2016. Taken together, the drops in international student numbers indicate a softening of the U.S. international education market. In 2001, the United States hosted one out of every three globally mobile students, but by 2018 it hosted just one of five (IIE, 2018b). This suggests that over the past 20 years, the United States has lost a share of mobile students in the international education market because they’re enrolled elsewhere. The Rise of Nontraditional Education Destination Countries Unlike the United States, the percentage of inbound students to other traditional destinations such as Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, has remained stable since the turn of the 21st century. Meanwhile, nontraditional countries like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Russia are garnering more students and rising as educational hotspots (Knight, 2013). The UAE and Russia annually welcome thousands of foreign students, respectively hosting over 53,000 and 194,000 inbound international university students in 2017 (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2019). This is not happenstance. In the past 5 years, these two countries, among others, have adopted higher education internationalization policies, immigration reforms, and academic excellence initiatives to attract foreign students from around the world. The UAE is one of six self-identified international education hubs in the world (Knight, 2013) and with 42 international universities located across the emirates, it has the most international branch campuses (IBCs) worldwide (Cross-Border Education Research Team, 2017). Being a country composed of nearly 90% immigrants, IBCs allow the UAE to offer quality higher education to its non-Emirati population and to attract students from across the Arab region and broader Muslim world. National policy and open regulations not only encourage foreign universities to establish IBCs, they alsoattract international student mobility (Ilieva, 2017). For example, on November 24, 2018, the national government updated immigration policy to allow foreign students to apply for 5-year visas (Government.ae, 2018). The Centennial 2071 strategic development plan aims for the UAE to become a regional and world leader in innovation, research, and education (Government.ae, 2019), with the long-term goal of creating the conditions necessary to attract foreign talent. Russia’s strategic agenda also intends to gain a greater competitive advantage in the world economy by improving its higher education and research capacity. Russia currently has two higher education internationalization policies: “5-100-2020” and “Export Education.” The academic excellence project, known as “5-100-2020,” funds leading institutions with the goal to advance five Russian universities into the top 100 globally by 2020 (Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, 2018). The “Export Education” initiative mandates that all universities double or triple the number of enrolled foreign students to over half a million by 2025 (Government.ru, 2017). These policies are explicitly motivated by boosting the Russian higher education system and making it more open to foreigners. Another growing area is international cooperation. Unlike the UAE, Russia has few IBCs, but at present, Russian universities partner with European and Asian administrators and government delegates to create dual degree and short-term programs. Historically, Russia has been a leading destination for work and education migrants from soviet republics in the region, but new internationalization policies are meant to propel the country into the international education market and to attract international students beyond Asia and Europe. Future Trends in 21st Century International Education Emerging destination hotspots like the UAE and Russia are vying to become more competitive in the global international higher education market by offering quality education at lower tuition rates in safe, welcoming locations closer to home. As suggested by the softening of the U.S. higher education market, international students may find these points attractive when considering where to study. Sociopolitical shifts that result from events such as 9/11 or the election of Donald Trump in combination with student mobility recruitment initiatives in emerging destinations may disrupt the status quo for traditional countries by rerouting international student enrollment to burgeoning educational hotspots over the coming decades.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 893-917
Author(s):  
David Lausch ◽  
Eric Teman ◽  
Cody Perry

International students’ identities are complex and so are their needs. Semistructured interviews with 13 of the lead researcher’s former students from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, who are multi-national, multi-lingual and pursuing degrees in law, business, economics, medicine, education, art and media, in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia elucidated this reality. Their experiences demonstrated scholastic and pabulum frustrations that were offset in part by constant communication with their clans in person and through various technologies. Though the current model of higher education often seeks to identify and categorize international students as a group, this study shows that international students are unique individuals. Recognizing their individuality, higher education institutions and policymakers can more appropriately respond to international students’ needs.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Sharif Uddin

Andrade and James Hartshorn (2019) surrounds the transition that international students encounter when they attend universities in developed countries in pursuit of higher education. Andrade and James Hartshorn (2019) describe how some countries like Australia and the United Kingdom host more international students than the United States (U.S.) and provides some guidelines for the U.S. higher education institutions to follow to host more international students. This book contains seven chapters.


2015 ◽  
pp. 7-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Madeleine F. Green

The United States is not a world leader in higher education internationalization. A recent survey shows that many other countries are much more active than the US in student exchanges and the other elements of internationalization.


Author(s):  
D.B. Izyumov ◽  
E.L. Kondratyuk

The article presents the results of the analysis of the global market of rare earth metals for the needs of the armed forces abroad. The Article also estimates the direction of development of the US legislative system in this area, as well as presents the results of comparing the levels of development of production of rare earth metals in the US and China.


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-195
Author(s):  
Sarah McClanahan

The United States is currently enrolling more international students than any other country in the world. In 2011, approximately 764,000 international students were enrolled in higher education in the U.S., comprising 19% of the world’s total students studying internationally (Institute of International Education, 2012). This rise, as well as the rapid globalization occurring within the United States, has brought about a need for students and staff in higher education to be equipped to communicate cross-culturally and have an understanding of global issues. International living-learning communities (I-LLCs) are a way for universities to provide opportunities for domestic students and international students to live together and gain global knowledge through first-hand experiences and programs directed at international issues. While I-LLCs are not necessarily common across the U.S., many institutions are in the process of creating such programs in order to expand the global focus of their institutions. 


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 78-96
Author(s):  
I. A. Sokov

Abstract: The article reviews through chronological analysis key issues in US-Canadian relations in the context of new trade agreement USMCA replacing NAFTA during Trump's presidency. It identifies a new model of relations between the closest North American partners in the context of a new paradigm which is called “America First”. This model leads to a crisis the US-Canadian relations, which is aggravated by the increased partisan rivalry in light of the upcoming US presidential elections, the impeachment process initiated in the House of Representatives.The article comes to the following conclusions. The evolutionary development of the free trade agreement (NAFTA), its rejection and acceptance of the USMCA preferential agreement is a gradual and consistent process of protecting North American countries from global market, which started during the presidency of George W. Bush and continued by the subsequent American presidents. This is also connected with the trade war between the United States and China, that was repeatedly emphasized both in the US Administration and in the Congress during D. Trump's presidency. The United States-Canadian relations have worsened significantly, although the countries' leaders do not recognize it publicly during the agreement's preparation and its ratification, for almost three years. The USMCA agreement is not a final version, subject to further ratification. It took more than a year for the parties to find compromise solutions on the USMCA with the protocols' preparation to the agreement and its submission to the national parliaments. Moreover, in the agreed version, the USMCA agreement meets primarily the interests of the United States. The US pressure on Canada was unprecedented. As a result, we should expect the continued growth of political and trade contradictions between the United States and Canada, as well as the revision and addition of new additional agreements in the USMCA agreement.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. vii-ix
Author(s):  
Megan Siczek

Much of the literature on international students in U.S. higher education—as well as the perception of many within our institutional communities—focuses on the challenges these globally mobile students may experience. Challenges related to acculturation, English language proficiency, academic adjustment, and cross-cultural interactions are prevalent in research (Smith & Khawaja, 2011). However, research has also demonstrated international students’ ability to succeed academically in spite of some of these challenges as a result of their motivation, effort, and persistence (Andrade, 2006). This maps with my own research finding that international students negotiate their sociaocademic experiences in the mainstream U.S. college curriculum with self-awareness and a sense of agency that allows them to shape their own learning experiences (Siczek, 2018). This is the story of how a group of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) students at a private university in Washington, DC, demonstrated resilience and agency in the face of a global health pandemic. In spring 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began to affect the United States, these students were enrolled in my on-campus undergraduate course called “Oral Academic Communication for International Students.” The main content of the course draws on students’ global experiences and linguistic assets while preparing them to meet the communicative expectations of the U.S. undergraduate curriculum. It is usually a highly interactive and productive class that covers a variety of oral academic genres, with students gaining authority and voice as the semester progresses. We were halfway through the semester when students at our university were told that they were expected to go home for spring break and await an announcement about whether they should return to campus. Of course, going home was not an easy option for a group of students from Austria, China, Germany, Pakistan, South Korea, and Taiwan. As the end of spring break neared, students were told that the rest of the semester would be taught online. International students could head home or petition the university for continued accommodation on campus. Students and their families were forced to make quick decisions, balancing the competing priorities of health and academics. By the final weeks of the semester, only three students in my class remained in the United States: One was in her third campus housing location in less than a month; one had moved to a local hotel, where she would stay to finish the semester; and one moved into a rented room in an AirBnB house in the suburbs of Washington, DC. The rest of my students endured long journeys to their home countries, often spending weeks in hotel- or facility-based quarantine before being allowed to return to their family homes. Throughout this disruption, online learning continued. How did students manage the course despite this disruption and dislocation? They showed up; they engaged; they connected with and cared for one another; they learned. I was amazed and inspired by their response. The students who could joined synchronous sessions online during our usual class time, entering the “room” fully prepared and contributing actively to class activities and discussions. Those who could not join watched recorded versions of each class session and posted multimodal alternate assignments in which they engaged with the learning material as well as the ideas their classmates had discussed during the synchronous class.  While we were online during the second half of the semester, students virtually facilitated discussions on self-selected TED Talks covering global and cross-cultural themes, designed and shared internationally oriented infographics that applied best practices for visual communication, practiced vocal techniques for oral presentations, and designed and delivered individual presentations proposing an initiative to advance internationalization on campus. These persuasive presentations were grounded in scholarly literature on the internationalization of higher education and situated in the local context of the university and its needs. Students proposed initiatives such as an international research hub on campus, the enhancement of the university’s foreign language requirement to promote global competence, a new curricular requirement focusing on global diversity and inclusion, a peer-pairing program for domestic and international students, and even a global health crisis headquarters so that the university could address pandemics like COVID-19 with a higher level of preparedness and coordination. Their presentations were uniquely informed by the global perspectives they had developed based on their own transnational migration experiences and were delivered with remarkable professionalism despite conditions being far different from the intended classroom-based presentation. During our 6 weeks of online learning, my contact with students was high, and I had a new window into their lives outside of the classroom and the extent to which they invested in their educations. I was witness to the resilience these students displayed as they negotiated this unsettling global crisis. I posit that these international students were primed to adapt—and even thrive—during this global crisis because they themselves had crossed cultural, linguistic, geographical, and even epistemological boundaries to pursue higher education in the United States. Thus, my call to action as I wrap up this 10th anniversary essay for the Journal of International Students is that we continue to engage in qualitative inquiry into the lived experience of globally mobile students in our institutional settings, targeting research that illuminates their global interconnectedness and the agency they display as they navigate new and uncertain socioacademic terrain.


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