The events of Sept. 11, 2001 were supposed to have a monumental impact on foreign students such as Wandee Sirisutthidecha. But for the DePaul University education major from Thailand, the changes have been fairly subtle–although she did have some concerns when traveling back to her native country last November.
“When friends [here] would ask me if there was a chance that I wouldn’t come back, I would say `I don’t know,'” she said. “I was nervous about not being able to come back because even our international student office was telling foreign students to make sure their documentation was current after Sept. 11.”
Sirisutthidecha’s documentation was up to date, and she’s back in Chicago, student-teaching and planning on getting her master’s degree in education in this country, once she finishes her undergraduate career this December.
“I need to get my master’s in this country before I can return to teach in Thailand,” she said.
Recent statistics show that studying in the U.S. continues to be a popular alternative for foreigners such as Sirisutthidecha, with applications and enrollments for international students either steady or on the rise in most countries.
No lag in applications
Two-thirds of more than 530 educators in the U.S. say applications for studying abroad during the 2002-03 school year have either increased or remained the same, according to a survey from the Institute of International Education, based in New York. This comes after the institute reported that a record total of 547,867 international students were attending colleges and universities in the U.S. during 2000-01. International students brought in more than $11 billion to the U.S. economy, the institute said, which would make higher education one of the nation’s leading exports.
“We feel that the numbers won’t change much this academic year, based on what we’ve heard in surveys and informal conversations with foreign student advisers,” said Hey-Kyung Koh, an IIE program officer. Only some nations in the world’s Islamic community will probably see a decline in enrollments, according to Koh, the editor of the institute’s annual Open Doors report on international student mobility, who adds that enrollments from other Muslim countries are holding steady.
But there are signs that things could be changing. It now takes an average of six to eight weeks to get a student visa approved by the federal government; before Sept. 11, 2001, it took an average of four to six weeks, according to the U.S. State Department.
And slowly but surely, a new system designed to allow colleges to electronically exchange vital information about foreign students is being introduced to schools. The system, called the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System(SEVIS), gives schools the opportunity to send this electronic information to the Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services and the State Department throughout a foreign student’s academic career. This will allow the federal agencies to keep better tabs on international students.
Due to confusion about the technology, only 736 of about 7,500 schools that accept foreign students have been certified to use this system; all these schools (which include institutions such as flight schools and secondary schools as well as colleges and universities) will have to be certified with SEVIS by Jan. 30 to continue accepting foreign students. That deadline is firm, though some schools complain they lack the software to handle the system.
Additional challenges
The question now: Will foreign students still be enthusiastic about studying in the U.S., now that the opportunity comes with so much extra baggage? The answer is not clear, but educators are prepared for the worst.
“There have been no drastic changes so far,” said Harvey Stein, the acting director for the Office of International Affairs at the University of Chicago. “But soon the system will be very unyielding, and things like missed deadlines will not have a remedy.”
Already, international students from across the country have complaints about the extensive background checks that affect the time it takes to process a visa application. For the most part, the process is the same as it was before Sept. 11: Students need a passport, a letter of recommendation or transcripts from a university; a financial statement showing that the student can afford living and going to school in the U.S.; and the visa application form.
But a new State Department policy calls for all male non-immigrants (those applying for temporary residency) between 16 and 45 submitting visa applications to complete a supplemental application as well. That form–the DS-157–has questions about possible terrorist-related activities, according to students who have filled it out.
“It asks us questions like whether or not we have any experience with biological weapons, and whether or not we’ve been a part of any armed conflict,” said Joseph Roche, a graduate student from India studying at the University of Maryland Baltimore’s Department of Physical Therapy.
Background check delays
Published reports have said visa approvals for thousands of men, primarily Muslim, have been delayed indefinitely, partially due to the background checks and intense scrutiny from the Bush administration.
Officials cite the new cooperative efforts between federal agencies as a reason for the delays.
“We were working with these additional departments before, but not to the extent that we’re working with them now,” said Kelly Shannon, a State Department spokeswoman. “That can sometimes create a longer process time for applications.”
But for students, it makes the idea of an education in the U.S. much less attractive. Even the time spent in a U.S. consulate abroad while applying for the visa was difficult for some students.
“The screening outside the consulate is more intense,” said Roche, who applied for his student visa at the U.S. consulate in Madras, India. “We were frisked, then asked to sit in line and fill out forms on our work history.”
International students also have concerns about being prevented from getting a U.S. education if immigration officers suspect they might want to stay after they graduate from college, in violation of strict immigration rules.
“Usually when students have a good academic record they don’t have much of a problem,” Roche said. “But I had a friend [from India] who had applied at the same time that I had–he was rejected even though he had good grades and standardized test scores. They just gave him a letter, where they stated that one of the reasons that he was denied a visa was because he was a potential immigrant.”
Problems overseas
Some students say that even entering a U.S. consulate overseas to submit an application is more difficult than before, due to the increased security after Sept. 11.
“I couldn’t get inside the consulate [in Paris] to ask about the procedure because only American citizens were allowed inside due to Sept. 11,” said Veronique Oeuillet, a history major from Aix-en-Provence in France now attending Loyola University as an undergraduate.
“I had to phone the embassy and had to go through a series of answering machines before I ended up mailing all my documents to the consulate,” Oeuillet said.
“Right now in India for security reasons, you don’t go to the consulate,” added Arun Deivasigamani, who recently got his master’s degree in science and mechanical engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago. “You go to a consultant, who submits the documents for you.”
Despite the complaints about the additional time it takes to apply for student visas, officials in this country say it’s comparable to the paperwork a domestic student has to contend with when applying to a school.
“Sure, we make people jump through a lot of hoops, but the visa hoops are the most straightforward in many ways,” said IIE president Allan Goodman. “It asks you to give your address, photo passport. But it’s not that much more difficult than applying to a school domestically.”
Not every student has experienced problems getting visas in a timely fashion. Some students from neighboring countries such as Mexico say that they haven’t had major delays after applying for their visas.
“I went to the embassy to apply, and two days after, I got my visa in the mail–I didn’t have any troubles,” said Cristina Narvaet, who is now attending Loyola as a senior. “It’s probably because I had my tourist visa already. That probably helped.”
Despite the problems and complaints, educators such as Goodman say attracting the best and the brightest from foreign lands is a priority–not only for the international students, but for our nation as well.
“Everyone everywhere sees higher education as a key to a brighter future,” Goodman said. “We have so many seats in higher education compared to other countries. There’s just not another seat to stuff a student in, say, Cairo.
“We’re still the No. 1 education destination of choice for students from around the world, and I think that’s is good for America and the world,” he added. “I’m betting that when the cancer is cured, it will done be an international student in a lab at the University of Chicago or somewhere like that.”
