Latitudes - What a Trump Administration 2.0 Could Mean for Foreign Students
This week in Karin Fischer’s weekly news, she outlines what a second Trump term could mean for international education in the US. So much has happened in the last three and half years — including a global pandemic — and it sometimes is hard to remember the challenges we faced during the former President’s four-year term. Included in the article is reference to our recent data snapshot, The Essential Role of Practical Training in U.S. Higher Education and the Innovation Economy: Insights from a Survey of Current, Former, and Prospective International Students. This report was created along with our partners at the Presidents’ Alliance. Also referenced is our new coalition US for Success.
Elections don’t affect international student mobility, except when they do. There have been 19 presidential elections since the Institute of International Education began collecting data on international enrollments in 1948, and an analyst would be hard-pressed to discern any election-year trends. But a study by researchers at the University of Chicago and the University of Southern Mississippi found that colleges in counties that voted for Trump in 2016 “experienced a greater and statistically significant decline” in new international enrollments the following year than those that went for Clinton. The “‘Trump effect’ on new international-student enrollment may not be hypothetical but empirical in nature,” the authors concluded.
Read more on The Chronicle of Higher Education >
Student Visa Refusals Are Disparate in African Countries. Congressional Leaders Want to Know Why.
Here is another example of Shorelight’s research helping lawmakers make their case! Recently the the House Congressional Black Caucus submitted a letter to the Department of State citing concerns about the high rate of refusals for students from Africa. The data they used came straight from our visa refusal analysis report last July.
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and other congressional leaders have asked the U.S. State Department to address disparities in student visa denials, which occur at significantly higher rates for African applicants than for people from other continents.
Learn more on The Houston Chronicle >
US Stakeholders Share Priorities for a National International Education Strategy
As shared previously, Shorelight is serving as Steering Committee members for the newly formed US For Success Coalition. Our responsibilities include leading 30+ organizations in our efforts toward improving processes for international students, ultimately ending with an official national strategy. While things continue to move slowly in DC, there is a growing energy around our efforts. A recent survey of more than 400 international professionals conducted by IDP in collaboration with our coalition and many others gathered valuable insights on steps needed by the US.
The US remains the only leading study destination without a national strategy for international education, and calls for – and indeed the prospects for – such a strategy have been building over the past year. That advocacy has most recently been focused through the newly established US for Success Coalition, a collective of peak bodies and stakeholder groups – including AIRC, NAFSA, and IIE – that aims to boost the competitiveness of the US in the global education market.
Get the full story on the ICEF Monitor >
