Students Wanted for Colleges - Welcome to the USA

I figured since my last blog was about middle school I better talk about higher education this week. The current economic downturn in the United States has caused many American families to rethink sending Jonny and Sally to college right now. This in turn has caused a financial shortfall for many community colleges.

Some community colleges are going as far as Vietnam to recruit students to help bring the money in for their institution. According to a USA Today article, “about 23 U.S. schools participating in last year's Asian recruitment tour organized by the American Association of Community Colleges.”

Why do you ask are they visiting a communist country? It is simple. The middle class in this Southeast Asia country is growing. The country of Vietnam is roughly of the twice the size of Arizona and, “more than 5,000” visas are issued to students that attend two-year colleges. If that doesn’t entice a recruiter to travel half way across the world nothing will.

So the question I am posing is should U.S. recruit foreign students?

In my opinion there are two major issues. One, are American students losing tuition scholarships and housing on campus to foreign students? Second, if colleges stop recruiting outside the U.S. does the diversity experience of college life lesson?
First, there is no evidence that indicates that housing is being loss to foreign students and even though colleges do provide scholarships the economic impact that, “International students contribute more than $15.5 billion in tuition and living expenses to the U.S. economy, through their expenditures on tuition and living expenses, making U.S higher education one of the country's largest service-sector exports”.

From my own experience the Millennials would rather live at home if they can and as far as scholarships go our community college has had trouble giving money away because students won’t take the time to fill out a simple one page form. It drives me crazy. I even make copies of easy $500 general scholarships to my students and get this; many say they don’t care, “because mom and dad are paying for it.”

My second question, concerning the learning of diversity at college and does it lessen the experience with few foreigners there. According to Patricia Gurin’s, “Students come to universities at a critical stage of their development--a time during which they define themselves in relation to others and experiment with different social roles before making permanent commitments to occupations, social groups, and intimate personal relationships”. She goes to state, “In addition, for many students college is the first sustained exposure to an environment other than their home communities”.

I tried to find some information on colleges or a student body that might be against foreign exchange students and couldn’t find any facts. I have heard rumors that some student body governments complained that colleges were losing their identity but I couldn’t find the details for sure.
I am in favor of colleges recruiting foreign students to study abroad because it sends a positive message of the United States and democracy back with them to their home countries. It also brings money into the U.S. which allows faculty and staff to have jobs. Lastly, it gives American students the opportunity to visit with other students and learn things about their cultural differences.

On a side note, I should mention that background checks for visas are extremely tough to get for the U.S. since 9/11. This should make us feel a bit safer that the State Department isn’t just handing them out.