Tuesday, December 21, 2004

More brain drain slowdown

We've been shooting ourselves in the foot with misguided security restrictions since 9/11. This article mentions some nutty screening process called "Visa Mantis" (probably Homeland Security), which delays entry to many Chinese students studying science and engineering.

NY Times: ...Foreign students contribute $13 billion to the American economy annually. But this year brought clear signs that the United States' overwhelming dominance of international higher education may be ending. In July, Mr. Payne briefed the National Academy of Sciences on a sharp plunge in the number of students from India and China who had taken the most recent administration of the Graduate Record Exam, a requirement for applying to most graduate schools; it had dropped by half.

Foreign applications to American graduate schools declined 28 percent this year. Actual foreign graduate student enrollments dropped 6 percent. Enrollments of all foreign students, in undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral programs, fell for the first time in three decades in an annual census released this fall. Meanwhile, university enrollments have been surging in England, Germany and other countries.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Anne:

http://travel2.nytimes.com/mem/travel/article-printpage.html?res=9C0DE1DF103FF93BA25752C1A9629C8B63

As Washington cuts back, China is providing concrete alternatives. The Chinese president and Communist Party chief, Hu Jintao, made clear the importance of China's cultural offensive to Beijing when he addressed the Australian Parliament last year.

''The Chinese culture belongs not only to the Chinese but also to the whole world,'' he grandly offered. ''We stand ready to step up cultural exchanges with the rest of the world in a joint promotion of cultural prosperity.''

The invitation is being accepted by growing numbers of Asian students who are taking advantage of proliferating opportunities for higher education in China. No longer are status-conscious Asian families mortified if their children fail to qualify for elite American universities, parents say. A berth in a Chinese university is seen as a pragmatic solution, even if the quality of the instruction falls short of the top American schools.

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