International graduate student enrollment has fallen in the United States since the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a recent survey by the Council of Graduate Schools.
According to CGS, first-time international graduate school enrollment declined 6 percent from 2003 to 2004.
Heath Brown, director of research and policy analysis at CGS, said the council believes the decline was caused by "increased competition at the graduate level, changing visa policies and diminished views of the U.S. from abroad."
"Since the events of 9/11, it became increasingly difficult to obtain visas, particularly student visas. For instance, every student had to come in and do an in-person interview, whereas in the past this wasn't the case," Brown added.
The International Graduate Admissions Survey includes information from 126 schools. Approximately 88 percent of those schools reported a decline in foreign graduate applications. The survey found a 45 percent decrease in applicants from China, a 28 percent decrease in applicants from India and a 14 percent decrease in applicants from Korea.
Graduate applications from the Middle East increased slightly, though the number of applicants from the Middle East does not represent a significant portion of the total international graduate applicant pool.
The biggest graduate applicant declines were in the fields of engineering (down 24 percent), life science and agriculture (down 19 percent) and physical and earth science (down 17 percent). Declines were also reported in the fields of business, education, humanities and social sciences.
In a Nov. 4 report, CGS President Debra Stewart wrote, "While these numbers are distressing, the declines are not nearly as great as some had feared. It is encouraging that graduate schools are battling declines by streamlining their admissions process, enhancing their use of technology, and forming important international partnerships."
"There are anecdotal views out there that the U.S. isn't as hospitable as it once was. These are misperceptions, but I think they are real," Brown said.
While the CGS study focused solely on graduate students, the Institute of International Education found that the total number of international students, both graduate and undergraduate, fell 2.4 percent between 2002 and 2003, according to IIE's Web site. The biggest declines came from India, China, Korea, Japan and Canada.
The IIE also reports that the net contribution in 2002-2003 to the U.S. economy by foreign students and their families was almost $13 million.
Mell Bolen, interim director of the Office of International Programs, said, "It is important to realize that international students are an important resource for the United States - they have been the best and brightest students from their countries."
"It is not in the long-term interest of the United States for this (decline) to continue," Bolen said.
The IIE reports that Columbia, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania are the only Ivy League institutions among the top 20 nationally in international student enrollment.
But statistics indicate that Brown's international graduate student applications have not been affected to the same degree as other U.S. universities. This year, Brown received 2,193 graduate school applications from international students. While this number was down from the 2,682 applicants in 2003, it was still higher than the 1,923 and 1,651 applicants in 2002 and 2001 respectively.
Dean of the Graduate School Karen Newman said overall applications had been growing steadily until last year, when they fell, but that the decline at Brown was lower than the national average. All graduate school applications fell by 28 percent.
"Other countries are working harder on their own indigenous universities," Newman said, citing China's efforts to improve its universities. "The kinds of changes that are happening culturally and politically in China are causing more students to stay there."
Newman also said changes to the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System and homeland security have caused visa applications to be processed differently, after immigration standards were tightened shortly after Sept. 11.
On Oct. 29, 2001, President Bush told the Homeland Security Council, "We plan on making sure that if a person has applied for a student visa, they actually go to college or a university. And, therefore, we're going to start asking a lot of questions that heretofore have not been asked. ... That's not to say we're not going to let people come into our country; of course we are. But we're going to make sure that when somebody comes, we understand their intended purpose."
Newman said very few Brown students have found trouble with the increased security measures, though "we have had a handful of international students that have gone home for Christmas and had trouble returning," she said.
Newman said, "We need to be concerned nationally because so few U.S. citizens are going into the sciences, and that is where the majority of our international applicants are coming from."
As printed, this article incorrectly reported that applications to the Graduate School fell by 18 percent last year. That number referred only to applications from international students, not overall applications.
