wednesday,april28,2004
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Foreign-student numbers decrease
The Associated Press
BOSTON — A steep decline in graduate school applications from foreign students has university administrators pushing the federal government to reform the visa process. Their argument: The trend could cost U.S. schools much-needed revenue and research help, and make America seem isolated in the eyes of the world.
International graduate student applications for this fall are down 32 percent compared with a year ago, according to a recent survey, and schools are extending application deadlines so they don't lose students who are still negotiating U.S. bureaucracy.
Meanwhile, in public comments and private lobbying, universities are urging federal officials to speed up visa applications, stressing that America's role as a beacon to the world's students could be in jeopardy.
Officials from several California schools and the Department of Homeland Security discussed foreign student matters yesterday at a gathering in San Diego.
And representatives from a handful of prominent schools, including the presidents of Yale and Princeton, met in New York
recently to explore ways to use the influence of their trustees to help make their case.
Universities acknowledge that the importance of foreign students is not obvious to the public, which has security concerns after one of the Sept. 11 hijackers entered the country on a student visa. Some may wonder why foreign students take up 600,000 slots in American universities in the first place.
the first paper But administrators insist those slots are as important now as ever.
ever. "This is one of America's most effective forms of diplomacy," said Douglas Kincard, vice provost for international studies at Florida International University in Miami, where foreign enrollment is down 10 percent. "We're educating people who will be in influential positions in science and industry and government around the world."
More than 90 percent of graduate schools reported their foreign applications for this fall declined, according to a survey of 113 universities last month by the Council of Graduate Schools.
Undergraduate applications also are down, but not as much, likely because fewer undergraduates plan to work on sensitive technologies that require a more
thorough background check.
through background Feeling the effects are big, public universities and elite, private ones like Harvard, whose president, Lawrence Summers, reported a sharp drop in international applications to each of Harvard's nine schools in a recent letter to federal officials.
Many schools count on foreign students to teach classes and fill labs.
"We don't have domestic students to take their place, mostly in fields like science and technology," said Stephen Dunnett, vice president for international education at the University at Buffalo, part of New York's state university system. The school has 3,600 foreign students, with applications down one-third this year.
Foreign students often pay higher tuition, and soak up little financial aid because they must demonstrate financial self-reliance to get a visa. More than 75 percent of their funding comes from outside the country, according to the Institute of International Education.
Foreign students also contribute $12 billion to the U.S. economy, according to IE.
Experts cite several factors for the dip in applications, including diminished esteem for America abroad, rising tuition at U.S.
schools and increasingly competitive alternatives in Europe and Asia.
But the difficulty getting a student visa quickly appears to be the primary cause.
"It's really frustrating because there is no basic logic to getting a visa," said Moussa Dao, an FIU computer engineering student whose two brothers have been unable to get visas to follow him here, and who hasn't returned home to Ivory Coast since 1999 for fear he would not be readmitted.
The State Department, which is giving some students priority interview slots, issued 474,000 student visas last year, accepting 74 percent of applications. That's down from 560,000, or 80 percent, in 2001.
Secretary of State Colin Powell and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge called last week for Congress to review visa restrictions, and Ridge discussed visas at a recent meeting with college presidents.
"We all want foreign students to continue to come here," said Russ Knocke, a spokesman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Homeland Security Department. "We want the United States to continue to be the destination for education."
China criticized about Hong Kong
The Associated Press
HONG KONG — The United States and Britain attacked China's decision to rule out full democracy for Hong Kong in the near future, and Beijing responded yesterday by telling them to mind their own business.
Mainland China's most powerful legislative panel told Hong Kong citizens in a ruling on Monday that they cannot democratically choose a successor to unpopular Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa in 2007. Beijing also said Hong Kong cannot directly elect all lawmakers in 2008.
Li added: "Do you think Hong Kong was democratic under British rule? Did the British raise
"We are Chinese," Li Zhaoxing, Foreign Minister, told reporters in Shanghai yesterday. Are you clear on that? Hong Kong is China's Hong Kong."
concerns about that? Did the Americans raise concerns? No. Why don't you take a look at this double standard?"
Hong Kong residents who have been demanding the right to democratically choose their leader responded to Monday's ruling with a mix of defiance and resignation.
Student activists burned a copy of Hong Kong's mini-constitution, the Basic Law. Pro-democracy lawmakers chanted slogans and unfurled a banner before storming out of a meeting with a mainland legislative official.
The Standard newspaper yesterday said it was "a sad day for China."
"Yesterday's ruling from the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress that there will be no democracy for Hong Kong was bad enough." The Standard wrote in an editorial. "The way it was delivered showed contempt for Hong Kong's people."
Critics say the decision violates China's agreement to grant Hong Kong a great deal of autonomy after the former British colony was handed back in July 1997.
Beijing said full democracy remains a goal for Hong Kong, but that a quick shift to universal suffrage poses too many risks of social and economic instability.
The U.S. State Department disagree, saying international confidence in Hong Kong is based on its rule of law and a high degree of autonomy.
"We're disappointed by the decision, as we believe it doesn't adequately reflect the expressed wishes of the Hong Kong people for universal suffrage and democracy," Richard Boucher, State Department spokesman, said in Washington.
Bill Rammell, British foreign office minister, said in London that Beijing had acted inconsistently with its handover promises.
Even Hong Kong residents who had expected Beijing to clamp down were still disappointed.
"Hong Kong doesn't want to fight with the central government," said Dolby Tong, a 32-year-old shipping salesman. "We just want to choose our own government which reflects citizen's voices."
Orinary Hong Kong residents now have no say in choosing their leader. They will get to pick 30 of the 60 legislators here in September, but they won't get to elect more than half any time soon, Beijing ruled. The rest are picked by special interest groups, such as businessmen and bankers, who tend to side with Beijing.
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Iraqis will have "a lot more sovereignty" after the June 50 handover of power, but the United States will still control security and the caretaker government won't be able to make laws, an official said yesterday.
"Let's remember this is going to be a transitional government, by definition limited in its time frame" of about six months, he said. Its focus will be to organize elections for another government under which a constitution eventually will be written.
As for security, there will still be some 160,000 U.S.-led foreign forces in Iraq. The multinational force, led by 135,000 Americans, will command Iraqi forces, which are largely untrained and poorly equipped.
The interim government isn't ready to take on the security job, and it's not specifically its task to consider legislation, John D. Negroponte, the diplomat nominated to be ambassador to Baghdad, told a Capitol Hill confirmation hearing.
equipped. "We're going to work toward the day, and hope that it comes as early as possible, that the Iraqis can take greater and greater responsibility for their own security," Negropone said. "But they're not in a position to do that at this particular moment."
At the White House, spokesman Scott McClellan said the administration anticipated that "in accordance with the oft-expressed preferences of Iraqi leaders, that the Iraqis themselves will impose some limits on the authority of that interim government. But sovereignty will be transferred to the Iraqi people on June 30."
The issue has become key to the deadline for political handover approaches and the United States pushes for a new United Nations resolution on Iraq.
Senators said they worry Iraqis won't see the handover as genuine and it won't take the American face off of authority there. In Iraq, U.S.-appointed leaders are already complaining.
"I think the sovereignty will be weak and not complete," said Mahmoud Othman, a member of the Governing Council.
member and U.S. ally, said he was pressing for more from L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq.
Ahmad Chalabi, a council
tional relations. He said Iraqis and the U.S.military will have to work out any differences.
tor in Iraq.
"We tell him that Iraqis should have a bigger role in security, we tell him that Iraqis should have a bigger role in taking financial decisions, we tell him that Iraqis should have a role in running the Iraqi reconstruction fund," Chalabi told the Arab television station Al-Arabiya.
"If political leadership should favor some particular strategy," but the U.S. military believes another strategy is better, "these are the kind of questions that (all sides) will have to deal with," Negroponte said.
Negroponte said Iraqis will control some two dozen ministries, run day-to-day government operations, manage their own revenues and conduct international relations.
presence."
"I want to make clear that a vital United Nations role does not come at the expense of the United States influence or interests," Negroponte told the committee.
"A strong partnership with the international community, including the United Nations ... is in our strategic interests."
Negroponte said.
Pressed by Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) on the issue of whether Iraqis would have veto authority over U.S. military involvement in violence-torn cities like Fallujah, for example, Negroponte said:
"It's certainly going to be a lot more sovereignty than they have right now."
He stressed the importance of a United Nations role in Iraq to give legitimacy to continued foreign presence.
The U.S.-led Coalition Authority plans to hand over power to an as-yet-unnamed transitional government on June 30, when Bremer will leave and Negroponte will take over control of U.S. diplomatic operations, though not military ones.
President Bush nominated Negroponte, now the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, just a week ago. Sen. Dick Lugar, the Indiana Republican who chairs the Foreign Relations panel, is pushing for quick Senate action.
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