UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, March 17, 1997
5A
As U.S. universities compete for international enrollment, some students wonder if a conflict exists between the business goals of universities and students' best interests.
Continued from Page 1A
States, many international students say, their plans to return home change. Their appetite for the freedom, the technology and other American comforts can only be satiated by remaining in the United States.
The problem is that international students can stay only as long as they are paying, degree-seeking customers of academia. The problem can lead to desperation; but more likely, it leads to additional degrees of increasingly questionable value to the students.
--have some of Cvorus in me."
The University launched a campaign last semester to attract unprecedented numbers of international students. KU representatives have visited numerous embassies in Washington, D.C., and have begun tc produce brochures and posters targeting international audiences.
In five years, the University wants to have an increased presence in a field dominated by schools in California, Florida and New York.
With 1,700 international students, the University is not even close to being competitive. To compete, the University needs to use its promotional materials to establish a constant presence in many countries, said Gerald Harris, director of KU International Student Services.
"There is a major competition going on for international students," Harris said. "Fewer and fewer students are coming abroad, and the competition for those students is getting worse all the time."
A 1996 report released by the Institute of International Education indicated that, although a record 453,787 foreign students entered the United States during the 1995-96 school year, the rate of increase had slowed. The percentage of international students studying in the United States had decreased from 40 percent in the early 1980s to 32 percent last year. U.S. proponents of international education knit their brows when they see that countries such as Australia and Great Britain are attracting an increasing share of foreign students.
--have some of Cvorus in me."
Like losing a market share in any business, losing this share of international students means losing money. International students bring more than $7 billion annually to the United States, of which more than $7 million is spent at the University.
As other countries cut into the revenue and talent pool created by international students, U.S. universities push harder for foreign students' attention.
International students are good for the economy and good for the quality of research, administrators say. But somewhere beneath the market studies and recruiting campaigns is the plaintive voice of the students whose lives are changed permanently, some for better but others for worse, by coming to the United States.
--have some of Cvorus in me."
David Cohavi, president of the KU International Student Association, was one of the students waiting in a hallway of the Clinton County Jail to console Mamush.
Cohavi, who is from Israel, does not know much about Immigration and Naturalization Services' many regulations, but he knows that someday he could be in Mamush's situation. When he learned Mamush's imprisonment for an expired visa, Cohavi immediately paid a parking ticket to ensure that he would not draw attention to himself. Mesfim was denied a stay of deportation several weeks after Cohavi's December visit and was sent to the INS long-term holding facility in El Paso, Texas.
Cohavi said the constant stream of visitors to the Missouri jail had shown that international students were a close group.
"It's like a miniature community," he said. "You look to the right and the left, and you see people from all over the world. There is something very bonding about being an international student."
Many of these students say they are stuck somewhere between two cultures. All are students who have decided to travel far from home and must now face unforeseen consequences of U.S. study.
--have some of Cvorus in me."
If Ulivie Emirizade had never come to the United States, the 23 year old would be married, have children and live in Cyprus, her home country.
"I was supposed to leave and go home." Emirzade said. "I wasn't ready to go back. I thought if I went home, I would not be able to come back to the United States."
Slowly, she realized that she wanted to use her U.S. education in the U.S. job market.
--have some of Cvorus in me."
The frustration of other international students is evident. For at least four years, they see the bounty U.S. industry has to offer. But they are not citizens, and the job market officially is closed to them.
Aside from marrying a U.S. citizen, the only way a student with an F-1 student visa, the most common type of student visa, can get a permanent job in the United States is if an employer will certify that the student is the only person in the United States qualified for the job. That may pave the way for outstanding researchers and scholars, but most international students eventually have to face the fact that they must return to their home countries.
Instead, she is a graduate student in Kansas, pursuing a master's degree and a career in advertising. The sophisticated technology and high quality of instruction in the United States has resulted in an education she never could have received in Cyprus, a small Mediterranean island with a struggling economy.
Here, Emirzade enjoys a fast-paced, American life. She worked as a resident assistant in McCollum Hall and became absorbed with her studies, earning a double major in psychology and journalism.
Kamal Nasser, Bothelehm, West Bank, junior, said, "You can't quit school, work for four months at Pizza Shuttle, then go back to school. You have to be studying if you want to stay in this country, and you can't do anything else."
Emirzade tells of her older friends who left Cyprus and then decided they never would return. They were selfish she once thought. They were abandoning a country that needed their help. When she came to the United States in 1990, she was confident that she would return someday to Cyprus. By the time she graduated, her plans had changed.
She decided, as many students do, to seek another degree to prolong her stay in the United States.
Now, in the comfortable, four-bedroom apartment Emirzade shares with three Americans, the flag of Cyprus hangs on one wall, and an American flag hangs on the other. She is somewhere between being an American and a Covriot, and she knows it.
"Here . . .," she said and paused. "I feel that I don't completely belong here. I still
"If I go back, I will not be able to get a job that will justify my education."
Ozel Soykan Cyprusgraduate
When she graduates, Emiratez will try to get a job close to, if not in, the United States, despite the improbability of obtaining a work visa. If she cannot find a job, she might pursue another degree. Or, she may return to Cyprus, where she feels more out of place each time she visits.
"When I go home, it feels different. I have different ideas; different perspectives, a different way of looking at things," she said. "It's like being in between two cultures when you can't quite blend in with one or the other."
"Sometimes I think my life would be much easier if I had never come here."
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Bob Nicholson is director of University Admissions Connection, a San Franciscobased organization that, for a charge, provides counseling for students hoping to study in the United States.
"We are the world center for business and have the most up-to-date technology," he said. "Our teaching approach is humanistic and caring, and we allow for individuality."
The ideal situation would be to nurture the students while they are in college, then send them back to their countries, leaving them enriched by an American education, he said.
More often than not, instead of being satisfied with the experience, students are left hungry for more of what the United States can offer.
"Upon graduation, many students have accepted the United States as their second home and would like to seek employment here," Nicholson said. "It is very difficult to obtain a work visa, and we cannot assist in this area."
Harris, whose office provides seminars and workshops for students who are about to leave the United States, has seen many of these students do whatever it takes to stay.
Therefore, the students stay in school, enrolling in graduate or postgraduate programs that extend their visits to the United States by three, four, five years or longer.
"If they don't want to go home, persistence in the U.S. educational system becomes the only avenue open to them," he said.
Unfortunately, more degrees can mean even more alienation for international students such as Ozel Soykan, who received a master's degree in business administration from the University in 1996, and who now works temporarily for a Kansas City, Mo. cable provider. Soykan, who also is from Cyprus, is using the 12-month, practical-training period international students receive after graduation.
"If I go back, I will not be able to get a job that will justify my education," he said.
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Of course, not every student who comes to the United States falls in love with the country and attempts to stay for as long as possible. For Moussa Sissoko, a doctoral student from Bamako, Mali, the United States is too impersonal.
"Americans are very cautious with foreigners," he said. "There is no eye contact; people just walk head down."
Because Sissoko prefers the friendly nature of his home country, he plans to return to Mali permanently when he finishes his U.S. education.
"I have never felt that the United States is my home," he said. "I do not act here as I would act at home."
Even Sissoko, however, realizes the standard of living advantages the United States has compared to many parts of the world.
"This is the top; there, we are still lagging behind," he said. "You get angry at yourself and your people. Here, things go so swiftly."
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U. S. universities show no sign of slowing down the race to pump up international enrollment. Higher education is in many ways a business, and business must go on.
But, in all this business, are the students forgotten?
At the University, which will recruit and campaign extensively during the next five years, opinions varied.
George Woodyard, former dean of international studies and professor of Spanish and Portuguese, said, "I think KU does a good job in terms of accommodations for the international students and their needs. To imply that there is a commercializing process going on at this University would be amissstatement."
Students often will answer the question differently.
"They don't think on a personal level." Emirzade said of higher-education officials. "They think 'We'll bring them here, and we can take their money,' but they don't think about how it changes a person's world."
In a way, Emirzade is a victim of her own desires.
"It all goes back to the fact that this is a capitalistic country," she said. "Profit margin is everything, and you have to give up certain things for that. I guess this is just part of the system here."
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