Higher education institutions seeing a drop in international student enrollment

New requirements for international students seeking U.S. student visas led to an estimated 14.2 percent decrease in international student enrollment at UNT for Fall 2004.

Rebecca Smith-Murdock, UNT director of international education, says that before the Department of Homeland Security began the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) — an Internet-based system for maintaining information about visitors to the United States — international students could receive their visas by mail after they received an admission letter and an I-20 application form for a visa from UNT.

Since 2003, however, many strict requirements have been added, she says. Students are required to pay the $100 SEVIS fee in U.S. dollars and to have a face-to-face interview in a U.S. consulate office in their countries, Smith-Murdock says.

"For some students, this is a hardship because they don't have a credit card that is accepted in the U.S. for paying the fee or access to a bank for getting U.S. money. And it may take months to arrange for a consulate interview," she says. "We now tell students to start applying eight months ahead of the semester in which they want to enroll, instead of three months ahead."

Smith-Murdock also says that competition with universities in other nations has contributed to the enrollment decrease. While Ivy League and other top private universities in the United States are still the No. 1 choice of international students, students who would have normally gone to UNT or other state universities are considering programs at European universities instead, she says.

"A growing number of programs are offered in English, so a student doesn't have to learn another foreign language in addition to English," she says. "An anti-American attitude in response to America's foreign policy has also resulted in students going elsewhere."

UNT has already taken steps to increase the number of enrolling international students, including reimbursement of the SEVIS fee and adoption of the same active recruitment techniques that European universities use for international students, Smith-Murdock says.

"We have to quit thinking that students will automatically come to us," she says.

BY NANCY KOLSTI nkolsti@unt.edu

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