Survey Finds Foreign Students Aren’t Applying to American Colleges

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A new survey reveals that nearly 40% of universities in the US experienced a decline in international applications from countries, China, India, and especially the Middle East. http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/survey-finds-foreign-students-aren-t-applying-american-colleges-n738411

According to the survey, the most frequently noted concerns of international students and their families include:

– Perception of a rise in student visa denials at U.S. embassies and consulates in China, India, and Nepal.

– Perception that the climate in the U.S. is now less welcoming to individuals from other countries.

– Concerns that benefits and restrictions around visas could change, especially around the ability to travel, re-entry after travel, and employment opportunities.

– Concerns that the Executive Order travel ban might expand to include additional countries.

A decrease in international enrollment at some schools could have a great economic impact, given that international students brought more than $32 billion in 2016 into the U.S. economy.

<Discussion questions>

What is the impact of the US international students decline on the US other than economic impact mentioned above? What is the effect on higher education institutes in the world?

<Reference>

College applications from international students are taking a hit

https://www.masterstudies.com/news/New-Trends-in-US-International-Student-Enrollment-1535/

http://www.aacrao.org/docs/default-source/TrendTopic/Immigration/intl-survey-results-released.pdf?sfvrsn=0

Helpful Guide for Writing Research Papers in the Social Sciences

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Hi Colleagues
Here’s the guide book that Alessia mentioned during our class just now:
Becker, Howard. Tricks of the Trade: How to Think about Your Research While You’re Doing It, University of Chicago Press: 1998.
Drawing on more than four decades of experience as a researcher and teacher, Howard Becker now brings to students and researchers the many valuable techniques he has learned. Tricks of the Trade will help students learn how to think about research projects. Assisted by Becker’s sage advice, students can make better sense of their research and simultaneously generate fresh ideas on where to look next for new data. The tricks cover four broad areas of social science: the creation of the “imagery” to guide research; methods of “sampling” to generate maximum variety in the data; the development of “concepts” to organize findings; and the use of “logical” methods to explore systematically the implications of what is found. Becker’s advice ranges from simple tricks such as changing an interview question from “Why?” to “How?” (as a way of getting people to talk without asking for a justification) to more technical tricks such as how to manipulate truth tables.

Race to Nowhere VS Amy Chua (Arts Group)

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Race to Nowhere VS Amy Chua

 

After watching “The Three Idiots” last week, I thought it would be interesting to find a movie on education in the United States. Though not about the American higher education system, “Race to Nowhere” painted a picture of the American education system that shared many surprising similarities with many of the characteristics or even stereotypes of the Asian education systems.

“Race to Nowhere” is a 2009 documentary film by Maimone Attia and directed by Vicki Abeles and Jessica Congdon. The film is partially based on the personal story of co-director Vicki Abeles, as the pressure of school, tutoring and extracurricular activities were making her middle school daughter sick. However, the film aims to challenge the public to think about the amount of pressure that parents are putting on children to push them to succeed.  The film featured the stress young children experience with over-scheduling, over-testing and getting into the top colleges in the country. The film coined such unhealthy pressure and competition among students as a “silent epidemic” and advocated for a reform of the education reform in the US. “Race to Nowhere” was shown nationwide and internationally in more than 7,000 schools, and became a center grass-root movement for education reform.

You can watch the entire movie on Netflix.

On the other hand, I was immediately reminded of another prominent yet controversial voice, Tiger Mom-Amy Chua, a professor at Yale Law School. Amy Chua is the author of the book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, a New York Times Bestseller memoir that revealed the strict “Chinese” way that she raised her two children. The ways that Amy Chua talked extensively and proudly about in her memoir almost completely contradicted of the purpose of the movie “Race to Nowhere”. Ironically, the amount of stress that Amy Chua put on her children resulted in what was considered “success” by the parents in the movie, as both of Amy Chua’s daughters attended Ivy League schools and received enormous recognition of their music talents.

As we discuss higher education today, the conversations are not limited to curriculum and policies after students enrolled in higher education institutions, but also included what happened prior in order to get the students where they are today. Attending top universities, getting scholarships and obtaining resources are issues of accessibility and affordability.

You can find Amy Chua’s website here: http://amychua.com/the-book/

I would love to hear about your thoughts!

The Cost of Eliminating Academic Freedom

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If any area of the globe seems well positioned to serve as the site of top quality institutions of higher education, it would be Hong Kong. As one of the world’s largest and most economically developed cities, Hong Kong possesses both the human capital and other amenities that allow such universities to flourish. One characteristic of Hong Kong however has been of concern to some with regard to the development of its system of higher education, that being a tendency on the part of the government to more tightly regulate the goings on at those universities which now exist than might be the case in nations with a more open and democratic form of government.

Governmental pressure over the universities of Hong Kong is a relatively new development. While originally constituted as a British colony, the higher education system of Hong Kong seems to historically have been fairly loosely controlled by the state. This all began to change however when Hong Kong’s status as a British territory ended in 1997, and it was returned to China. The Chinese government did not take direct control of Hong Kong following the territory’s return to Chinese control, with a system of government put in place that afforded the city’s residents a measure of representation. According to Michael H. Lee however, this did not prevent actions from being taken that were designed to fundamentally curtail the free exchange of ideas on the city’s university campuses.

In an article entitled “Hong Kong Higher Education in the 21st Century,” Lee documented several incidents of governmental interference in the operation of institutions of higher education in Hong Kong in the years following the city’s reunification with the People’s Republic of China in 1997. [i] One notable incident involved pressure being exerted upon Hong Kong University by an aid to the city’s Chief Executive, Tung Chee-Hwa after one of its researchers conducted an opinion poll that showed not all within the city had a favorable opinion of the government. [ii] The message the chief executive’s aid conveyed, that the government wished to gain the promise of the university to conduct no further polling that could show less than favorable opinions of the new government, clearly illustrated an attempt to infringe upon the principle of academic freedom as it is generally understood in liberal democracies, that being the ability of a university to conduct research free from ideological interference.

This incident in Hong Kong is hardly the only incident in which a university in one or another part of the world has experienced pressure to take or reframe from taking action that displeases one or another powerful constituencies, especially a sitting government. Given the increasingly global nature of higher education however, the question ought to be asked whether concerted action should be taken to defend academic freedom in the face of such examples of governmental interference in university operations, in order to forcefully make the point that such governmental interference is unacceptable. Lee notes that as the twenty-first century progresses, Hong Kong is attempting to capitalize upon its geographic and economic position to both expand the public and private higher educational offerings which are present in the city, while at the same time it seeks to attract branch campuses of foreign educational institutions. [iii] While it is impossible for foreign educational institutions to directly impact the actions of the government of Hong Kong or the government of any state for that matter, such institutions could withdraw branch campuses or other sources of funding from states which choose not to respect the principles of academic freedom. Such actions would clearly illustrate that academic freedom was a concept which is respected above all others by established institutions of higher education, and one which must be respected by governments, regardless of their ideology. Whether action such as that proposed here could actually be taken however would depend on whether institutions of higher education collectively were prepared to join together to take such a stand, and absorb any criticism directed their way as a result of doing so.

[i] Lee, Michael H. Hong Kong Higher Education in the 21st Century, Department of History, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, http://edb.org.hk/HKTC/download/journal/j13/A02.pdf

[ii] Ibd

[iii] Ibd

Affiliation: Weakest Link in South Asian University System?

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In the past few decades, universities in India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh have adapted the college affiliation system they inherited from United Kingdom and allowed an increasing number of private colleges to open under the academic control of public universities. Under the affiliation system, a public university sets the academic standards (including a standard curriculum, examination papers and student evaluations) and grants private colleges permission to operate as long as they follow these standards. This arrangement allowed the governments to meet the increasing higher education demand without investing in new universities and still exercising quality control. The reason this system causes concern is that most colleges have no academic autonomy or flexibility under this system; resource starved universities often don’t have the wherewithal to update curriculum, conduct continuous evaluations or conduct examinations on time. The rigidity and sheer scale of these university systems makes them insensitive to labour market demands and difficult to reform.
  

The table above shows some of the largest universities in different South Asian countries in terms of enrollments and number of affiliated colleges. It illustrates the magnitude of the problem in the four countries and just how big the universities can get. Though American university systems can be comparable, the key difference is that every campus, department and faculty member in these universities enjoys much more academic autonomy and discretion than their counterparts in South Asia. Also, one large American system usually serves the whole state, while Indian states can have up to 6 or 7 such universities per state,Pakistani provinces can have 2 or 3 such universities, and Bangladesh affiliates all its undergraduate colleges through one university.

If you wish to read more about the affiliation system and it’s impact on quality of higher educaion, this report is a great place to start with: http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/127201468294337164/Affiliated-colleges-in-South-Asia-is-quality-expansion-possible

Comparative Data Show that Chinese Progress in Higher Education yet to Turn Tide

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In the past few weeks, we talked about higher education in Japan, South Korea, China, and India. Recently, THE DataPoints (Times Higher Education) provides a set of useful and interesting comparative data between China and three major Asian countries respectively: India, South Korea, and Japan.

Here is the news published on THE:

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/chinas-universities-significant-progress-more-do

The article reveals where Chinese universities are starting to outpace their rivals, as well as illustrating where China is still relatively lagging behind.

China VS India

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The China-India chart shows that China has surpassed India on most measures. It can be attributed to several reasons:

  • The higher HE investment of the Chinese government
  • Successful and dynamic policies attracting its talents back home and international students studying in China
  • The development of research collaborations between industry and academia

However, one metric proves a blog posted two weeks ago that India has a higher number of doctorates awarded than China.

China VS South Korea

chinavsouthkorea1500

The article gives a high rating to South Korea’s HE system. THE data scientist said that “South Korea was the shining example to any education ministry about how to improve their university sector.” There are two key aspects that China needs to catch up:

  • The diversity of money sources – the government, industry, and student fees
  • International collaboration – a key way to improve citation impact

However, although there is a gap between the two countries now, the article is optimistic about the future development of China’s higher education because of the outpouring of support from the Chinese government.

China VS Japan

chinavjapan1500

I remember that Sho talked about the evolution of the balance between private and public funding in Japan’s HE. The China-Japan chart shows that Japan’s universities are behind both China and South Korea on the amount of income that universities are attracting from industry.

It is very interesting that Japan has a much higher staff-to-student ratio than China. However, the article claims that it is because of the collapse of the youth population in the country and it brings serious challenges for Japan to keep its leading role in Asia and globally.

 

Questions: Do you think that the data and metrics THE Data picked up reflect the real situation in your country? Why? Does this article present the future layout of Asian HE?

Amount of oversea students and returnees during 1982-2011

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Following the presentation discussion, I found some data in oversea students and returnees.

While the huge number of overseas students is noteworthy, China is certainly experiencing a significant return migration over the last decade. China’s rapid economic development and good government policy have been identified as the top two reasons given for returning.