It is time, as a nation, to be purposeful about international education---to employ it consciously, in a coordinated manner, as one of the tools in the national toolkit for engaging with the world in pursuit of the objectives that we share with the worlds people (NAFSA 2009)
This paper attempts to find solutions to this problem including analysis of public policy options because
Public policyand the laws that policy produces---are the principal tools in securing the democratic promise for all people. Public policy is able to ensure that all people---not just the select few---are considered deserving and entitled.(Ingram, Schneider pg 2)
The financial problems faced by international students are amongst their gravest problem, thus any reform must target the alleviation of these financial woes. Current off-campus work restrictions dont allow hardworking international students to find a way to earn enough money to ease their financial burdens. Thus it is necessary that the 20 hours per week work restriction be at least increased if not completely removed. Access to social security should also be ensured.
It should be kept in mind that the prime motivation of the international students to come to America is to attain a world class higher education. Thus these students would only work to fulfill their basic requirements. Working beyond that would affect their education and they would definitely not compromise their prime objective.
Credit is another area where potential reform can greatly reduce the financial burdens on international students. While generous state and federal grants are available for American citizens, there are very few opportunities for international students to get access to credit. To understand this problem, we need to analyze the tuition fee structure differences between international and local citizens. International students who are already financially stressed are made to pay around 3-5 times the fee that in-state students pay in public institutions. There is no logic that supports charging this exorbitant amount from international students.
Thus it is proposed that international students should be allowed to pay in-state tuition fee at public universities after they have completed 50 percent of their credits. Once they have completed 50 percent of their credits, they would already have paid at least the amount that other students are going to pay for the entire course. This would greatly reduce their financial burdens as well as help in eliminating the negative perceptions forming amongst international students that they are being unduly charged.
Presently, there is almost no way of accessing low-interest credit for international students. Due to certain regulations, there are restrictions on even opening basic bank accounts, let alone allowing access to credit. This has to change and access to low interest student loans should be given. International students being financially stretched would not abuse this access to cheap credit, rather they would utilize it to ease of their educational payments. Certain positive restriction on the use of such funds should be encouraged. For example, once a loan is approved, it should be directly transferred to the account of the institution rather than handing over cash to individuals. This would be in the benefit of international students as it would eliminate the possibility of loss of funds.
Economic crises are afflicting the entire world and such a scenario places enormous pressure on the meager resources of international students. Thus under such economic down turns, there should be some degree of flexibility in the tuition payments of international students and deferments should be allowed. This would reduce the financial burden on international students and at the same time, the payments of institutions would be ensured at a future date. If this is not allowed, a lot of international students would be forced to withdraw from their respective institutions which would be a huge financial blow to their institutions. Thus rather than losing huge payments by forcing international students to pay on time, these institutions can ensure a steady stream of income by deferring their payments. Apart from this, attention must also be paid to the medical and housing needs of international students. For young people who are away from their families, there has to be some arrangement for providing housing and medical care at affordable rates. Cheap housing should be ensured on or near campus because it would reduce the transportation costs of international students. The health of an individual is very important and therefore affordable healthcare is a must.
Such ambitious proposals require meticulous planning and vigor and a proper campaign is required to muster enough support to force a change in legislation. The power of such campaigns can be summed up in the following words
Social movements have become a powerful force for social change. History has shown repeatedly that even the powerless have power when they are able to come together and resist dominant constructions, oppose oppressive policies, mobilize and associate themselves with widespread fundamental values of fairness and justice.. All of the great social movements of the twentieth century produced fundamental, long-lasting policy changes.(Ingram, Schneider pg 10)
As a first step, the entire academic community would have to be mobilized University Presidents, Deans, student bodies etc would first of all have to be apprised of the issue and then asked to actively work for the campaign. As the campaign is about ensuring a truly American experience for international students, the campaign should be named Preserving the American Dream. It is very important to have a very clear idea of what factors would contribute to an environment that allows change in legislation. As argued by Kingdon
He argues that the key to understanding policy change is not where an idea came from, but what made it take hold and grow. It is therefore less important to identify the origins of a particular policy idea than to understand the complex combination of factors which bring an issue to agenda prominence and make governments receptive to agenda change(Kingdon qtd. in Tiernan, Burke pg 87)
To figure out the factors that would help in making the government receptive to change, advocacy groups forof international students would have to be formed. By nature of being advocacy groups, these groups would strictly address the issues faced by international students and actively exert their energies in alleviating their issues. A series of well integrated advocacy groups is required all over the country so that action can begin simultaneously all across the country. For maximum results, these advocacy groups would have to set an integrated agenda. They can decide to address one specific issue e.g housing at one particular time. When there would be a demand of cheap housing for international students from all over the country, the government would have to listen to the demands of the advocacy groups. Once their demands start gaining attention, they can diversify their issues.
For advocacy groups to gain importance, they would have to start campaigning at the grass roots. This can be done by appointing student leaders in as many colleges as possible. Rather than approaching each student individually (which would take a lot of time), heads of student bodies should be targeted. Once these student leaders are onboard with the idea, it would be very easy for them to spread the message within their respective student bodies. These students should be given information on the issues facing international students so that they can hold information sessions for their student bodies. It must be kept in mind that in such a campaign, international students are going to be the most potent force. Student leaders should be asked to link up with the international students within their student bodies as these international students would have firsthand experience of the issues and would also have a more receptive audience in their social circle.
Student bodies regularly campaign to appraise the administration of their demands and on many occasions, they are able to gain an audience. Thus the student bodies should campaign to get their administrations to lobby for legislation change in favor of international students. When addressing the issues of international students becomes a major demand of schools all over the country, there would be a lot of pressure on the government to take action. Thus this campaign has to be run in a step-by-step manner starting from student leaders and student bodies, to administrations, local legislators etc. Preferably this model should be replicated in all states at the same time. Apart from this, the international students should ask their native governments to make a concerted foreign policy effort to ensure that the American government realizes this is a major issue and it needs to be addressed. Advocacy groups can also collectively ask the native governments of their members to finance their activities. This is very important because financially stretched international students wouldnt be able to come up with the finances for such an elaborate national campaign. Apart from this, these advocacy groups should coordinate with other very powerful organizations of non-native Americans. Many of these organizations are politically active and are already in touch with legislators for addressing their issues. These organizations can help in making this a more politically relevant issue.
As is important with any new undertaking, we must analyze the potential problems associated with the campaign. The cost of this campaign can be prohibitive as it takes a lot of resources to organize a country wide campaign. However there are solutions to this problem. Advocacy groups can partner with other stronger non-native American organizations for financial support. Usually these organizations are composed of well off individuals who can easily spare funds for a cause they believe in. Then there can be some opposition to certain recommendations of this campaign. Some might argue the merits of increasing the amount of hours that international students should be allowed to work at a time when jobless rates have risen to a record high. It is true that during economic downturns, the debate over distribution of resources gets a little nasty. Such interest groups would ask why the American government should introduce a legislation that might make it harder for a native American to get a job Those who project these views portray that they are trying to preserve the resources of this nation for its natives. According to this view, the issues of native Americans take precedence over those of international students who are in a minority. At times the government also supports such simplistic interpretations of issues which is a serious problem as government then tries to incorporate such ideas in policy making. Such distorted beliefs about group deservedness are summed up by Schneider Ingram in the following words
Thus governments have exploited peoples tendency toward group categorization, positive group identification, and willingness to accept negative perceptions of undeserving groups. Entitlements provided to those whose support is most needed and are most easy to justify as deserving, need not be equitably distributed to serve the state-building function(Schneider, Ingram pg 3)
This simplistic view of the issue misses the problems that we as a nation would have to face if the problems of international students arent addressed. If international students arent allowed to work, then with ever-increasing costs of education, these international students would start targeting other countries. Thus with the passage of time, the billions of dollars that these international students contribute annually to our economy in the form of tuition fee, housing rents, and purchase of other commodities would shift to other countries. This would result in decreased demand in the future and would thus have a very negative impact on our economy in the long run. There exists a long term relationship between international students and America and the present features of this relationship are
Long-term relationships may also be coercive because they are often between parties with unequal power. Think of exchanges between landlords and tenants, insurance companies and policy holders, universities and students, doctors and patients, .Long term relationships offer greater possibility for the more powerful side to take advantage of the weaker side(Stone pg 76)
The rich cultural heritage of America would also start eroding with the decrease in the number of international students. The unique perspectives that international students bring with them also go away with them. Thus the decrease in diversity of class rooms and the unique thought process of our diverse academics would result in a decrease in innovation. All this would also have grave foreign policy implications as we would lose our edge of having firsthand information about the issues and perspectives of other nations. At a time when our country is looking at years of diplomatic warfare to ensure our security and the security of the world, this would significantly hamper our efforts. Thus by not addressing the concerns of international students, we would start losing our dominant global position. These far reaching implications of this issue might not be fully known to the public and it would be the responsibility of the advocacy groups to ensure that people fully understand the issue.
As the implications of not addressing the issues concerning international students have an impact on the public as well as the private sectors, both would have to be taken onboard. It is the public sectors responsibility to ensure our security, develop a foreign policy that helps us in achieving our goals as a nation and to provide an atmosphere that enhances our innovative capabilities. The private sector is concerned with the well being of the economy if the economy flourishes so does the private sector. The private sector has to be told about the major economic impact of a decrease in annual international students.
The major players in this issue are
International student advocacy groups
Foreign policy think tanks
Public sector interest groups
Private sector interest groups
Media
Legislators
All these players have their own objectives however the one over-riding objective is the betterment of this country. Thus these players need to sit together and chalk out a solution acceptable to all stakeholders. The role of media and think tanks would be instrumental in projecting this issue to the national level. By doing prime-time shows on the issues facing international students, the media can spark a healthy debate over the issue. By inviting experts on international student affairs, education, economy, cultural studies, foreign policy and security, the media can help develop a consensus amongst all the major stakeholders concerned with this issue. By debating the issue from all angles on a public platform, the media would be able to appraise the general population about the merits and demerits of various arguments. In this way, people wont be misled into taking a simplistic understanding of this complex issue. The think-tanks would have the responsibility to objectively analyze the issue to figure out the short-long term costs and benefits of addressing the issues of international students and once this costbenefit analysis is done they would have to actively lobby for whats best for America in the legislative bodies. These think-tanks are powerful bodies and are in the business of shaping government policy. They should also invite international student advocacy groups to get their unique perspective on the issue.
I believe that the campaign envisioned in this paper is possible however its success depends upon how passionate its leaders are. Replicating the student-leader driven campaign all across the country and completely integrating the efforts of the various advocacy groups is a monumental task. Projecting this issue as a major concern of the people to legislators can be done if the powerful non-native organizations emphasize their growing representation in the American population by exercising their voting rights in favor of candidates who make addressing the issues of international students one of their primary objectives.
Furthermore, the campaign is perfectly timed because official government policy is looking to mend the estrangement between America and the rest of the world because of the past several years of unilateralism. Inviting more and more international students to America would help project a soft image of America at a time when it is engaged in military stand offs. Thus it can be concluded that although this campaign faces significant challenges, it is definitely achievable and now is the best time to launch it. Those claiming that security concerns justify the current regulations are facing criticism such as
All prudent steps must be taken to prevent another act of mass terrorism on American soil. But a policy based in fear, that causes us to turn away from the world, is profoundly inimical to American securitybecause openness is part of security. The United States needs international students, professors, researchers, scientists, and future leaders coming to this country to further our universities educational mission, teach our students, increase mutual understanding between the United States and the rest of the world, enhance our economic and scientific competitiveness, and support U.S. international leadership. There is no escape from the responsibility of achieving the necessary balance (Johnson 2009, pg 4)
Easing visa restrictions is a must as according to a current senator of the US Congress,
Current visa processes, according to Coleman, are the equivalent of a police roadblock. We are stopping so many innocent people that it calls into question if this is a good use of Government resources and power. Again, it is in the interest of the United States of America to bring in the best and brightest foreign students to study in America. These are people who will lead their nations one day. The experience they gain with our democratic system and our values gives them a better understanding of what America is and who Americans are.
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