MCLC: applications to US grad schools decline

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: applications to US grad schools decline
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (5/4/14):
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/05/world/americas/chinese-applications-to-us
-graduate-schools-decline.html

Chinese Applications to U.S. Graduate Schools Decline
By KARIN FISCHER | THE CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATIONMAY 4, 2014

WASHINGTON — For the second year in a row, applications from India to
American graduate schools have skyrocketed, while those from prospective
Chinese students have fallen, according to a report released last month by
the Council of Graduate Schools.

The report’s findings are a break in the trend line of recent years. For
the better part of a decade, Chinese graduate applications — and
enrollments — have been climbing regularly and robustly. With double-digit
annual growth, Chinese students have come to account for fully one-third
of all foreign graduate students on American campuses, and their presence
has helped offset flat — or in some disciplines, even declining — interest
in graduate education among domestic students.

Dismissed by some observers a year ago as an aberration, the cooling of
the Chinese market no longer can be written off as a one-year blip.
Applications from prospective Chinese students for this fall dipped 1
percent, following a 3 percent drop a year earlier. The figures are
preliminary, but final enrollments tend to closely track application
trends.

Indeed, the number of overall international applications, up 7 percent,
probably would have declined, too, except for growth of 32 percent from
India.

“It’s all India,” said Debra W. Stewart, the council’s president. “India
is huge.”

It might be tempting to anoint India as the next China, the new engine of
the international graduate-student market: In 2013, Indian applications
rose 22 percent and enrollments soared 40 percent.

But to do so may be premature — and misguided. China and India may be the
No. 1 and No. 2 sources of foreign students in the United States, but they
are in many ways very different markets.

While the growth from China has been consistent, Indian numbers have been
erratic. One year, first-time graduate enrollments climbed more than 30
percent, only to plummet 16 percent a couple of years later.

That seeming fickleness reflects the fact that education decisions in
India tend to be highly susceptible to economic shifts, including
fluctuating currency exchange rates and employment prospects, both at home
and abroad. A significant share of Indian graduate students enroll in
master’s and professional-degree programs and often have to cover much of
the tuition costs themselves.

The current application growth, however, comes as the Indian rupee has
generally fallen in value against the dollar, suggesting that other
factors may be in play. Ms. Stewart, of the council, cited tightening
student visa rules in Britain. A recent report found that the number of
first-time students at English universities from India and Pakistan had
halved since 2010, and some of those students, Ms. Stewart suggested, may
have chosen to apply to institutions in the United States instead.

“It’s very difficult to trace cause and effect,” she said, “but it seems
that we’re at least the short-term beneficiaries.”

Whether the British visa rules lead to a long-term swing in Indian student
choices is another matter. Australia, for example, saw a falling off in
foreign students after the government there adopted a more restrictive
visa policy following attacks on Indian students in 2009. Yet
international numbers in Australia have since rebounded. Last year, they
were up 8 percent.

Ms. Stewart said she worried that unless American lawmakers changed the
visa system to make it easier for international students to stay and work
after graduation, the United States could lose whatever edge it might have.

By contrast, the Chinese slowdown could reflect more permanent changes.
China has been spending heavily to improve its own research universities,
which could persuade promising doctoral students to stay at home. American
universities, meanwhile, have had to absorb cuts in research funding.

As more Chinese students, both graduate and undergraduate, go to the
United States and other Western countries to study, there is a growing
debate in China about the value of an overseas degree.

While there is not yet evidence that undergraduate enrollments from China
are falling off, American colleges, which have come to rely heavily on
full-fee-paying Chinese undergraduates to offset budget cuts, are likely
to be watching closely to see if the council’s numbers are a bellwether of
broader declines.

Still, some educators see positives in the shifting application trends.
John A. Stevenson, graduate dean at the University of Colorado at Boulder,
said he welcomed greater diversity in the foreign-applicant pool. “I kind
of like the numbers because they suggest we’re not becoming overly reliant
on any one country for our graduate students,” he said.

Overall, applications from overseas rose 7 percent, according to the
council’s new report. Aside from India, applications from Brazil, which
accounts for about 1 percent of foreign graduate students, jumped by 33
percent. In contrast, applications from South Korea, which ranks behind
China and India as the third-largest source of international students,
dropped by 5 percent.

The most popular fields of study among international students —
engineering, business and physical and earth sciences (which include
computer science and mathematics) — showed the largest gains in
applications. Application increases were greatest at the institutions that
award the most graduate degrees to foreign students.

The report was based on a survey conducted in February and March of the
graduate school council’s 509 American members. The 308 institutions that
responded accounted for 67 percent of the approximately 109,000 graduate
degrees that were awarded to international students in 2011-12.