Ageji_Mom 2012-2-7 10:35
Taking More Seats on Campus, Foreigners Also Pay the Freight
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/education/international-students-pay-top-dollar-at-us-colleges.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hpw[/url]
SEATTLE — This is the University of Washington’s new math: 18 percent of its freshmen come from abroad, most from China. Each pays tuition of $28,059, about three times as much as students from Washington State. And that, according to the dean of admissions, is how low-income Washingtonians — more than a quarter of the class — get a free ride.
With state financing slashed by more than half in the last three years, university officials decided to pull back on admissions offers to Washington residents, and increase them to students overseas.
That has rankled some local politicians and parents, a few of whom have even asked Michael K. Young, the university president, whether their children could get in if they paid nonresident tuition. “It does appeal to me a little,” he said.
There is a widespread belief in Washington that internationalization is the key to the future, and Mr. Young said he was not at all bothered that there were now more students from other countries than from other states. (Out-of-state students pay the same tuition as foreign students.)
“Is there any advantage to our taking a kid from California versus a kid from China?” he said. “You’d have to convince me, because the world isn’t divided the way it used to be.”
If the university’s reliance on full-freight Chinese students to balance the budget echoes the nation’s dependence on China as the largest holder of American debt, well, said the dean of admissions, Philip A. Ballinger, “this is a way of getting some of that money back.”
By the reckoning of the Institute of International Education, foreign students in the United States contribute about $21 billion a year to the national economy, including $463 million here in Washington State. But the influx affects more than just the bottom line — campus culture, too, is changing.
While the University of Washington’s demographic shifts have been sharper and faster — international students were 2 percent of the freshmen in 2006 — similar changes are under way at flagship public universities across the nation: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa and University of California campuses in Berkeley and Los Angeles all had at least 10 percent foreign freshmen this academic year, more than twice that of five years ago. And at top private schools including Columbia University, Boston University and the University of Pennsylvania, at least 15 percent of this year’s freshmen are from other countries.
All told, the number of undergraduates from China alone has soared to 57,000 from 10,000 five years ago. At the University of Washington, 11 percent of the nearly 5,800 freshmen are from China.
A few places have begun to charge international students additional fees besides tuition: at Purdue University, it was $1,000 this year and will double next year; engineering undergraduates at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign had to pay a $2,500 surcharge this year.
“We’re in something akin to the gold rush, a frontier-style environment where colleges and universities, like prospectors in the 1800s, realize that there is gold out there,” said David Hawkins, the director of public policy at the National Association for College Admission Counseling. “While it’s the admissions offices butting up against the issues most right now, every department after them, every faculty member who comes into contact with international students, is going to have to recalibrate as institutions become more international. I see a cascading list of challenges.”
They have already begun here at Washington’s flagship university, where orientation leaders last fall had to explain, repeatedly, the rigorous campus recycling practices, reinforce no-smoking rules and, at the make-your-own-sundae bar, help people get the hang of the whipped-cream cans.
But there are deeper issues, like how much latitude professors should give in written assignments.
“We recognize that people from other countries often speak with an accent,” said John Webster, director of writing at the university’s College of Arts and Science. “If we’re truly going to be a global university, which I think is a terrific thing, we have to recognize that they may write with an accent as well.”
For example, because Mandarin has one pronunciation for “he,” “she” and “it” and nothing like “a” or “the,” many Chinese speakers struggle with pronouns and articles. And English verb forms, like past participles, gerunds and infinitives, can be difficult to master, since Chinese verbs are unchanging.
Given that Chinese students’ writing will be “accented” for years, Mr. Webster believes that professors should focus less on trying to make their English technically correct and more on making their essays understandable and interesting. But he knows this could be a controversial issue, reminiscent of the Ebonics debate decades ago.
The international influx is likely to keep growing, in part because of the booming recruiting industry that has sprung up overseas. That includes the use of commissioned agents, who help students through the admissions process — and sometimes write their application essays. Amid controversy over such agents, Mr. Hawkins’s group has named a commission, to meet for the first time next month, to formulate a policy regarding recruiters.
Nationwide, higher education financing has undergone a profound shift in recent years, with many public institutions that used to get most of their financing from state governments now relying on tuition for more than half their budgets. But legislators and taxpayers still feel deep ownership of the state institutions created to serve homegrown students — and worry that something is awry when local high achievers, even valedictorians, are rejected by the campuses they have grown up aspiring to.
“My constituents want a slot for their kid,” said Reuven Carlyle, a Democrat state representative from Seattle. “I hear it at the grocery store every day, and I’ve got four young kids myself, so I get it.
“We are struggling with capacity, access and affordability,” he said. “But international engagement is part of our state’s DNA. We have a special economic and social relationship with China, and I am happy to have so many Chinese students at the university.”
Still, Jim Allen, a counselor at Inglemoor High School in Kenmore, Wash., an affluent suburb north of Seattle, said: “Families are frustrated. There aren’t as many private colleges here as in the East, and a lot of families expect their children to go to U.W.”
Unlike many other state universities, the University of Washington did no overseas recruiting before this academic year, when it staged recruiting tours in several countries. So the rapid growth in international applications — to more than 6,000 this year from 1,541 in 2007, with China by far the largest source — was something of a surprise. Last spring, another surprise was the percentage who accepted offers of admission: 42 percent decided to enroll, up from 35 percent the previous year.
“As best I can make out, it’s just word of mouth,” said Mr. Ballinger, the admissions dean. “We’re well known in China, we’re highly rated on the Shanghai rankings, and we have a lot of contacts.”
Applications from abroad present some special challenges. Because the SAT is not given in mainland China, the university does not require international students to take it. Although it does not pay recruiting agents, Mr. Ballinger said he knew many applicants hired them, so the university does not consider Chinese applicants’ personal essays or recommendations. (Yes, he also knows that some affluent applicants in the United States get extensive help from paid private counselors.)
Some in-state students said they had trouble knowing what to make of the fact that international students, on the one hand, help underwrite financial aid, and on the other, take up seats that might have gone to their high school classmates.
“Morally, I feel the university should accept in-state students first, then other American students, then international students,” said Farheen Siddiqui, a freshman from Renton, Wash., just south of Seattle. “When I saw all the stories about U.W. taking more international students, I thought, ‘Damn, I’m a minority now for being in-state.’ ”
Actually, nearly two-thirds of Ms. Siddiqui’s classmates are from Washington, but her inaccurate sense of the population was echoed by all of the three dozen freshmen interviewed — including those from other states and from China. Most, like Ms. Siddiqui, estimated that half to two-thirds of the class was international.
Ms. Siddiqui cited a psychology class in which the professor asked the 600-plus students about the nature of the families they grew up in. With clickers recording the responses, Ms. Siddiqui said, about 60 percent said their families were “collectivist,” rather than “individualist,” something she perceived as more Asian than American.
Alison Luo, who grew up in Chongqing, a major city in southwest China, had mixed feelings about the trend that she is part of.
“Before I came, I saw the online chatting in China, with hundreds of people coming to the University of Washington,” Ms. Luo said. “I was kind of worried about that. I paid to study abroad, and it was almost like I was studying in China.”
[[i] 本帖最后由 Ageji_Mom 于 2012-2-7 10:39 编辑 [/i]].
pp_dream 2012-2-7 10:47
"university should accept in-state students first, then other American students, then international students,”
无论怎样，纳税人都应该被优先考虑，我相信会有更多的声音发出来的，否则太不合理。.
不二周助 2012-2-8 15:11
Before I came, I saw the online chatting in China, with hundreds of people coming to the University of Washington,” Ms. Luo said. “I was kind of worried about that. I paid to study abroad, and it was almost like I was studying in China
-----------
对国际生来说，这确实是个问题。大学揽财招国际生应控制比例，形成良性循环。.
感谢生活 2012-2-8 22:03
回复 3楼不二周助 的帖子
良不了了，现在国外的大学得不到政府的资助，企业也因金融危机不再有以往的慷慨，大学也唯有自己想法了。大学老师被委婉地告知要让学生happy，把学生当client。现在留学形势大好，放开胆子申请吧。.
pp_dream 2012-2-8 22:54
今早上班路上听新闻说宾州的两所主要州立大学Penn State和University of Pittsburgh 在两年内预算被砍50%。穷，就一个字。
搞不明白为毛米国穷成这样，比加拿大穷多了。可是米国的经济比加拿大活跃多了，就业机会比加拿大也大多了。我只能理解为米国盘子大，负担重，没事干还老惹事，而富人不拔毛[tt34]
同事聊天时还在说，米国30岁以下的失业率高达50%。不知数据是否正确，没去查。不过这至少说明毕业生就业率很低。
据推算，要恢复到前几年的就业高峰要等到2024年，呵呵，我家丫头差不多那时候毕业了。盼恢复！.
pp_dream 2012-2-9 00:51
回复 8楼qwer3200 的帖子
我们部门12年以来只砍人不招人已12年之久，最近会有一普渡硕士毕业生加入，我们都奔走相告了，呵呵。
这年头，裁员滚滚而来一波接一波，还活着没挂了，就不易。[tt3]
小盆友们，加油！明天总归是属于小盆友们的，这一点毋庸置疑[tt8].
grassroot2012 2012-2-9 09:05
Thank you for this authentic information!.
宇泽妈 2012-2-10 06:12
回复 17楼pp_dream 的帖子
咳，什么只能啊，IT民工不往我们这儿奔往哪儿奔啊?我们这里好啊，老板不给加工资，只要装模做样地在网上查查job opening，老板看到立马乖乖地加，不加咱有的是机会跳啊！呵呵
所以啊，你快过来吧，咱民工扎堆扎一起最好了，热闹！[:sz12:].
pp_dream 2012-2-10 06:27
回复 18楼宇泽妈 的帖子
天呐！天差地别啊！
我们这里的被砍了，放眼望去宾州+新泽西哪还有别的机会？老板从不怕员工跳，跳？根本无处可跳！
这批被裁的人还在纷纷找工作呢，都是年龄比较大不愿意搬家的，孩子还没大学毕业要付孩子学费的。悲凉凄惨，哀鸿遍野！.
宇泽妈 2012-2-10 13:36
回复 20楼qwer3200 的帖子
别说股票了，说了股票我就心痛，这次被希腊和葡萄牙可能的违约搞得踏空了，半路被甩了下来，现在天天盼着跌呢，唉，看着股市天天涨就火大！不过，象Facebook这种IPO就1000亿的，好象泡沫是挺大了呢。.
宇泽妈 2012-2-11 00:03
回复 23楼qwer3200 的帖子
是么？那我继续等！
BTW，你知道有什么好点的讨论美国股票的论坛么？炒股大家在一起的话，比较好玩。呵呵
还有，你是90后么？你们那年龄的孩子都你这样么？我怎么觉得跟你们没啥代沟啊。呵呵.
pp_dream 2012-2-11 03:45
回复 22楼宇泽妈 的帖子
呵呵，我房都买好了，扛几年再说吧。这不刚裁员结束，公司股票就涨了一大截，我们项目也落实了下一个design win. 大老板都展望下一个5年计划了，呵呵，说让大家放心, job secure 10年没问题。一般大老板说话只能信一半，我再给打个折，估计2~3年job secure 没问题吧。
关键是加州房价太贵啦，搬不起啊！.
宇泽妈 2012-2-12 06:44
回复 25楼qwer3200 的帖子
呵呵，等的就是这天！
你去花街干什么呢？trading, quant还是其它什么呢？.