For Some Foreign Students, U.S. Education Is Losing Its Attraction
After years of robust enrollment increases, graduate applications from South Korea to American colleges have fallen off. Softening interest from South Korea, the third-largest supplier source of international students to the United States, could serve as a warning to American institutions that have grown to rely on tuition revenue from China, the largest source. The two countries differ in politics, population and economics, but they share common educational traditions and motivations for sending their students abroad, and their international mobility patterns have followed corresponding trajectories.
Recent concerns in China about the return on a pricey foreign degree echoes qualms among South Korean families that overseas study is no longer the guarantee of economic security that it once was.
Source: The New York Times
URL:http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/26/world/asia/for-some-foreign-students-us-education-is-losing-its-attraction.html?hpw&rref=education&_r=0
Editor’s note: The article echoes previous articles in suggesting that foreign institutions will come under increasing competitive pressure to better prepare foreign students to find work, including not only career services, but co-operative education, internships and post-graduation placement. Beyond that, the foreign institutions who do the best job of demonstrating their relevance to, and forging a connection with, employers in country and around the world will grow in appeal over time.
