While looking at a new report on foreign students at U.S. universities, it's hard not to conclude that the gap among developing nations is widening: While Asian countries are sending more students to some of the world's best colleges, Latin American countries are lagging behind.

Confirming a trend that could have political and economic repercussions in coming decades, China and India are each sending twice as many students to U.S. universities as all South American countries combined, according to the new report by the New York-based Institute of International Education, a nonprofit group that conducted the study with U.S. State Department support.

Even more striking, South Korea, with a population that is less than half that of Mexico, is sending more than five times more students to U.S. colleges than Mexico. And Vietnam, a poor but increasingly globalized Communist-ruled country with a population that is less than half that of Brazil, is sending more than twice more young people to U.S. universities than Brazil.

REPORT'S FINDINGS

Consider some of the data included in the institute's newly released 2009 Open Doors Report on International Education :

-- The number of international students at U.S. colleges and universities increased by 8 percent this year to a record 671,616 students.

-- The top three sending countries are India, with 103,000 students (up 9 percent from last year); China, with 98,000 students (up 21 percent), and South Korea, with 75,000 students (up 9 percent).

-- By comparison, the number of students from Mexico stood flat at 15,000, Brazil sent 8,700 students (up 16 percent from last year), Colombia 7,000 (up 5 percent), Venezuela 4,600 (up 5 percent), Peru 3,600 (a 2 percent decline), Argentina 2,400 (a 6 percent decline) and Chile 2,000 (up 16 percent).

-- The total number of Asian students rose more than 9 percent, while the total number of Latin American students rose by 5 percent. The number of European students rose by 4.5 percent, including a 5 percent increase from Spain.

Why do these figures matter?

Because whatever you may think of the United States' future as a superpower, the two leading rankings of the world's best universities -- that of Britain's Times Higher Education Supplement and that of China's Shanghai Jiai Tong University -- agree that U.S. universities are still way ahead of the rest. The Shanghai university's 2009 ranking is led by Harvard, and eight out of its first 10 places are held by U.S. institutions.

Regardless of how soon the U.S. economy emerges from the recession, experts agree that the United States will be the world's largest market for many years and that foreign students at U.S. universities will acquire knowledge and contacts that will make it much easier for their countries to do business with U.S. companies.

"In China particularly, but also in other parts of Asia, students still see the U.S. higher education as providing the kind of training and credentials that will help them in their future careers," says Peggy Blumenthal, the institute's chief operating officer. "For some reason, it doesn't seem to happen to the same extent in Latin America."

GRADUATE STUDENTS

In addition, most Asian students in the United States pursue graduate studies in science and technology. "We don't see that many Latin American students at the graduate levels in those fields," Blumenthal said.

My opinion: The latest figures should worry Latin American policy makers. Asian countries are not only sending more students to U.S. universities, but they are also inviting more U.S., European and Australian higher education institutions to set up schools and give out diplomas in their own countries.

While Communist-ruled China has more than 170 foreign universities that are legally entitled to award diplomas in its territory and India has 61, many Latin American countries don't allow foreign educational institutions to give out valid diplomas and limit their contacts with them to short-term student exchanges.

All countries should strive for having globalized education systems, including the United States, which would greatly benefit from having more first-rate foreign universities at home to raise Americans' knowledge of the outside world. If countries don't send more students to the world's best foreign universities, they should allow the world's best foreign universities to come to them.

 

 

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