About the Author

Stephen Joel Trachtenberg served for 30 years as a university president. He is now president emeritus and university professor at the George Washington University, where he teaches courses on the university presidency in America. He is also an adviser to Korn/Ferry International, where he is helping to find the next generation of university leadership. In June 2008 Simon and Schuster will release his new book Big Man on Campus: A University President Speaks Out On Higher Education. B.A. Columbia, M.P.A. Harvard, J.D. Yale. Fifteen honorary degrees. A swell guy. But not much of a dancer.

He will blog about issues torn from the headlines dealing with higher education. Contemporary topics of pressing, current concern. And some serious matters too.

About Brainstorm

Brainstorm is The Chronicle Review's team of bloggers on ideas, culture, and the arts.

RSS | Atom

Gina Barreca
Mark Bauerlein
Marc Bousquet
Laurie Fendrich
Dan Greenberg
John L. Jackson Jr.
Stan Katz
Stephen Joel Trachtenberg

Brainstorm Alumni

Marty Nemko, guest blogger
Bob Zemsky

Search

Recent Posts

They Came, They Carved, They Created | Comment

Law-School Rankings | Comment [9]

Presidential Spouses | Comment [1]

Gallaudet University | Comment [7]

Letters to the Next President | Comment

Featured Articles By the Author

Lessons from the Top

New Visa Fees Would Send the Wrong Signal

Almost all of us can remember America’s reaction to 9/11. In the days following the horrendous event many defensive initiatives were taken and, since two of the perpetrators were foreign students, one reaction was to restrict access to America’s colleges and universities. Barriers were imposed overseas, visas became difficult if not impossible to get. Personnel in American embassies were frosty, if not outright rude, to inquiries from those interested in enrolling as undergraduate or graduate students. While traveling in China numerous students told me about their visa problems. Later, in a meeting in Beijing with our ambassador he acknowledged the unusual circumstances and the problems they were causing both for his staff and Chinese nationals.

I myself received calls from several Middle Eastern ambassadors to the U.S. asking if I couldn’t be helpful to their constituents. The U.S. authorities stood firm. Students who had contemplated studying in the U.S. redirected themselves to schools in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, United Kingdom and other more welcoming English speaking countries.

Time passed and little by little, with the help of university presidents, dedicated public servants and leadership in the Departments of Commerce and State, and interested members of Congress in both the House and the Senate, steps were taken to rationalize our hospitality. We recognized the need for prudence, we understood the case for security, but we also perceived the role that universities played in articulating American’s foreign policy, and incidentally, as an export industry. It was important that persons from other countries studying in the U.S. come to know our values and return home able to make the case for America; it was also important that our campuses have the benefit of students from the Middle East, Asia, Africa, Europe and all other parts of the World.

In the years that have passed since the attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania, accommodations have been made and, even as we’ve remained vigilant, we’ve found ways to slowly restore the number of international students in our ranks, which had been depleted. Applications to graduate schools, in particular, have been coming back year-by-year. Last year was particularly robust; China and India have been sending students to our shores with renewed vigor. Conservative U.S. visa practices seem to have become more flexible. And it appeared that a return to normal, pre Osama bin Laden, conditions might be in our future.

This seemed to be a good thing, one of the too few areas where America and the rest of the world might be successfully working together. You can imagine my surprise when I read the other day that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is considering doubling the fee that international students were going to be required to pay when they applied for visas. The numbers aren’t consequential in the larger scheme of things, going from $100 to $200. Some will argue that the differential is not going to be dispositive, and I agree. But at a time when American universities are being asked to control their tuition increases, the optics seems to me so contrary to avowed sentiments that they are quite maddening. Have we been abandoned by Madison Avenue?

Apparently the money is to help offset the expense of keeping track of where international students are once they’ve entered the country. A good idea badly executed. Our new efforts at internal surveillance and accounting for people in the U.S. on F-1 visas and J-1 visas have run up some costs. The increased fees would compensate for the expense and upgrading of the Student Exchange Visitor Program Information System, an automated database. Surely the money involved cannot be significant compared to the cost of the symbolism. Just as enrollments of foreign students in our universities are beginning to flourish, we contemplate a negative initiative, something likely to discourage however modestly rather than encourage consideration of study in the 50 states (plus the District of Columbia).

It may not be too late for us to help our government perfect their planning in this regard. The idea is still in gestation and may still be addressed by offering public commentary until June 30th to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. They are asking for you to tell them what you think by going to the www.regulations.gov website or by fax at 866-466-5370. The new rates are to go live on October 1, 2008.

Uncle Sam needs you.

Comments

1. Okay, since this blog thread was pretty messed up on Sunday (revealing the old “Uncle Sam Needs You” thread, for example, from a coding error based on the last line of this posting), I guess it’s just an accident that my posted comment was removed when the page was ultimately “completely fixed”. (CHE Web editors should notice such things, right?)

   Once more with feeling:

   This posting raises the spectre of the “interesting” ways in which higher education institutions budget and manage their International Education/StudyAbroad/Foreign Scholars office(s).

   The NYS Attorney General has been investigating multiple colleges and universities in the nation for ethical conflicts of interest and funding abuses in exchange program, etc. (e.g. their using “profits” and “kick-backs” to fund “free” travel for administrators and faculty, and even other parts of the university, for example).

   Of course, NY AG Cuomo religiously avoids investigating the state-run institutions in New York State because of his conflict of interest — NY law effectively indemnifies all state institutions and actors from prosecution, so that the AG is actually called upon to use taxpayer dollars to defend state agency wrong-doing, right up to the Supreme Court. This provides a powerful incentive for state higher education institutions (SUNY, etc.) to do exactly as they please.

   But I digress (or do I?).

   The point is that higher education institutions are used to passing the cost of doing this type of business directly on to their students. So it is not surprising that the cost of increased security is passed on to the students, rather than the institutions, directly from the government — the higher education lobby surely worked behind the scenes to “make it so”.

   — Anti-hypocrisy advocate · Apr 29, 12:23 PM · #

Commenting is closed for this article.

Previous: Students Want More of Everything -- Except Reading
Next: Seeking Education Gurus