Foreign Students in the United States

The student visa program gives students from foreign countries the opportunity to study in the United States so that they will be better able to contribute to the development of their countries when they return. But, in practice, many foreign students hope to remain in the U.S. to better their own lot.

Multiculturalists assert that the presence of foreigners in our schools is an asset to the international awareness and understanding of American students, but they do not recognize any limits. Their emphasis has led foreign post-secondary student enrollment to grow to the point where about one out of every twenty students in our colleges and university is a foreign student (see chart below). At the same time, the rapid increase in the foreign student population has made it a hindrance to American students, and a national security concern.

Foreign students enter the U.S. as nonimmigrants on an “F-1” visa. To obtain this visa, the consular official must be convinced that they intend to return to their home country. These foreign students become an immigration issue if they violate the terms of their visa by taking a regular job or if they stay in the country illegally. According to the Institute for International Education (IIE), for the 1993-94 school year there are more than 575,500 foreign students American colleges and universities. But, in reality, foreign students significantly exceed the 4.6 percent of all student enrollment, because the IIE data miss foreign students in the country illegally and others in the country on some different type of visa.  In addition, the IIE data do not include foreign students in secondary schools. The Council on Standards for International Educational Travel puts the number of high school foreign exchange students at 27,742 in the 2002-03 school year.

Foreign students are taking the places of American students in class and in the workplace.

The rate of increase in the foreign student population outstrips that of native students. While the number of American post-secondary students increased 435 percent over the last 50 years, the number of foreign students increased 1,572 percent.

With enrollment limited at public universities, the admission of increasing numbers of foreign students also means fewer admission spaces for American students.

As a result of the influx of foreign students, our graduate schools are producing a glut of science Ph.D.s (about 22 percent more than needed), over half of whom are foreign students. Among the foreign graduate Ph.D.s, an estimated 50 percent fail to return to their home countries. By entering the U.S. job market, they depress salary levels, which dissuades American students from entering the sciences. These foreign graduate students are particularly attractive to universities when they can use them to meet affirmative action goals, which were designed to help American native minorities.

“Some foreign governments ask foreign students specifically to acquire information on a variety of technical subjects and upon the completion of their studies, some foreign students are then encouraged to seek employment with U.S. firms to steal proprietary information.”
-FBI Director Louis Freeh, testimony before Congress

“We know for a fact that organizations funded by a state sponsor of terrorism fund students coming to the United States. And that is part of their intelligence organization.”
-Deputy FBI Director Dale Watson, testimony before Congress

Foreign students compete with Americans for financial aid.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 59 percent of all foreign graduate students receive financial aid, and 40 percent receive direct grants as opposed to loans which must be repaid.

In October 1997, the federal government joined a lawsuit filed against Georgia’s Brewton-Parker College for defrauding financial aid programs for ten years by awarding grants to foreign students who didn’t qualify and for disbursing federal money for American students to foreign students instead. In June 1998, a congressional investigation began of six University of California campuses that defrauded the government of $100 million by improperly billing it for tuition waivers given to foreign graduate students. “Why should taxes paid by U.S. workers be used to enlist foreign nationals into Ph.D. programs at America’s leading research university system?” the lawsuit asked.

The foreign student system is an easy avenue of entry for foreign terrorists.

One of the members of the terrorist network that destroyed the World Trade Center also used our lax F-1 visa program to get into the U.S. without ever even taking a class. Others of the 9/11 terrorists were aviation students in the United States, even though they did not enter with the appropriate visa to pursue that study. In 1996, over half the Iranian students in the U.S. were enrolled in science, math, or engineering programs, and U.S.-trained scientists were reported to be working on Iraq’s nuclear and biological weapons programs, as well as India’s.

Student Visa Reform Options

Moderating the surge in foreign student enrollment could be done with an annual ceiling, like for immigration. Another approach would be to condition the student visa so that the student would be required to return home at the end of his or her studies. This provision applies now to exchange visitors (“J” visas) who come usually for research or in university exchange programs. They are required to return abroad for at least two years before returning to the United States as immigrants.

Updated 11/04