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Chinese, Indian Students Make Up Half of Foreign Students in US
Students from China and India comprise half of all international students in the U.S., propelled by increased wealth in those countries and drawn by potential employment in America, education and immigration experts told VOA.
“The ratios are due largely to external demographic, geopolitical, and economic factors,” said Rachel Banks, senior director of public policy and legislative strategy at NAFSA: Association of International Educators. “It is largely driven by who can afford the cost of studying in the United States, as international students are not eligible for federal financial aid.”
China’s economy has grown markedly since opening to international trade in the 1970s and now stands as the second largest with a growing and more affluent middle class that can afford a foreign education.
“Manufacturing growth in China has raised a lot of Chinese incomes,” said Gaurav Khanna, an assistant professor of economics at the University of California-San Diego. “Now they can afford to come to the U.S.”
Chinese and Indian enrollment at U.S. colleges and universities swooped upward at the turn of the new century. In 2000, there were nearly 60,000 Chinese students in the U.S., and nearly 55,000 students from India. Student enrollment in U.S. schools from Japan and South Korea were not far behind.
By 2010, Chinese student enrollment had grown to almost 158,000 students in the U.S., with nearly 104,000 students from India, pulling far ahead of South Korea’s 73,000 students. Other nations sent even fewer.
In 2020, before drastic enrollment reductions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were more than 372,000 Chinese and 193,000 Indian students in the U.S., or 34% and 18%, respectively, of the 1,075,496 international students in the U.S., according to the Institute for International Education (IIE) headquartered in New York. Students from South Korea had dropped back to a distant third, sending close to 50,000, or 4.6% of the total in the U.S.
“China and India are the two most populous nations on the planet, and they generate large numbers of college-prepared students at a rate that their own higher education systems cannot meet,” Banks said. “So many students look abroad for higher education opportunities.”
“Until very recently, they didn't have kind of the next tier of good colleges in China,” said Khanna. “So students who couldn't get into the top, the top universities in China, would just say, let me go abroad.”
Bella Du, a recent Chinese graduate from American University in Washington, confirms Khanna’s explanation.
“More Chinese students want to study abroad, and America offers the opportunity of a very high-end university and resources that it provides,” she said.
When international students come to the U.S. for higher education, they bring billions in revenue — $41 billion in 2018-2019 — to the U.S., concentrated in regions where they are clustered: California, New York, New England (Massachusetts and Rhode Island), Upper Midwest (Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan), Texas, Washington D.C. and Washington state.
Their career paths are clustered, too: 77% of international students specialize in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), which includes health professions.
“STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and health research are more advanced in the U.S. than in most other countries,” said Arun Krishnavajjala, an Indian student earning his Ph.D. in computer science at George Mason University in Virginia. “STEM jobs, in particular, are fueled by big tech, and most of the largest tech companies reside in the U.S., therefore, almost always requiring a U.S.-based educational requirement.”
A majority of international students, not only Chinese or Indian, cite immigration pathways to employment as one of the top reasons for studying in the U.S.
“A lot of Indian students essentially use the U.S. education system as a way to gain access to the U.S. labor market,” said Khanna. “If you come and do your education in the U.S., then you're going to get hired from the campus in the U.S. essentially.”
While H1-B visas are highly coveted by foreign workers, they are not easy to get. Last year, 65,000 were available, with 20,000 additional issued to foreigners with a master’s degree or who graduated from a U.S. university, according to the American Immigration Council.
Without an H1-B visa, international students who have graduated or exhausted the Optional Practical Training (OPT) visa — which allows them to stay up to three years after graduation — cannot legally work in the U.S.
“I think it is hard for international students to find jobs in the United States if you do not have a green card,” said, Du, referring to legal permanent residency in the U.S. “So I think it only depends on the resources and opportunities. If I find a job here then I will stay in the United States if I don’t then I will go back to China.”
Krishnavajjala, who is in the U.S. on a student visa, agrees.
“This is an issue a lot of immigrants face. Green cards take decades to get now and the government's banter about legal and illegal immigrants leaves immigrants who have lived here their entire life here in limbo about their future,” he said. “The government's incompetence in immigration in the last decade has put people like me in a situation of paying international tuition and fearing deportation every year.”
Some experts suggest that another reason the U.S. admits high numbers of Chinese students is to expose them to American democracy.
“Chinese and Russian students always learn a great deal about American democracy and other aspects of our society when they come here, and they take that knowledge back home with them,” wrote former Ambassador William A. Rugh in American Diplomacy in August 2020.
“Exposure to our ‘soft power’ has more impact on them than any imagined negative impact they might have on Americans,” wrote Rugh, who served as a U.S. foreign service officer from 1964 to 1995.
Critics, however, see allowing a large Chinese student presence as enabling espionage and the theft of U.S. intellectual property, especially in technology and medical research.
In June, a bipartisan bill, the Safeguarding American Innovation Act, was introduced in the U.S. Senate. The legislation aims to prevent foreign competitors such as China from stealing intellectual property developed at U.S. colleges and universities by mandating additional scrutiny of applications for U.S. visas as well as federal research grants.
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College athletes push for voter turnout while largely avoiding controversy as election nears
Lily Meskers faced an unexpected choice in the lead-up to the first major election she can vote in.
The 19-year-old University of Montana sprinter was among college athletes in the state who received an inquiry from Montana Together asking if she was interested in a name, image and likeness deal to support Sen. Jon Tester, a three-term Democrat seeking re-election. The group, which is not affiliated with the Tester campaign, offered from $400 to $2,400 to athletes willing to produce video endorsements.
Meskers, who is from Colorado but registered to vote in Montana, decided against the deal because she disagrees with Tester's votes on legislation involving transgender athletes in sports.
"I was like, OK, I believe that this is a political move to try to gain back some voters that he might have lost," Meskers said. "And me being a female student-athlete myself, I was not going to give my endorsement to someone who I felt didn't have the same support for me."
Professional athletes such as LeBron James, Colin Kaepernick and Stephen Curry have taken high-profile stances on hot-button topics and political campaigns in recent years, but college athletes are far less outspoken — even if money is available, according to experts in the NIL field. Being outwardly political can reflect on their school or endanger potential endorsement deals from brands that don't want controversy. It can certainly establish a public image for an athlete — for better or for worse — or lead to tensions with teammates and coaches who might not feel the same way.
There are examples of political activism by college athletes: A Texas Tech kicker revealed his support for former President Donald Trump on a shirt under his uniform at a game last week and a handful of Nebraska athletes a few days ago teamed up in a campaign ad against an abortion measure on the Tuesday's ballot.
Still, such steps are considered rare.
"It can be viewed as risky and there may be people telling them just don't even take that chance because they haven't made it yet," said Lauren Walsh, who started a sports branding agency 15 years ago. She said there is often too much to lose for themselves, their handlers and in some cases, their families.
"And these individuals still have to figure out what they're going to do with the rest of their lives, even those that do end up getting drafted," she added.
College coaches are not always as reticent. Auburn men's basketball coach Bruce Pearl has used social media to make it clear he does not support Kamala Harris, Trump's Democratic opponent in next week's presidential election. Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy once caused a stir with a star player for wearing a shirt promoting a far-right news outlet.
Blake Lawrence, co-founder of the NIL platform Opendorse, noted that this is the first presidential election in the NIL era, which began in July 2021. He said athletes are flocking to opportunities to help increase voter turnout in the 18-to-24 age demographic, adding that one of his company's partners has had 86 athletes post social media messages encouraging turnout through the first half of the week.
He said athletes are shying away from endorsing specific candidates or causes that are considered partisan.
"Student-athletes are, for the most part, still developing their confidence in endorsing any type of product or service," he said. "So if they are hesitant to put their weight behind supporting a local restaurant or an e-commerce product, then they are certainly going to be hesitant to use their social channels in a political way."
Giving athletes a voice
Many college athletes have opted to focus on drumming up turnout in a non-partisan manner or simply using their platforms to take stands that are not directly political in nature. Some of those efforts can be found in battleground states.
A progressive group called NextGen America said it had signed players in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia to encourage voting among young people. Another organization, The Team, said it prepped 27 college athletes in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Arizona and Michigan to lead volunteer voter participation opportunities for students. The organization also said it got more than 625 coaches to sign a nonpartisan pledge to get their athletes registered to vote.
The Team's executive director is Joe Kennedy, a former coach who coordinated championship visits and other sporting events at the White House during President Barack Obama's administration. In early October, it hosted a Zoom event during which panelists such as NCAA President Charlie Baker and WNBA players Nneka Ogwumike and Natasha Cloud gave college athletes advice about using their platforms on campus.
In its early days, The Team seized upon momentum from the record turnout seen in the 2020 election. The NCAA that year said Division I athletes could have Election Day off from practice and play to vote. Lisa Kay Solomon, founder of the All Vote No Play campaign, said even if the athletes don't immediately take stands on controversial issues, it's important for them to learn how.
"It is a lot to ask our young people to feel capable and confident on skills they've never had a chance to practice," Solomon said. "We have to model what it means to practice taking risks, practice standing up for yourself, practice pausing to think about what are the values that you care about — not what social media is feeding into your brain, but what do you care about and how do you express that? And how do you do it in a way that honors the kind of future that you want to be a part of?"
Shut up and play?
Two years ago, Tennessee-Martin quarterback Dresser Winn said he would support a candidate in a local district attorney general race in what experts said was very likely the first political NIL deal by a college athlete.
There have been very few since.
The public criticism and fallout for athletes who speak out on politics or social issue can be sharp. Kaepernick, the Super Bowl-winning quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, hasn't played in an NFL game since January 2017, not long after he began kneeling during the national anthem at games.
Meskers, the Montana sprinter, said political endorsements through NIL deals could create problems for athletes and their schools.
"I just think that NIL is going to run into a lot of trouble and a lot of struggles if they continue to let athletes do political endorsements," she said. "I just think it's messy. But I stand by NIL as a whole. I think it's really hard as a student athlete to create a financial income and support yourself."
Walsh said it's easier for wealthy and veteran stars like James and Ogwumike to take stands. James, the Los Angeles Lakers star, started More Than a Vote — an organization with a mission to "educate, energize and protect Black voters" — in 2020. He has passed the leadership to Ogwumike, who just finished her 13th year in the WNBA and also is the president of the Women's National Basketball Players Association. More than a Vote is focused on women's rights and reproductive freedom this year.
"They have very established brands," Walsh said. "They know who they are and they know what their political stance is. They know that they have a really strong following that -- there's always going to be haters, but they're also always going to have that strong following of people who listen to everything that they have to say."
Andra Gillespie, an associate professor at Emory University who teaches African American politics, also said it is rare that a college athlete would make a significant impact with a political stand simply because they tend to have a more regional platform than national. Even celebrities like Taylor Swift and Eminem are better at increasing turnout than championing candidates.
"They are certainly very beneficial in helping to drive up turnout among their fans," Gillespie said. "The data is less conclusive about whether or not they're persuasive – are they the ones who are going to persuade you to vote for a particular candidate?"
Athletes as influencers
Still, campaigns know young voters are critical this election cycle, and athletes offer an effective and familiar voice to reach them.
Political and social topics are not often broached, but this week six Nebraska athletes — five softball players and a volleyball player — appeared in an ad paid for by the group Protect Women and Children involving two initiatives about abortion laws on Tuesday's ballot.
The female athletes backed Initiative 434, which would amend the state constitution to prohibit abortions after the first trimester, with exceptions. Star softball player Jordy Bahl said on social media that the athletes were not paid.
A University of Montana spokesperson said two athletes initially agreed to take part in the NIL deal backing Tester. The school said one withdrew and the other declined to be interviewed.
For Meskers, deciding against the offer boiled down to Tester twice voting against proposals to bar federal funds from going to schools that allow transgender athletes to play women's sports, a prominent GOP campaign topic. Tester's campaign said the proposals were amendments to government spending packages, and he didn't want to play a role in derailing them as government shutdowns loomed.
"As a former public school teacher and school board member, Jon Tester believes these decisions should be made at the local level," a Tester spokesperson said. "He has never voted to allow men to compete against women."
Meskers said she believes using influence as college athletes is good and she is in favor of NIL. She just doesn't think the two should mix specifically for supporting candidates.
"I think especially as student athletes, we do have such a big voice and we do have a platform to use," she said. "So I think if you're encouraging people to do their civic duties and get up and go (vote), I think that's a great thing."
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