Posted on: Thursday, November 21, 2002
Tighter regulations not deterring many foreign students
By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Ethnic Affairs Writer
A year after the terrorist attacks and onset of stricter regulations on international travel, Hawai'i colleges are finding that Sept. 11 has not winnowed the ranks of foreign students as much as they feared, and that whether the students come hinges much more on the economic health of their home countries.
Bernard Chong, associate director of international admissions at Hawaii Pacific University, yesterday told the Japan-America Society of Hawaii that HPU administrators "have not seen a lot of downward trends" because of heightened U.S. scrutiny over student visa applications.
He was one of the panelists addressing the society on "Immigration: Impact from 9-11." HPU is one of the major destinations for foreign students in Hawai'i; about one-fourth of its enrollment of 8,100 are international students on visas.
Chong said he had to intervene to educate prospective students to head off a decline. Many applicants had heard rumors about how the U.S. government would investigate their personal histories, he said. He would fire them back an e-mail explaining that the visa process would take about two weeks instead of just a few days. One reason for the lengthier delay is the creation of the Student Exchange Visitor Information System, an electronic database to make it easier to track international students in the United States. This project, like many others, was already in the works before Sept. 11 but the heightened concern for homeland security brought in the money and support to get it running, said David Gulick, examinations associate director at the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Gulick said the consul staff takes longer with visas because they must input student information and check it against information gathered by other agencies.
It may be a nuisance, he said, but it's a key element in "the whole concept of homeland security."
Michiyo Nakayama, dean of administration at the Japan-based TransPacific Hawaii College, attended the discussion and agreed that security concerns haven't scared off students. Instead, ongoing economic problems in Japan and the easing by Japanese universities on admissions requirements have siphoned off the study-abroad contingent.
Elsewhere, admissions officers have given this issue ample thought. Mike Sudlow is director of international admissions at Brigham Young University-Hawaii, where international students represent 42 percent of the total 2,493 on campus.
Sudlow said visa reviews are stricter but not only because of security issues. The problem has been most evident with applicants from mainland China; several Chinese students applying to BYUH had their visas rejected, he said.
"It's because there's a history of the Chinese students not going back," Sudlow said. "I think it's justified; the kids need to recognize that if they want a future for their country they need to go home."
