Student tracking system full of gaps
By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
Two months after a national tracking system for foreign students went online, there are unexplained gaps in the information base, continuing technical problems and changes in regulations that Hawai'i colleges say have left students caught in the middle.
The problems are being echoed across the country as more than 7,500 schools and programs catering to international students phase in federally mandated SEVIS computer tracking, the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System for foreigners.
Nationally, colleges and universities have seen an 8 percent decline in foreign scholars coming to the United States and indications that several years of steady growth in numbers may have leveled off, which education officials blame on tighter security measures.
And with a key Aug. 1 SEVIS deadline looming, they fear a computer system fraught with problems could overload and crash at the height of fall enrollment, jeopardizing entry for 600,000 foreign students nationally who pumped $1.9 billion into the U.S. economy last year, of which $125 million went to Hawai'i from its 5,400 foreign students.
Legitimate students have been kept from re-entering the country because of technicalities, delays and other difficulties obtaining visas in their home countries — particularly Muslim and Arab nations — and likely many more problems that have not yet become apparent, education officials say.
"This is something that's affecting all the schools," said Scott Stensrud, associate vice president for enrollment management at Hawai'i Pacific University, which has the state's largest foreign enrollment at 1,700 last fall.
"If we make it so difficult to get a visa, it's hurting us now, but ultimately the impact to Hawai'i and the country will be huge," Stensrud said. "If those students never come and study in the U.S., who do they look to for expertise down the line?"
Federal officials implementing the system say problems are being addressed and the system is operational.
Congress required new tracking of foreigners after the discovery that at least one of the Sept. 11 hijackers had entered the country on a student visa but never attended school.
NAFSA, The Association of International Educators, a professional group representing 8,500 educators, issued a statement last week from its Washington headquarters saying there are "serious problems" with SEVIS "that could jeopardize international educational exchanges."
It pointed to concerns that the approximately 1 million records that must be entered before Aug. 1 could bring a system crash at the height of fall 2003 enrollment. Already, data contain errors and may disappear — hampering visa applications — or "bleed," leaking information about a student to a different institution in another state.
"It cannot be assumed that quick fixes and work-arounds will be sufficient to avert a catastrophic system breakdown," NAFSA said. That could prevent U.S. schools from admitting much of next fall's incoming foreign students.
Such problems have lit up the SEVIS Help Desk with 500 calls a day in recent months.
After spring break, two University of Hawai'i graduate students were denied entry, one in London, the other in Shanghai, because they lacked new SEVIS I-20 forms that are not even required yet.
In recent weeks, a Taiwanese student returning to Hawai'i Pacific University for summer session was turned back at Honolulu International Airport and sent home, even though she had appropriate visas and acceptance.
"The State Department changes their policies, and they do it with no warning, so the result is the students are stuck in the middle," said Linda Duckworth, director of International Student Services at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa, which has 1,600 foreign students.
David Gulick, Hawai'i interim district director for the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration under the Department of Homeland Security, which now handles immigration, admitted there are problems, but said they are being resolved.
"Whenever we change regulations and laws, I guess you have to assume there are going to be some people caught somewhere in the process," Gulick said.
Johnny N. Williams, interim director in Washington for the bureau's Immigration Interior Enforcement, told congressional leaders last week that SEVIS is a "work in progress."
By Aug. 1, an estimated 500,000 foreign students attending colleges, universities, trade schools and high schools across the United States must be registered with SEVIS and have SEVIS I-20 forms to enter or leave the country.
"If they're not in compliance," Gulick said, "we could seek to revoke their approval."
In Hawai'i, schools with foreign students must be certified in the new system by Feb. 15, but some schools have yet to apply.
"We had a school call us and say, 'What is SEVIS?' " just a few days ago, Gulick said.
Colleges have not been given enough time to understand and work with the system, said Duckworth, and many schools lack technical staff to meet the need.
Large colleges are having trouble with the batch procedure, a computer program that allows easier updating of data than "real-time entry" and can give colleges access to academic information themselves — once they get the system running.
SEVIS needs to be updated every time a student changes majors, enters a new program, moves or changes one of numerous life details. With a processing time of three students per hour in real time, that's hundreds of labor hours that batch could do more efficiently, Duckworth said.
"The schools don't have any problem with a system of checks," said HPU's Stensrud. "Everyone is concerned about the safety side. But the onerous nature of it just seems to go beyond that. Students are just a tiny fraction of the overall international population (in the country), yet they're being scrutinized on a much higher level. A tourist, in many cases, can enter more easily."
Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.
