Tightening the U.S. Borders Takes a Toll on Foreign Students

Madhu Ganugapati, owner of a computer science degree from the university known as ''India's MIT,'' was so coveted by the University of Miami that it offered him an all-expenses-paid package to study and teach as a graduate student on the Coral Gables campus.

A two-minute conversation with an impatient U.S. consular officer in India in the summer of 2002 derailed both Ganugapati's dream and the university's plans.

''It was the first time I had spoken with an American,'' said Ganugapati, who speaks fluent English, though with what most Americans would consider a heavy accent. 'I kept saying, `Pardon me, sir?' He got irritated, took out his rejection stamp and said 'You don't have sufficient English to be admitted.' ''

Thousands of international students like Ganugapati have had their plans to study in the United States hampered, delayed or ruined altogether by this country's tightening of visa policies and practices since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The visa review process now can take months, which has caused some students to miss whole semesters. Applicants are being questioned more rigorously. Overcautious consular officers -- such as, apparently, the one Ganugapati encountered -- prefer to reject applicants rather than risk making a mistake, critics say.

''No one wants to be the one who admits the wrong person,'' said Victor C. Johnson, policy director for the Washington-based Association of International Educators.

Ganugapati persisted. On his third application, his student visa was approved. He enrolled at UM last fall. But experts say the increased difficulty in obtaining visas is a key reason behind a nationwide drop in the number of foreign students applying to and enrolling in U.S. universities.

It's a trend also being felt in South Florida, where the weak economies in many Latin American and Caribbean countries are also depressing the number of new international students.

''It's a downward slump. It's not very positive,'' said Paula Epstein, director of International Student Services at Miami Dade College, where international student enrollment dropped 6 percent from 2001 to 2002, and another 18 percent last fall.

The number of foreign students at the college surged 72 percent between 1998 and 2001, from 1,289 students to 2,211, before reversing after the Sept. 11 attacks.

''A lot of our feeder countries are going through terrible financial difficulties,'' Epstein said. "Venezuelans, Argentines and Colombians are having a lot of difficulty getting money out of their countries to pay for schooling.''

AT BCC

The downward trend is even more pronounced at Broward Community College.

''We've experienced a 26 percent decline from the fall of 2001 to the fall of 2003 . . . and the number of applications has declined even more than that,'' said Barry Mowell, chair of BCC's International Education Committee.

Mowell blames the lengthier visa review process and the bureaucratic demands of the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, which among other things, requires visa students to report every time they change or drop a course.

''A lot of [international students] are just sick of the process,'' Mowell said. "It's simply much easier to go to Canada or Australia or the European countries, which is a shame.''

The visa procurement process is slower, mostly because the U.S. State Department asks various agencies to screen more applicants for potential security risks than it did before 9/11.

Even so, 85 percent of the reviews still are completed within 30 days, said Kelly Shannon, a Bureau of Consular Affairs spokeswoman.

''It's not more difficult to get a visa,'' Shannon said. "It might take longer, but we have not changed the eligibility requirements.''

WEARING THIN

But observers, citing a slide in international student applications, say the increasing hassles are beginning to wear on would-be students.

• Florida Atlantic University has seen a 42 percent decline in enrolled foreign students over the past two years.

• Florida International University has seen a 27 percent drop.

• Nova Southeastern University's foreign student enrollment jumped from 327 in 2001 to 480 in 2002, but declined to 437 in 2003.

• At Barry University, applications for the upcoming fall session are down about 30 percent.

''A lot of students are starting to go to the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia,'' said Rick Wilkinson, Barry's director of undergraduate admissions. ``Those countries are recruiting more heavily, and the exchange rates aren't as high.''

• At the University of Miami, foreign graduate student enrollment dropped from 206 in 2002 to 162 this year. And foreign undergraduate applications fell 13 percent last year compared to 2001.

Mark G. Reid, UM's director of international admissions, said his staff visits 60 countries every year, which has helped the school attract slightly more international applications for fall 2004 compared to last year.

TREND LEVELS OFF

Nationwide, a long upward trend in international undergraduate student applications has leveled off this year, said Johnson of the Association of International Educators. But graduate student applications are down more than 30 percent.

''That would be unprecedented in the post-World War II era,'' Johnson said. "The people with the option to study elsewhere other than the United States, in some significant numbers, are doing so. If you assume that the people with the most options are the brightest people, it means you're losing the best and the brightest.''

That was almost the case with Ganugapati, who accepted a lucrative position in India with a U.S.-based computer company after his first application was rejected. Had it not been for the efforts of his UM faculty advisor, Dilip Sarkar -- himself a 1985 émigré from India -- and a different U.S. consular agent who was properly impressed with his credentials when he applied for the third time, Ganugapati would be utilizing his skills somewhere far from Coral Gables.

In the short run, the decline in foreign students reduces campus diversity and interaction, impairs research programs that rely heavily on international students and scholars, and even has a financial impact on state schools, which charge nonresident students as much as five times the tuition paid by residents.

FUTURE IMPLICATIONS

Over the longer term, the United States could lose out as fewer of the world's future political leaders, scientists and business figures opt for a U.S. education -- and the valuable exposure to American ideals that subliminally accompanies it, Johnson said.

''If we're not attracting the future leaders of the world as we used to, it goes beyond any provincial interest the universities might have; this is a matter of national interest,'' Johnson said.

It's a problem cited by Secretary of State Colin Powell in his testimony before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States last week.

''We cannot be so afraid that we don't let anybody into our country,'' he said. "It's costing now. We don't let students come to our universities because we're concerned, or they don't want to come to our universities because they are afraid of the difficulty of getting a visa . . . or the harassment they sometimes feel at our airports.

"So we have to secure the homeland, but we also have to remain an open nation, or the terrorists win.''