Foreign students face higher costs to attend American universities

The rate of foreign applications to American universities has increased over the last decade, but this may slow as the U.S Department of Homeland Security plans to double the fees that international students must pay in order to study here.The fees help offset the costs of federal surveillance that monitors student activities.This could have a negative effect not only on major colleges and universities with a large contingent of foreign students, but also on smaller institutions that rely on full tuition-paying students from abroad to help offset costs and subsidize scholarships for American students. The increase in fees to as much as $200 is scheduled to take effect Oct. 1. Nationally, after seeing a 12 percent growth in 2006, the number of applications from abroad dropped to just 3 percent this year. Admissions officials were startled to see no growth in the number of applications from India in 2007, the country that has traditionally sent the largest number of students. China follows India in sending the most students to the U.S. each year. …………..An increase in fees could have a negative impact on enrollment at such small universities, many of them having spent years establishing close ties to China and other foreign countries. The contributions these universities make to American culture and education often go unnoticed. [View Full Article]