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Sunday, March 2, 1997

TRENDS:

Anti-foreign sentiment may cause slowing of increase in non-immigrants to U.S.By Yvonne Champana

Daily Bruin Contributor

Seventeen year-old Tamar Cherebin is the only student at UCLA from her country, the Bahamas. She began her dream of studying here years ago by watching television, particularly sports. That dream materialized, and Cherebin is now UCLA's top junior sprinter on an athletic scholarship.

Cherebin is one of UCLA's non-immigrant foreign students, as part of a program that has grown by seven percent this year. The growth is unusual since the program has experienced a downward trend of approximately 5 percent between 1993 and 1995, according to the UCLA Office of Planning and Budget and UCLA's Office of International Students and Scholars (OISS).

Nationwide, colleges are experiencing the slowest increase ­ only one-third of one percent ­ of non-immigrant foreign students in over 25 years, according to the Institute of International Education's report, "Open Doors 1995-1996."

This recent slowdown has some experts worried that Americans are losing a share of the world market in education, according to an article published December 1996 in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The article cited that one reason for the decline of interest in American colleges could stem from a rising "anti-foreign" sentiment in the United States, causing foreign students to look elsewhere.

In the early 1980's, about 40 percent of all international students worldwide studied in the United States. Now only 32 percent are coming here, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

The "anti-foreign" sentiment that has some experts concerned may be the result of recent U.S. legislation, according to Jimmy White, counselling attorney at the OISS.

The new law, the "Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996," goes into effect today and may have serious consequences for non-immigrant students and all non-immigrants who stay in the U.S. beyond their authorized time limit, said White.

Previously, foreigners were treated more lightly for this offense, White said, but now those who overstay will be barred from returning to the United States for as long as three to 10 years.

"Cost and personal circumstances are often more important than laws," White said however, in causing the nationwide slowdown in non-immigrant foreign students choosing to study in the U.S.

One important factor is that it is primarily affluent students who are able to study here. "You can't see there the marginal and lower-income scale students," White said of the approximately $14,000 a year cost of tuition, which is paid for primarily by personal and family funds, according to the Institute of International Education.

The cost of out-of-state tuition which non-immigrant students pay has approximately doubled in the last seven years, White said.

This increase may be partly due to the difficulty of nonresidents to rally together and protest such increases since they hail from divergent backgrounds. The majority of the non-immigrant students also return to their homelands upon graduation, which may make the politics of allocating funds more complex, White said.

On a personal level, families can object to their children studying such a long way off, as did Cherebin's mother, who did not want her daughter to study here until she realized that it would be the fulfillment of her daughter's dream.

America's lack of community and family values, and personal difficulties with the language and prejudice are some other factors that the non-immigrant students mention as reasons to not study in the States, according to some international students.

"American people don't have their priorities straight with families and other things," said Melinda Holme, a third-year design student from Australia. Holme plans to return directly home following graduation. Holme has not seen her mother in three years because making a trip back home has been too expensive for her, with the high airline costs.

Yelena Vdovichenko, a third-year English and computer science student who got all A's her first quarter at UCLA, plans to stay in the United States after graduation, in spite of the fact that she claims "here, teachers are prejudiced because of your accent and it's very intimidating and they don't give you the opportunity to show what you know."

In other countries, Vdovichenko says, teachers are more welcoming to hear foreign students attempt to speak their language.

Foreign non-immigrant students contribute to UCLA life in a unique way, White said, and combine with immigrant students to create approximately one quarter of UCLA's student body.

"Foreign students tend to be very serious, loading up on classes and getting the work done. Very few dilly-dally," he said.

UCLA is so popular among foreigners that White said he has often seen UCLA sweatshirts worn for fashion in other countries. Sometimes when he asks if natives know what the letters signify, they reply, "it's ooklah."

UCLA is currently building a new International Students Center, situated at the corner of Strathmore and Gayley and slated for completion in August 1997.

"The new Center is going to make it possible for us to attract national and international conferences and symposiums," White said. He thinks the Center will also make UCLA increasingly attractive to foreign students.

White also hopes that the location near the fraternity houses will generate a certain amount of "cultural exchange" with the fraternities, who many foreign students have stereotypes about, which, White said, he does not share.

He stresses that the foreign students, who he says can be "real whizzes but struggle socially," and other UCLA and students and staff must learn to communicate, tolerate and understand, rather than divide through differences.

The "anti-foreign" sentiment ... may be the result of recent U.S. legislation.