JG-TC.com > News > UIUC has more foreign students that any public U.S. university

TODAY'S HEADLINES

SPECIAL SECTION

ONLINE POLL

ONLINE EXTRAS

Shop Smart, Shop Local

SITE TOOLS

OTHER LINKS

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Lee Enterprises

Monday, March 31, 2008 8:50 PM CDT
UIUC has more foreign students that any public U.S. university

By the JG/T-C
editorial@jg-tc.com

URBANA (AP) — The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has more than 5,000 international students, more than any other public university in the United States, according to the Institute of International Education.

University officials say the students add diversity to the campus, but some critics accuse the university of using international students and the higher tuition they pay to shore up the school’s finances.

The students come from 120 countries and make up about 13 percent of the 41,000 students on the university’s flagship campus. Ten years ago, only about nine percent of the students at UIUC came from foreign countries.

“The world is getting to know what the U of I has to offer,” Rajmohan Gandhi, a research professor at the university, told the Chicago Sun-Times.

University officials like Gandhi say international students bring diversity to the campus and prepare Illinois students to work in a global economy.

But some critics say the university is using foreign students — who pay far more than in-state students — to generate cash in tough economic times. And that, the critics say, limits the number of spots open to students from Illinois.

Foreign students paid $45 million to attend the U of I last year.

“We are exporting our education out of the country,” said Girardo Rosales, an assistant dean of students at the university.

Rosales stressed that he was expressing his personal views and not speaking for the university. He noted that the number of foreign students is rising faster than the increase in underrepresented minority groups.

But university officials point out that 87 percent of freshmen students are from Illinois, a higher percentage than any other Big Ten school.

Two years ago the university announced a plan to recruit more higher-paying out-of-state students. The school ditched the idea after public complaints that more in-state students might be turned away as a result.

School officials say they do little overseas recruiting. The influx, they say, is due to word-of-mouth advertising by students returning home with degrees.

“This is a prestigious school in Korea,” freshman Yaebeen Na said. The 18-year-old is one of almost 1,300 South Koreans on campus, the single largest group of foreign students.

Add your comments

*Member ID:
*Password:
Remember login? (requires cookies)
	Forgot Your Password?

Not already registered?
Then click Here.

Comment policy:

JG-TC.com encourages readers to engage in civil conversation with their neighbors. Comments that are submitted are not posted to the site immediately. They go into a queue to be moderated and may take several hours to be reviewed. Comments posted on Saturday may not be reviewed until Sunday afternoon.

In order to keep the page a set width, long lines (mostly long links) will be chopped. Try putting spaces in your links or consider using tinyurl.com to make a smaller link that you can include.

We will never edit or alter your comments, but we do reserve the right to remove comments that violate our code of conduct.

No comment may contain:

* Potentially libelous statements; such as accusing somebody of a crime, defamation of character, or statements that can harm somebody's reputation.
* Obscene, explicit, or racist language.
* Personal attacks, insults, threats, harassment or inciting violence.
* Commercial product promotions.

If you have any questions, please contact our moderator.