Policy Brief vol.2 issue.9

Next President Should Make
International Education Policy Central
to Meeting National Needs

By Marlene M. Johnson
Executive Director and CEO
NAFSA: Association of International Educators

As we head into the thick of the 2008 presidential campaign season, it remains to be seen whether the next president will make it a priority to marshal the vital resource of international education to serve our nation’s needs. The nation faces important economic, security and public diplomacy challenges, and our next president, regardless of party affiliation, would be wise to take into account the important contribution international education can make in helping to address those challenges. One thing is clear: A U.S. policy for international education should be a central part of our next president’s solution to re-establishing America’s rightful place as a respected leader of the world and to restoring hope for a more prosperous, secure future.

It is no longer a point of debate on either side of the aisle that America’s image in the world has suffered. Countless domestic and international polls have born witness to this fact. The relevant questions are: what can be done to improve our relations with the rest of the world, and how the next president can best lead our nation to demonstrate the values of openness and fairness, understanding and mutual respect that have made this country a beacon of hope in the past. In that debate, the candidate who will come out on top will be the one who recognizes the critical role international education plays in restoring our leadership position, and who vows to declare an international education policy for the United States to ensure that role is maximized.

For more than a generation, America’s leaders have recognized and sought to tap the power of educational exchanges as a tool of public diplomacy. These programs have a proven track record of building meaningful ties of understanding, sensitivity, and friendship between the United States and the rest of the world.

At the same time, in today’s global economy, educational exchanges are fundamental to our very ability to compete on a global playing field. We need a citizenry that can function effectively and exercise responsible leadership in a global setting, and we need to tap the best in international talent - talent is increasingly scarce, mobile, and in high demand - to fuel innovation in our country. Today’s unprecedented movement of people across borders has fundamentally shifted the playing field in education, business, and scientific and technological discovery. Educational exchanges have a key role to play in ensuring our global competitiveness.


The United States Still Needs an International Education Policy

Despite some progress over the past eight years, our nation still lacks a comprehensive U.S. policy on international education to maximize the benefits of international education in serving our national interests. NAFSA and the Alliance for International Educational and Cultural Exchange first recognized the need for such a policy in 1999. Just before leaving office, President Clinton signed the first-ever Executive Memorandum on international education, and the following year, the Senate unanimously passed a bi-partisan resolution calling for an international education policy. These two actions were significant because they reflected an effort to actually set objectives the nation should seek to attain, and outlined basic operational strategies to accomplish those objectives.

More recent signs of progress include a renewed appreciation for the value of international students and scholars as an asset for our nation, a growing movement in Congress to ensure that our own students know more about the rest of the world through significantly increased study abroad, and numerous positive statements about international educational exchange made over the years by President Bush and other high-level officials. But these and other individual initiatives do not constitute a national policy.

The purpose of establishing a U.S. international education policy is to get to a point where we have a clear policy articulated by the highest level of government -- and by this, I mean the president -- that brings together government, higher education, and the private sector in a concerted effort to ensure that we reap the maximum benefits from this national asset.

Absent a policy – not rhetoric, but actual policy - it is inevitable that one agency’s or bureau’s good work will be canceled out by another’s inadvertent missteps. To illustrate this point, consider the Secure Borders-Open Doors vision announced by the Secretary of State and Secretary of Homeland Security for making the United States more welcoming for foreign visitors while improving border security. In spite of some important progress in visa reform, cases of well-known scientists and scholars subjected to bureaucratic red tape or unexplained visa denials continue to harm the reputation of the United States as a place that welcomes the world’s talent, and international student enrollment in the United States has continued to decline for the past three academic years while other countries’ enrollments continue to grow. Even while State Department officials are trying to spread the word that our welcome mat is out, the fact remains that U.S. consulates still do not have the discretion to grant waivers of personal appearance based on risk analysis, resulting in increased expenses and hassles for applicants who have to travel long distances for interviews, even if they have been granted a visa in the past and clearly pose no security threat. And even though we claim to want to attract the world’s best and brightest to help drive our economy, we still deny them entry unless they can prove they do not intend to stay in the United States after completing their studies.

As I have noted many times in citing these and other examples, that is the reality "on the ground," beneath all the rhetoric. These are the kinds of things that are inevitable when you don’t have a comprehensive policy making sure the right hand knows what the left hand is doing and when our laws are not brought into conformity with our interests.

Let me be clear - all that I've described does not result from anyone doing anything intentionally wrong, but rather from people acting in the sincere belief that they are serving the national interest. Such incidents always happen in a policy vacuum, where there is no clear, authoritative articulation at the highest levels of where the national interest lies. In that situation, every proposal that seems by itself to "make us safer" prevails, and it is easy to end up over time with a series of discrete actions whose cumulative, long-term consequences are to undermine our national security by restricting our access to essential foreign talent and the international leaders of tomorrow.

What is perhaps most concerning is that the United States has failed to keep up with other countries in this regard. While other nations’ leaders are declaring policies that articulate clear objectives, coordinate strategies to cut across bureaucratic lines, and marshal resources accordingly, the United States continues to lose market share in the competition for the world’s best and brightest, and the percentage of American students studying abroad continues to hover at an embarrassing one percent of the overall undergraduate student population.


So why has the United States failed thus far to declare such a policy?

It is much easier to start a few programs or parade a few initiatives out in front of the media than it is to guide the nation toward clear objectives and to coordinate across agencies. I am not saying it is easy, but with strong leadership, it is possible. Our bureaucracy responds well to strong presidential leadership that sets a clear policy direction and requires results.

The next president must articulate a national strategy for restoring the status of the United States as a magnet for international students, scholars, and leading scientists, and for making sure Americans know more about the rest of the world through study abroad. A senior White House official should be in charge of carrying out that strategy and holding each agency head accountable for ensuring that different bureaus are not working at cross-purposes. Each relevant federal agency should report to him or her on how it proposes to help carry out the overall strategy and should submit periodic reports on its progress.


A Call for Leadership

The next president would face few political obstacles in advancing national policies that launch the United States into its proper role as the global leader in educating the world, that foster a welcoming climate in which all can benefit from the exchange of knowledge and ideas, and that ensure that the next generation of our own citizens is well-equipped to succeed in a competitive world.

We call for new leadership in articulating a comprehensive policy that makes a long-term commitment to international education one of the nation's highest priorities, sets ambitious goals, and rallies all stakeholders to do their part. For more information, go to www.nafsa.org/niep.