Speeches and Articles by U.S. Consul General James B. Cunningham

"International Education and the United States"
Remarks by U.S. Consul General James B. Cunningham
to Macau University of Science and Technology
November 17, 2006

(As prepared for delivery)

Good afternoon.

Thank you for that kind introduction. Rector Xu, Professors, faculty and students: I am happy today to visit your campus and to have this chance to speak to you about the value of international education and about the value Americans attach to attracting foreign students to study in the United States. I have a good story to tell you today.

This week marks the seventh annual International Education Week, which is sponsored by my government.  International Education Week encourages schools, universities, communities, nonprofit organizations, and businesses across the United States and worldwide to promote international educational exchange. This year’s theme is International Education: Engaging in Global Partnerships and Opportunities. We seek to promote international understanding. We encourage programs that prepare Americans to live and work in a global environment, and attract students from around the world to study in the United States.

Why does the United States sponsor this effort? In the last few years, some people have had the mistaken impression that the U.S. no longer welcomes foreign students, and no longer encourages its youth to study abroad.   If you don’t remember anything else from my speech today, I want you to remember this: the United States believes International education is very important. We want American students and scholars to study and do research abroad, and to learn foreign languages. We want foreign students and scholars to come to America. We strongly believe that foreign scholars are an essential part of our American higher educational system. When they return home to their own countries, they contribute to their own educational systems and economies, and help their countrymen to better understand the United States. The good news is that America’s doors are open and we are back in the lead in overseas education.

We Americans are profoundly aware, perhaps better than most, of what can be gained from a diversity of peoples, backgrounds, experiences, and cultures. We are often called "a nation of immigrants." The vast majority of Americans are either themselves immigrants or descended from immigrants. America is made up of people who fled economic hardship, political repression, religious persecution, or war; people who came looking for opportunity and a better life; people forced into involuntary servitude and imported as cargo to provide cheap labor; people from every part of the globe and of every ethnicity and religion. This great diversity made America. Even our native peoples were immigrants of sorts, having long ago come across the Bering Strait from Asia. The U.S. has given a home to all these various peoples, to elements of their culture and experience, to their language and their music. And we produced a new nation known for productivity, creativity, freedom, and diversity.

Study abroad is not as dramatic as the saga of the immigrants who made America, but its impact on our societies in a globalizing world may be no less profound.

The benefits of an overseas education are greater today than ever before. I myself come from a small city in Eastern Pennsylvania. I spent a semester abroad. I was the first -- and last-- member of my family to travel outside the United States. That experience changed my life, as it does for most people. There is intrinsic value in studying in another country: learning a new language, immersing oneself in a new culture, discovering new ideas, exploring new foods and habits, and making new friends. The experience is uniquely fascinating and broadening.

In addition, an international education is increasingly valuable in the marketplace.   According to a survey last year, Hong Kong employers found graduates with cross-cultural experience to be more flexible, open-minded, and independent. These graduates also possessed a broader vision of the world and economic trends. This international experience--the ability not only to speak in but to think in more than one language, the ability to operate effectively in multiple cultural settings--make a job seeker much more competitive in an increasingly globalized marketplace. And the personal networks established abroad of friends, colleagues, and former professors can remain in place for life.

For my country, the benefits of international experience manifest themselves not only in the life of an individual, but in the whole nation’s life. Students with international experience are an important asset, and international education is important economically for the United States as well. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the value of foreign study in the United States, which we might call "education exports", is high indeed: 13.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2003 - about a billion dollars more than the U.S. earned from grain exports. This figure has almost doubled since 1993.

Economics is only one reason that overseas students are so important to the U.S. academic and scientific communities. Of even greater importance than the financial rewards are the intellectual and creative contributions of our classmates and colleagues from abroad. The large numbers of overseas students coming to U.S. colleges enrich our academic world, and the lives of our own students. These exchanges are critical to developing mutual understanding and respect, building leadership, and investing in the future relationship between Americans and citizens around the world. As U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings – who this week led a high-profile delegation of American college and university presidents to China for International Education Week – said recently,

"Education … teaches all of us to see beyond our borders and boundaries, both real and imagined. It teaches us to overcome stereotypes and appreciate cultures other than our own. In so doing, it gives us hope for a brighter future by advancing freedom, opportunity and understanding."

For their part, American students appreciate that international education prepares them to live, work, and compete in the global economy.  Fully 88 percent of American college students believe international education will give them a competitive advantage in the workplace, and 206,000 Americans—up 144% over the last decade—currently study abroad, 6,400 of them in China. American students also welcome foreign students as classmates. Almost 90 percent of American college students believe international students on campus enriches their own learning experience, and want them to come to their campuses.

And come you do. America wants to be a beacon of educational opportunity to the rest of the world. The United States offers a great experience for overseas education. Independent rating bodies consistently rank U.S. universities as the best in the world. (As an example, organizations as varied as The Economist magazine and Shanghai Jiaotong University both recently ranked 17 American institutions as among the top 20 universities in the world.) We are famous for our technology centers, laboratory and other facilities, business, professional and liberal arts schools, and renowned faculty. As a whole, American higher education is unparalleled. We also have an extensive network of community colleges, vocational institutes, and adult education centers that provide quality educational opportunities to people from all walks of life and all levels of educational attainment. This helps explain why more than 590,000 international students from over 200 countries studied in the U.S. last year, an all-time record. This includes over 62,500 from Mainland China, which is the second largest source of students, and almost 8,000 from Hong Kong and Macau.

We want even more of you to come. The U.S. State Department is working around the globe to strike the right balance between our dual goals of making sure that the doors to the United States are both open and secure.

The last four years have been a time of unprecedented change in visa and immigration practices. Many people have the impression that foreign students can’t travel to the United States to study, that it is too hard to get accepted into U.S. schools, or that getting a U.S. visa is impossible. This is just not true, as the numbers show. There were delays in the processing of student visa applications after the September 11 attacks, particularly in the spring and summer of 2002. However, the Department of State never "cut back" the number of student visas or changed the criteria for visa issuance.   But additional security review in some cases slowed the visa process, and resulting delays sometimes caused students to miss the beginning of semesters.

But I can tell you that such delays are now a thing of the past. In recent years we have worked tirelessly to increase the transparency, efficiency, and predictability of the visa process, with a special focus on students.   We have implemented significant improvements in the visa process, and we have successes to report. Students can now apply for their visas 120 days before the start of their program and schedule their appointments as soon as they have been accepted to school. Our embassies and consulates give priority to student visa applications and we post appointment wait times on our websites. Today, ninety-seven percent of qualified candidates receive their visas within two days.

Most parts of the student visa application process remain the same. Prospective students still need to demonstrate the ability to finance their education – either through family finances or grants. They need to show a serious course of study and the intention to return to their home country after the conclusion of their program.

There have been some extra steps added. All visa applicants, including students, have to appear at a U.S. embassy or consulate for a personal interview, submit a photograph, and have their index fingers scanned electronically to help confirm their identity. The new process is simple. These new measures and systems actually facilitate legitimate travel and make it easier for students and other visitors to pass through U.S. ports of entry. This contributes to safer travel for everyone.

We are pleased to see that the number of students receiving visas worldwide is returning to normal growth levels.  The number of student visas issued in 2005 rose about 6.5%, nearly returning to 2002 levels. At posts in China, the number of student visas issued increased dramatically. In Beijing, the number of visas issued grew 32%, in Shanghai, 20%, and in Guangzhou, 31%. Student visa approval rates remain high. It may surprise some of you to know that in Mainland China, almost 85% of student applicants are granted visas to study in the U.S., and in Hong Kong, over 95% of student visa applicants are approved. This figure includes PRC passport holders and Macau passport holders who are resident in Hong Kong or Macau. High approval rates result when the applicants make themselves strong candidates by making clear their intent return after their U.S. studies, and that they have developed solid plans for their studies in the U.S.

As you can see, the United States is working hard to promote and facilitate travel by foreign students to the U.S. The enhancements we have made in the visa process help protect the safety and security of those visiting the U.S., as well as our own citizens. Our goal is to make the U.S. safer while staying true to our heritage as a welcoming nation.

Our colleges and universities want good international students. And I can say we want all of you—students from Hong Kong, Macau, and Mainland China—who are interested in furthering your education to seriously consider studying in the U.S. American doors are open, and we have a wide variety of schools interested in you. I encourage you to start looking at what we have to offer, and to apply.

Thank you.

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