Tag: SEVIS

SEVIS Report Suggests India Woes for US Higher Education

The January 2020 reporting from SEVIS* reveals a continuing decline in international student enrollments from Asia in the US.  The figures also point to growing problems with higher education enrollments by students from India.  Even post-study work program Optional Practical Training (OPT), which has propped up the recent headline numbers presented by Open Doors, may be struggling

Over the three-year period** from December 2017 the SEVIS Data Mapping Tool shows a decline of 70,194 student visa holders*** from Asia – a drop of 7.6%.  The percentage of the total from Asia has fallen from 77.2% to 75.47% over the period.  Tables 1 and 2 look at aggregate SEVIS numbers while tables 3 and 4 look at specific levels of study.

Table 1 – SEVIS Data Mapping of Asian Student Visa Holders December 2017 to January 2020 

Source: SEVIS

Digging further into the data by country the latest numbers show particular reductions in the number of visa holders from China and Indian.  The 2017 to 2018 loss for the two countries was just over 11,000 but this accelerated with a drop of a further 20,000 from 2018 to January 2020.  Particularly troubling was the rapid decline in Indian visa holders where a 3,500 fall from 2017 to 2018 became a further decline of 14,200 to January 2020.

Table 2   SEVIS Data Mapping of China and India Student Visa Holders December 2017 to January 2020 

Source: SEVIS

SEVIS also provides an opportunity to see which type of student visa holder has been most affected by the decline.  There are a number of categories but the focus will be on students listed in the Doctoral, Masters and Bachelor’s category as these are most relevant to universities and colleges.  China and India show quite different patterns with the latter suggesting a rapidly worsening situation for higher education enrollment.

Accelerating Decline from India

A breakdown of the India student visa holder numbers shows that the number listed at Master’s level fell by around 7,000 from 2017 to 2018 and then a further 19,850 to January 2020.  A modest upswing of around 3,300 in Bachelor’s and, a more encouraging, 5,400 in Doctor’s complete the picture.  If the Master’s level deterioration continues there will need to be continuing growth in other categories to take up the slack.

It has been noted in many quarters that the UK’s reinstatement of a benevolent post-study work visa regime is already providing attractive to students from India.  Visas granted to students from India were up 63% year on year to September 2019.  With the full implementation of the new regime for students starting their degree in Fall 2020 it is widely anticipated that this will be a bumper year for enrollments in the UK and may bring more challenges for the US.

Table 3 SEVIS Data Mapping of India Master’s, Bachelor’s and Doctoral Level Student Visa Holders  (December 2017 to January 2020)

Source: SEVIS

China Stable But Pipeline May Be Thinning

The China breakdown is showing that the same three categories are reasonably robust but that there has been a decline in Secondary, Associate and Language levels.  This is a development which might, over the longer term, impact on the pipeline of students moving on to higher education.  With the range of potential US enrollment challenges relating to Chinese students growing there is plenty of reason to be concerned that Fall 2020 and beyond will be impacted.

While coronavirus is a rapidly developing issue that is likely to disrupt recruitment of Chinese students to all countries there is little doubt that recent rhetoric and actions in the US have also done damage that may be lasting.  With friendlier tones taken by competitor countries and the availability of better value, good quality options for an increasingly economically pressed middle class in China it may be that even maintaining enrollment levels will be a struggle.  While the decline in China’s 18-year old population has leveled out it will not return to the volumes seen in the last decade in the near future.

Table 4 SEVIS Data Mapping of China Master’s, Bachelor’s and Doctoral Level Student Visa Holders showing also combined Secondary, Associate and Language Holders (December 2017 to January 2020)

Source: SEVIS

As has been noted it is difficult to get to the underlying picture on enrollments because of the intermingling of different visa types and the particular issues related to the historical growth of visa holders doing OPT.  The rapid drop in the numbers for India would, however, suggest that there is a degree of market movement and that US Consul General Joel Reifman’s thoughts on relations between the two countries needs some work.

If, as suggested by some commentators, the size of the decline in Indian Master’s students is partly due to them reaching the end of OPT and not being replaced by incoming students this might suggest that students are becoming used to selecting countries that offer a better path for work or citizenship.  That does not seem like particularly good news for the longer term.   There are plenty of competitors willing to offer alternatives.

Notes

*SEVIS is the web-based tool that the Department of Homeland Security uses to maintain information on non-immigrant students, exchange visitors and their dependents.

**The SEVIS data is not exact to the month on a year by year basis.  The charts reflect the month of publication for the figures shown. 

***The term ‘student visa holder/s’ is used to describe the aggregate numbers shown by SEVIS for the region, countries and/or levels of study shown. 

SEVIS With A Smile? Or ‘A Delusion, A Mockery And A Snare’?

Data-driven predictions of future international student enrollments can be very useful for international recruiters, university budgeting and potential investors in higher education.  Recent commentary using Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) data shows how visa data can be characterized in a way that suggests the challenges faced by US higher education are overstated.  But clarity around what this data source includes and where it might exaggerate or diminish trends is vital to avoid misdirection and poor decision making.     

The increasingly user-friendly ‘SEVIS By the Numbers’ web-site provides good access to visa data complete with interactive maps and is a popular source.  It claims it ‘illustrates trends and information on international students studying in the United States’ but it does not disaggregate between those enrolled at universities and those on student visas taking the Optional Practical Training (OPT) extension which allows for post-study work.  Confusing or conflating the two is unhelpful in understanding the implications for the state of US higher education.  

Executive action in 2016 increased the maximum length of employment under OPT for foreign students with STEM degrees to 36 months, which, along with a booming US economy, resulted in a material increase in the number of STEM graduates staying on to work in the US.  While these students hold F-1 visas (and are reported in the SEVIS numbers), they are not tuition-paying students enrolled in a US university.    

To give a sense of materiality of the OPT numbers, the Institute of International Education (IIE) Open Doors Report reports shows that the proportion of OPT students rose to 18.6% of ‘total international students’ in 2017/18 from 12.4% in 2014/15.  When the IIE announced that the ‘number of international students’ increased to reach a new high of 1,094,000 in 2017/18, the growth in OPT numbers masked the reality that students enrolled in full-time study in US universities actually declined year-on-year and were lower than 2015/16.

Source: Institute of International Education, 2018, https://www.iie.org/opendoors

A better guide to the health and future of international student recruitment may be provided by IIE’s data which shows that both undergraduate and postgraduate new enrollments have fallen for two years in a row, and non-degree enrollments for three.  Critically, between 2015/16 and 2017/18 the number of undergraduates and graduates enrolled fell by over 17,000 while the number of non-degree students fell by less than 5,000.  While percentage falls in non-degree students can look high, the number of students is relatively low compared to the main body of academic students.        

Master’s Level Enrollments and Students From India

Thinking of SEVIS data as a proxy for enrollments is particularly distorting at Master’s level and for understanding trends for students from India.  SEVIS suggests that the number of Master’s ‘students’ grew by 27.7% between 2014 and 2017 while IIE data indicates that numbers actually enrolled in universities grew by only 8.4%.  The difference is driven by the 69.1% increase in OPT numbers (83,175) shown in IIE data over the four years.    

Source:
Institute of International Education, 2018, https://www.iie.org/opendoors and SEVIS data from INTO Corporate Blog

Note: The SEVIS data and the IIE Enrollment data is not synchronous.

The Pew Research Centre has reported that students from India are significantly more likely to utilise the OPT opportunity than other international students.  IIE’s breakdown indicates that between 2016/17 and 2017/18 the number of students from India enrolled on Graduate programmes declined by nearly 10,000 while the numbers doing OPT increased by over 18,000.  The increase in numbers doing OPT appears to be slowing which is likely to reflect emerging options around the world and the declining competitiveness of the US in retaining international talent. 

At undergraduate level, which is unaffected by OPT,  IIE and SEVIS both show a small growth in students from India year-on-year to 2017/18 but this should be seen in the context of growth in Canada which had 123,000 students from India in 2017 – 63% more than the year before.  This was largely driven by an increase of 67% (86,900) going into colleges, presumably as a result of the opportunities for progression to university, work and citizenship.  It will be interesting to see how far growth in Indian undergraduates in the US goes when these routes seem more straightforward and available in Canada.

Source:
Institute of International Education, 2018, https://www.iie.org/opendoors

The 1st Baron Denman coined the phrase ‘a delusion, a mockery and a snare’ in a legal context in the 1840s, and imprecise use or understanding of data has a similar potential to lure, deceive and trap the unwary.  No source of information is without flaws and weaknesses but it is also foolhardy to take one source, view or instance as giving definitive guidance. In that respect there is plenty of evidence that competitors are challenging the US, that global student mobility is changing, that demographics are shifting and that technology is disrupting the established order.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay