Education's Asian Crisis

By KENNETH R. WEISS

Jan. 14, 1998 12 AM PT

TIMES EDUCATION WRITER

The sound of crashing markets in Asia is being heard on American college campuses, as international students receive word from their fretful parents: cut back on expenses or come home.

USC junior Elizabeth Choo is packing to return to South Korea. She got an urgent phone call from her mother, explaining that the collapse of South Korea’s currency in effect had doubled the cost of her $30,000 in tuition, expenses, room and board.

“So far, five or six of my friends have had to go back,” said Choo, a 21-year-old international relations major. “There were a lot of people who went home on Christmas break and they can’t come back. Their parents tell them they have to stay.”

Wealthier students from struggling Asian nations say their parents have pleaded with them to tighten their belts--or even sell them, especially if they carry chic Coach or DKNY labels.

“A lot of students are in the position I’m in--all of our money is tied up in land,” said Suda Suebsang, a USC senior and director of the school’s International Student Assembly. “I have a friend who had to move out of her apartment to save money. She sold her BMW. She sold name-brand purses and clothing.”

Officials of American colleges and universities say it is too soon to grasp the full impact of the financial crisis in Indonesia, South Korea, Thailand and Malaysia.

But Asia supplies 57% of the 458,000 foreign students who come to America in pursuit of higher education--injecting $7 billion into the U.S. economy. Officials fear that Asia’s problems could lead to the biggest disruption since the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1979, when 51,310 Iranians made up the largest group of international students in the United States. Iran sent 2,129 last year.

Other foreign crises that have dampened enrollment have been limited to political troubles in a lone country, said Dixon C. Johnson, executive director of the Office of International Services at USC, which has 4,183 foreign students, the third most of any American school.

“This is new, it is regional and it is economic, not political,” Johnson said. “We won’t know the full dimensions for a long time.”

At UC Irvine in Orange County, the head of an Indonesian and Indonesian American student group said she has heard the financial situation abroad is pushing some members to try to graduate sooner.

“If you’re from Indonesia, and you go to school here, it’s very costly,” said Ilona Ong, president of Indonesian Students at UCI, who is from the United States. “That’s one of the major problems. Plus with the currency that bad, they’re paying more. A lot of these students are taking [extra] units so they can hurry up, finish their classes, graduate and go back home.”

UCI and Cal State Fullerton have about 300 students each from the troubled Asian nations. UCI had no information on whether any have left campus, and Cal State Fullerton won’t know until the university’s winter break ends Feb. 2.

At USC, the first hard numbers will not be available until the end of the month, the deadline for spring semester enrollment. Yet Johnson and his counselors see early warning signs. The usual trickle of one or two students seeking financial advice has swollen to a dozen a day.

Students attending the USC Language Academy to learn English have dropped to less than half of the usual 125.

Other universities are having similar experiences. The Internet chat group of the National Assn. of Foreign Student Affairs is abuzz with talk about the impact.

UC Riverside Extension, which puts 4,500 foreign students through English language programs each year, has seen enrollment in a four-week intensive course for South Koreans drop from 167 last year to zero this month.

“It’s heartbreaking,” said Sheila Dwight, UC Riverside’s international education director. “We have kids saying my parents need me home and they are in tears. They were going into master’s programs and PhD programs. Their whole life has changed.”

Some of the students are embarrassed, feeling that they have lost face in a culture that places high stock in academic success.

“It is not [a] proud thing for me,” said Sang Hee Kim, a South Korean learning English at USC’s Language Academy to become a regular degree student. “I am a person who supports my country. . . . I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

South Korea and Thailand have temporarily halted study-abroad programs, although the International Monetary Fund, which has been organizing a multimillion-dollar bailout, has requested that education programs not be cut.

Adriana Flores, an admissions counselor at Claremont McKenna College, on Tuesday received a plea for help via e-mail:

“I have already received your application form, but due to apparent free fall of the Thai baht, my dad put my college application on hold,” the applicant wrote. “My family has been severely hurt by the financial crisis that Thailand is going through. College is going to cost my family twice as much. Could you please send me some information regarding financial aid?”

Flores can offer little encouragement because the private Claremont school, like most U.S. colleges, does not provide financial assistance to foreign students.

Federal law prohibits foreign students from receiving any federally backed financial aid, including grants, loans or salaries earned through work-study programs. That limits schools to handing out a few merit scholarships.

UCLA’s Office of International Students has scraped together emergency, short-term loans to help cover the tuition of about 10 students, director Larry Gower said.

“The question is, ‘What do we do in the longer term?’ ” Gower said, noting that nearly 1,000 of UCLA’s 1,800 international students come from Asia. “Most international students have gotten over here by convincing the U.S. Consulate that finances are not going to be a problem. Therein is the rub.”

USC admissions dean Joe Allen has called a meeting of university officials this week to brainstorm on financial options, including seeking scholarship money from USC alums in Asian countries and working with banks on loans for suddenly needy international students.

Many, though, are not needy--even after the economic slide.

“It’s a problem for our expenses. They have doubled or tripled, that’s all,” said one USC senior sitting with his buddies at the Indonesian Students Assn. table in the heart of the campus. “Everyone is still here,” he said, surveying his friends.

Foreign students long have been prized by many college admissions and businesses offices as the cash cows of higher education. They nearly always pay full tuition without the discounts provided to their domestic counterparts.

USC opened its doors to foreign students in the late 19th century and takes pride in its role in helping educate the leaders of various Asian nations. In recognition of its Asian ties, the university recently expanded its board of trustees to include members from Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Indonesia.

USC President Steven B. Sample said many Americans wrongly believe that schools such as his are doing the foreigners a favor. The truth, he said, is that international students enrich the education of Americans, who are among the most insular people in the world.

“It is very important for U.S. students to have a better idea of how the rest of the world thinks,” Sample said.

The push to attract foreign students has spread in recent years even to community colleges such as Santa Monica College, which uses images of the beach to recruit overseas.

So Elena Garate-Eskey, Santa Monica’s dean of international education, has been keeping an eye on the events in Asia--not worrying about losing students but plotting how to attract them.

She figures that the $15,000 it takes to attend Santa Monica College--including tuition and living expenses--is half the cost of four-year universities such as USC. She and her staff plan to make that point during upcoming recruiting trips to Asia.

“Students can take their first two years with us,” she said, “and then as the crisis ebbs, the student can move on.”

Times staff writer Nick Anderson contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Coming to America

Of 457,984 foreign students enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities during the 1996-97 school year, 57% came from Asia. The countries suffering most in the Asian financial crisis--South Korea, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand--are among the leading feeder nations.

Leading Areas of Origin

1. Japan: 46,292

2. China: 42,503

3. South Korea: 37,130

4. India: 30,641

5. Taiwan: 30,487

6. Canada: 22,984

7. Malaysia: 14,527

8. Thailand: 13,481

9. Indonesia: 12,461

10. Hong Kong: 10,942

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