Harvard Draws Foreign Students

Harvard’s international population grew 4.2 percent in 2004, despite a national trend that saw international enrollments shrinking for the second year in a row, a recent survey found.

University officials cited the powerful draw of Harvard’s name, along with robust recruitment efforts and a generous financial aid program as likely explanations. University President Lawrence H. Summers has made expanding Harvard’s international population a priority.

This year, Harvard’s international contingent continued to grow, according to Sharon Ladd, the director of the Harvard International Office.

The University’s total international enrollment increased by 3.5 percent in 2005, including a 6.6 percent increase at the College, Ladd said.

The survey, conducted annually by the Institute of International Education, found that foreign student enrollment in the United States dropped by 1.3 percent in 2004, following a 2.4 percent drop the year before.

After Sept. 11, the State Department instituted stricter visa policies for many countries. Some students accepted at Harvard and elsewhere have missed enrollment deadlines while waiting for clearance.

“Some of the reasons institutions report are still problems with visas,” Ladd said, although she said the number of visa delays across the country was far smaller this year.

She also cited international competition for students as a reason for the nationwide decline.

“England, Canada, and Australia are recruiting heavily, and their numbers are going way up,” Ladd said.
However, Ladd stressed that this analysis is highly speculative.

“It’s hard to get data on why students are not coming,” she said. “Students don’t write and say ‘This is why I’m going to Australia.’”

Robin Worth, director of international admissions for the College, said that across the nation, graduate schools saw declines in international populations. But at Harvard, those declines were offset by increases at the College and at a couple of graduate programs.

In 2004, Harvard’s Business School, Kennedy School, Law School, and Extension School all saw declines in international enrollment, with the Law School registering the highest decline at 13.2 percent. Harvard’s overall increase was due to increases in the College, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the Harvard School of Public Health.

Although the lure of the Harvard name is key, it also makes plain economic sense for many international students to choose Cambridge.

Most other colleges and universities cap international aid, Worth said, while the College’s financial aid policy is identical for domestic and foreign students.

A strong support net also contributes to Harvard’s international popularity, said Hugo Van Vuuren ’07, president of the Woodbridge Society, Harvard’s international student group.

“Contrary to popular conception, Harvard has a very good support system,” Van Vuuren said. “Compared to international universities, what Harvard does is amazing.”

Van Vuuren said that the Freshman International Program, Harvard’s close-knit residential community, and aid that the Harvard International Office gives students with diplomatic difficulties combine to provide a collegiate experience unparalleled by many European universities.

Ladd, Worth, and Van Vuuren all said that Harvard’s international reputation contributed to its appeal to foreign students.

“Harvard gets good publicity throughout the world,” Worth said. “The work the faculty does gets noted abroad.”

The Institute of International Education study also analyzed schools by the size of their international populations overall. Harvard ranked 16th, among some schools twice its size.

Harvard’s 3,546 international students ranked behind Columbia University (5,278) and the University of Pennsylvania (3,712) in the Ivy League, but was almost double the number of foreign students at Yale University.