US universities still a top draw for international students

Around the globe, many say that the Virginia Tech shootings won't affect their plans to study in the US.

from the April 19, 2007 edition

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"This will not discourage students," says Albert Kim, a former UN official from South Korea who studied in the US. "They know study in the States is the only way to a really good education. Everybody wants to go to the US."

That will reassure American educators and university administrators who have been aggressively seeking to carve out a larger share of the lucrative and growing international education market.

More than 564,000 foreign students are enrolled at US universities – more than twice the number in Britain, the second-largest host. International students contribute $13.5 billion a year to the US economy and higher education is the fifth-largest service-sector export, according to the Department of Commerce.

And the outlook is promising: A 2004 report by British and Australian universities predicted that 5.8 million students will be studying abroad by 2020, up from 2.1 million in 2003.

Though efforts to grow the US share of that market appear unlikely to suffer significantly from the Virginia attack, they do not help burnish America's international image among young people.

"I've thought about going to study in America but now that I see the problems there, I'm not sure I want to," says Tanya Kovaleva, a language student at Moscow State University in Russia. "It seems like anyone can get a gun and just go kill people. The thought of that really scares me. I will think twice before going to the US."

US gun laws have drawn particular criticism in Europe, where the press and public debate have focused on the ease with which Cho acquired two handguns.

"Perhaps of all the elements of American exceptionalism … it is the gun culture that foreigners find so hard to understand," wrote British commentator Gerard Baker in The Times.

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