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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"Last night, French (TV) news showed a guy who wanted to buy a gun … going to a store and buying one" in the US, says Gaelle, a cosmetics saleswoman at a Paris market. "That's something we can't imagine."

America's international reputation as a gun-slinging society dashed one Chinese woman's hopes of studying there several years ago. Qi Wei wanted to do her master's in engineering in the United States, but recalls that "my family were very against me going."

"They thought everyone has guns; they didn't want to see me in this kind of dangerous environment," she says. Her parents forbade her to study in the US, so she went to a British university.

Parents are more worried than their student offspring by the sort of news they have heard from America this week, says the Chinese university administrator, who asked not to be identified. "They have not had much opportunity to go abroad, and get their information from the media," she says. "And they don't report peaceful things, only the security problems."

That leads "some Korean parents not to let their kids go to certain universities" in US cities with a reputation for violence, says Frank Plantan, a US visiting fellow at Kyunghee University.

Such worries will now be compounded by fears of an anti-Korean backlash, say some students in Seoul. "Some Korean moms are reluctant to send boys to the States and even more reluctant to send girls," says Kim Woo-Ree, a third-year student at Korea University.

In Pune, the staff of an academy coaching Indian students for US grad-school entrance exams were quick to phone parents when they heard of the shooting. Most parents saw it as "a stray incident," says Dilip Oak, head of the academy; none of his students have yet changed their plans, he adds, in contrast to 9/11, which caused a two-year drop in his student numbers.

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