US universities fear ‘ghosting’ by international students

US universities are confronting an apparent rise in cases of international students obtaining study visas but not showing up at their campuses, seemingly because of economic uncertainties, exploitative recruiters and possible increases in outright fraud.

While higher education leaders do not have hard data on the trend, they have been sharing anecdotes suggesting that a longstanding problem is getting notably worse, said Travis Ulrich, senior vice-president for enterprise solutions at higher education software provider Terra Dotta.

Some institutions are responding by toughening their requirements for deposits from the international students they accept, and by trying to crack down on unethical recruiting practices, Mr Ulrich said.

One institution that has highlighted the problem is Portland State University, which has said that it suddenly began attracting interest from applicants in India and Bangladesh, and accepted 46 of them for this past year, only to see three actually enrol.

The issue is likely to be much more widespread, said Mr Ulrich, noting a series of similar cases in the past few years in Canada that recently prodded the Trudeau administration to impose sharp limits on its acceptance of students from abroad.

The matter was a clear topic of concern among participants at the recent annual conference of Nafsa, the Washington-based group representing professionals working in various aspects of international education. Some of the officials there described multiple cases in which international students have been admitted to US institutions, have paid their deposits and obtained their visas, “but they’re never actually showing up”, said Mr Ulrich.

The US typically hosts about 1 million students from abroad, although that number is still recovering from a dip during the Covid lockdowns and from political antagonisms with certain countries, especially China.

One theory among university officials to explain the rise in no-shows, Mr Ulrich said, is that overseas students are applying to multiple US institutions and then deciding later which to attend.

Whatever the causes, he said, it was especially troubling for US institutions that have been counting on international student enrolment to help make up for declining numbers of domestic students, especially after the pandemic. “People were hoping to achieve a little bit more of a stable level post-Covid, but this ghosting started happening across the board,” he said.

Toughening institutional requirements for deposits and watching for signs of unethical private recruitment practices appear to be reasonable moves under the current circumstances, said Markus Badde, chief executive of ICEF, an association of international education professionals.

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“Deposit requirements vary widely from institution to institution and country to country,” Mr Badde said. “However, to increase yield, a deposit equal to the first semester’s full tuition [fee] is increasingly seen as a recommended minimum.”

Where there is clear fraud involving international students coming to the US, it is often the students who are the victims, said Miriam Feldblum, executive director of the Presidents’ Alliance, an association of college and university leaders that sees immigration as benefiting higher education.

That is especially true for students from Africa, Dr Feldblum said, because African visa requests disproportionately face rejection by US officials, leaving students vulnerable “to con schemes by fraudulent actors who offer false guarantees for securing a visa”.

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com