The population of international student at Foothill and De Anza College keeps advanced classes open, said George Beers, the Dean of International Education at Foothill College.
A study by the International Student Program, Beers said, shows a trend where international students could fill two-thirds of a particular advanced science or business class, keeping classes that would otherwise be unavailable open for local students.
Beers added that international students also help the college making its ends meet. As a community college, Foothill-De Anza District receives funding from the state of California per full time student enrollment, up to a certain cap point. The success of the District, however, leads the number of enrollment to pass the cap from time to time, leaving the District more students than it is covered by the state funding. The financing needed to support these students comes from the $135 per unit non-resident tuition.
To recruit new international students, staffs from Foothill and De Anza International Student Program travel to Asia, Europe, and Latin America around the spring and fall season of each year. Beers, Marilyn Cheung and Darlene Culbertson, the directors of International Programs at De Anza and Foothill College, with the Director of International Marketing Viktoria Kolesnikova do the recruitment travels as a part of their jobs.
Foothill-De Anza works with educational study abroad fairs, journals, agents, and the U.S. Government’s to reach the prospective students in different countries. The marketing effort to recruit these students cost the District $500,000. The revenue from the international student enrollment, however, reaches $14.5 million this year alone.
Observing the trend of students who pursue undergraduate degree in the United States, Beers decided to focus their marketing plan in Asia. A study by the Institute of International Education lists South Korea, Japan, India, China, and Taiwan as the leading countries of origin for foreign students in California.
“As you know, 65% of international students in the United States are from Asia. It is the market,” stated Marilyn Cheung. She further commented that it was a culture inherent in Asian families to place much importance in the value of education.
De Anza started to go overseas in order to recruit people in 2000, joining its sister, Foothill College, which had been working on an international student program since 1990.
