The UI has more international students than any other American public University.
For the first time, the state's flagship public school is home to more international students than any other public university in the country. In fact, the number of foreign students at the Downstate Urbana-Champaign campus -- well over 5,000 -- is more than had ever attended any public university in U.S. history.
Foreign students from 120 countries now make up about 13 percent of the 41,000-student body, outnumbering the combined numbers of black and Latino Americans on campus. The share of foreign students is up from 9 percent of a smaller student body 10 years ago.
And:
"People in Illinois pay their taxes and their hard-earned money here,'' said Silverstein. "They should be given first treatment here.''
U. of I. officials deny that international students are displacing residents, noting that freshmen who are state residents still number 6,060 -- 87 percent of freshmen -- the highest percentage in the Big Ten.
And:
Though many students welcome the diversity the foreign students bring, it has not always made for expanded horizons. Many students say international students and the majority of white students generally choose to live and socialize apart.
"There is a de facto segregation,'' notes Joshua Myers, a student from Aurora who did research on housing and social integration at the school. "There is not any agenda by the school, it's just how it is.''
Adds anthropology Professor Nancy Abelmann, who directs an ethnography of the university: "Many undergraduate students go about their lives quite untouched by the presence of many international students.''
Interesting article.
(Hat tip: CapFax - welcome back, Rich.)
UPDATE: Tom Kacich had a similar story last year.
I guess getting rid of Chief Illiniwek attracted more international students here...
...oh wait a minute, they enrolled when UIUC campus was still, "hostile and abusive".
This release from IIE says that the UI is No.4 in the country, not No. 1 http://opendoors.iienetwork.org/?p=113743
What's not in the article are the following two points:
1. A majority of the international students are graduate students.
2. A majority of these international graduate students are on a free ride (tuition waiver and teaching/research assistantship).
Your tax dollars at work!
I don't know how things work in the humanities, but as a former science and engineering graduate student, I'd like to point out that pretty much all graduate students get a tuition waiver and an assistantship. That's not just true at UIUC, that's true for pretty much system-wide. In fact, if you're accepted to grad school and don't get a tuition waiver, it's pretty much a sign that the university doesn't really want you. I don't know why the system has evolved to be that way.
Grad school simply isn't like college. It's less about schooling and closer to an apprenticeship.
The first post is about the Chief. Shock.
Let. It. Go.
N.O.
>On March 31st, 2008 at 12:11 PM, Annoying Mike said:
>What's not in the article are the following two points:
>1. A majority of the international students are graduate students.
>2. A majority of these international graduate students are on a free ride (tuition >waiver and teaching/research assistantship).
>Your tax dollars at work!
These students do not get a "free ride". They have to work for their assistantships. Overall, it is a very good deal for the tax payer. The only students getting free rides are legislative scholarship winners and veterans.
These students do not get a "free ride". They have to work for their assistantships. Overall, it is a very good deal for the tax payer.
I haven't taken courses at U of I - is it a good deal for an undergrad student being taught by a TA? How many classes would an incoming freshman expect to taught by a TA?
I don't see veterans "getting a free ride" either, but that might be me with my ultra-pro military stance.
"I don't see veterans "getting a free ride" either, but that might be me with my ultra-pro military stance."
:-)
>I haven't taken courses at U of I - is it a good deal for an undergrad student being taught by a TA? How many classes would an >incoming freshman expect to taught by a TA?
Imagine what tuition would have to be if every course had to be taught by a professor. Not making a value judgement here.
Also not making any value judgement on this, but veterans do get paid multiple times by Illinois taxpayers; once for their salaries, and again to finance their educations. Not saying what is good or bad, just stating a fact.
By the way, Rich Miller's going to be speaking at the Illinois ACLU statewide summit next weekend in Peoria. Y'all come along!
The first two years are a joke. After taking the first year, I took several gen-eds at Parkland so I could get a professor and small classes. I took 300 levels for the rest. The funny thing was that I had to go back and take the intros later and did worse in the intros than the 300s. I slept through a lot of them, so that was probably the problem.
I sat through many classes at U of I taught by TA's, many of whom were not native English speakers. Some did O.K., but some had real difficulties getting the point across due to their poor grasp of the language. The problem is that University relies so heavily on TA's, most of whom are graduate students, to teach the large section undergraduate courses. I haven't been back in a while, but I doubt if it's changed much.
And I can't believe that I'm agreeing with Xian on anything, but I agree with him about educational benefits for veterans (Now I'm running outside to see if the sky is falling).
UIUC administrators lost interest in providing a quality education at an affordable price a long, long time ago. Now, they're engaged in a pyramid scheme whereby they increase the size and scope of their empire by any means possible. International students play into that very well since they have zero price elasticity of demand.
Uggh - foreign TA's. Don't get me started.
so are we saying 2 years at Parkland, if you can get all your credits to transfer, is a much better deal? Lower tuition, smaller classes, no TA teachers.
Being a UIUC grad, I wanted to add a few things...
First, I'm glad the university is increasing the number of international students; I think that being so highly sought after among public universities is a measure of both UIUC's quality and popularity, and I hope it continues being so. In regards to the criticism of the state senator, about in-state residents being somehow displaced, I think he needs to distinguish between undergraduate students and graduate students. From the first paragraph of the article: "Foreign students...make up about 13 percent of the 41,000-student body..." If memory serves, 41,000 is the entire student body, undergrads and grad students; I don't think you can compare the two. Graduate school is a completely different beast than undergraduate studies, and needs to be looked at differently
(As an aside, does anyone know if that 41k number includes students in the usual grad studies programs, like engineering, versus those attending, for example, law school? Basically, are all law school students also graduate school students, but not all grad students are law school students?)
HG
On March 31st, 2008 at 05:35 PM, redstatewannabe said: "so are we saying 2 years at Parkland, if you can get all your credits to transfer, is a much better deal? Lower tuition, smaller classes, no TA teachers."
For some students and families, yes, it is a better financial deal to do as much gen-ed, pre-requisite work at Parkland (or another local community college) done prior to attending UIUC full-time. I did that, during the summer breaks, to get out of taking classes with annoying course work. Specifically, I took a class at my local community college to earn credit in psychology, and avoid the psych coursework (meaning, experiments...ugh, no thanks).
Community college with a high transfer rate is the absolute best option... but if you coast through the CC classes you'll be extremely underprepared for the University level. If you are self-motivated and bust your butt to get the material down you'll be in good shape to jump into the cruel and uncaring weeding out process at the Universities who make it clear they don't need you if you can't cut it.
I ran into kids who did both at UofI... the ones who coasted weren't prepared at all and got weeded out. It may not be as bad in non-engineering programs there, but that was my experience at least.
--
Glock21 Op/Ed
The path for me was through EIU rather than CC. Great attention by professors, smaller classes, a bit more challeging, and a great preparation for UIUC. I was able to excel in Engineering as were my transfer classmates.
EIU challenging??? They didn't even consider grades in the admission process until about 2004.
Believe it or not, the foreign TAs have to pass an English test before they're allowed to TA. I realize a lot of them still have horrid English, but just to let you know, it could be worse! I have friends who couldn't pass that thing - so they are safely tucked away in a lab with no undergraduates around.
Law school and medical school students generally don't get assistantships, as far as I know. That's part of the reason those careers are so expensive to train for. They have a different program code, not undergraduate or graduate but rather professional, IIRC.
Wow, more international students than African American and Latino students combined. That really reflects the demographics of the state. Illinois is so diverse.
"EIU challenging??? They didn't even consider grades in the admission process until about 2004."
Thank goodness that they didn't look at grades or I never would have made it in there.... The comparison is between EIU and CC preparing people for the riggors of UIUC. I can tell you that EIU was a good preparation for success at U of I. Understanding that I earned a PhD from the #1 engineering program in the country based in part on my first 2 years at EIU, I would call it a good preparatory program.
UIUC is a research school and their program specifc classes for upperclass undergraduates and graduate students is unparallelled. What you get from CC or other university preparation is some personal attention and preparation during the "gen ed" component of a well rounded college education. Let each place do what it does best, some teach and others provide the state of the art in specialty areas. This is why the foreign sutdents want to flock to UIUC, they are a top tier school. Personally, as an alum, and as an employer of new graduates, I like to see more US students, particularly in engineering and science. They are definately needed.
I'm going to have to dig out my EIU catalogues from the '80's. I went there for a while, and I remember grades being a VERY important determinant into whether or not you were accepted by them. Now, granted, if your grades were too low they wouldn't take you, and the kids from Uni/Central/New Trier who were B+ students in those schools weren't looking at PIU (our nickname for it back then), they were aiming higher, but, still...having low standards is not the same as taking anyone who can write a check for full tuition without needing financial aid.