UI foreign enrollment continues to increase

From: Cedar Rapids Gazette, IA
Nov. 7, 2002

By Tom Walsh
The Gazette

IOWA CITY -- Foreign student enrollment is up at Iowa's three public universities and now represents 7.1 percent of total enrollment.

The University of Iowa's current enrollment of 29,697 includes 2,142 students from 119 countries. That's an increase from 2,062 last year and 1,967 the year before.

Overall, there are now 5,088 students from 150 foreign countries and territories enrolled at the UI, Iowa State and the University of Northern Iowa. That's an increase of 7.5 percent, or 357 students from the prior year.

Of that population, 31.3 percent (1,592) are undergraduate students, 62 percent (3,155) are graduate students and 6.7 percent (341) are enrolled in professional schools, including medicine, dentistry and law.

Nine countries each have more than 100 students enrolled at the three schools. Seven of those nine countries are in Asia.

Statistics prepared for review next week by the state Board of Regents also show more students age 25 and older are now enrolled at the UI and UNI than last year.

The UI's head count includes 8,483 in that age category, up from 8,390 a year ago. At UNI, 2,410 older students are now enrolled, compared to 2,210 a year ago.

ISU's numbers dropped from 5,191 last year to 5,083 this year.

At the UI, students 25 and older represent 77 percent of graduate students, 68 percent of students seeking professional degrees and 8.4 percent of undergraduates.

During their meeting next week in Ames the regents will also review proposals by the UI to offer an undergraduate certificate in American Sign Language (ASL) and Deaf Studies.

The UI has taught ASL since 1994, but doesn't now offer certificate training that confirms for employers and graduate schools students' special knowledge in the field.

Also on the regents' agenda is a proposal to name an addition to the building that houses the UI Writers' Workshop after Glenn Schaeffer, a program alumnus who donated $1 million to the $2.3 million expansion of Dey House.

Now a resident of Las Vegas, Schaeffer received a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from the workshop in 1977.

He is now the president and chief financial officer of the Mandalay Resort Group, which operates the Mandalay Bay and Luxor resorts.

© 2002 by Gazette Communications - Cedar Rapids, IA