According to a report released today, the U.S. remains the premier destination for international students, but as expected, overall student numbers fell during the pandemic. The Institute of International Education’s (IIE) Open Doors, released November 15, reports a total of 914,095 international students studied at American universities in the 2020/21 academic year. That number represents…
A recent opinion article in The Hill argues that exchange programs are “one of America’s most effective soft power tools” and “produce a tremendous return on investment”. The piece, authored by Paula Dobriansky, former Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs, Edward Gabriel, former ambassador to Morocco, and Marisa Lino, former Assistant Secretary for International…
The Public Diplomacy Council’s mission statement commits PDC to promoting excellence in professional practice, academic study, and advocacy for public diplomacy. Advocacy — effectively making the case for public diplomacy in legislative, policy, and public circles — is central to our work. In Forces for Good: The Six Practices of High Impact Nonprofits Heather Grant…
Today’s news of President Trump’s ‘termination’ of the Fulbright program for China and Hong Kong brought a memory of a different approach to difficult bilateral relations. (See his Executive Order which among other items commits to “take steps to terminate the Fulbright exchange program with regard to China and Hong Kong with respect to future…
My late father used to call particularly bad decisions ‘prismatic mistakes’, by which he meant they were wrong from every angle. We can only call DHS’s July 6 decision about foreign students and online coursework a prismatic blunder. It’s hard to see a way in which the U.S. benefits from sending international students home if…
The Department of State’s largest exchange program may face reduction or even elimination. The Trump Administration is currently reviewing separate recommendations from DHS and the Department of Labor on whether (and how) to restrict the use of nonimmigrant visas that permit work in the U.S. These deliberations focus on the several varieties of H visas,…