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from the prepare-yourself-for-further-tuition-increases dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
International students will be forced to leave the U.S. or transfer to another college if their schools offer classes entirely online this fall, under new guidelines issued Monday by federal immigration authorities.
The guidelines, issued by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, provide additional pressure for universities to reopen even amid growing concerns about the recent spread of COVID-19 among young adults. Colleges received the guidance the same day that some institutions, including Harvard University, announced that all instruction will be offered remotely.
[...] Those attending schools that are staying online must "depart the country or take other measures, such as transferring to a school with in-person instruction," according to the guidance.
[...] Of particular concern is a stipulation saying students won't be exempt from the rules even if an outbreak forces their schools online during the fall term. It's unclear what would happen if a student ended up in that scenario but faced travel restrictions from their home country, said Terry Hartle, the council's senior vice president.
[...] Colleges across the U.S. were already expecting sharp decreases in international enrollment this fall, but losing all international students could be disastrous for some. Many depend on tuition revenue from international students, who typically pay higher tuition rates. Last year, universities in the U.S. attracted nearly 1.1 million students from abroad.
[...] The administration has long sought deep cuts to legal immigration, but the goal was elusive before the coronavirus.
The BBC notes:
[...] Large numbers of foreign students travel to the US to study every year and are a significant source of revenue for universities as many pay full tuition.
[...] Harvard has announced all course instruction will be delivered online when students return for the new academic year, including those living at the university.
[...] Monday's announcement said foreign students who remain in the US while enrolled in online courses and fail to switch to in-person courses could face "immigration consequences including, but not limited to, the initiation of removal proceedings".
The rule applies to holders of F-1 and M-1 visas, which are for academic and vocational students. The State Department issued 388,839 F visas and 9,518 M visas in the fiscal year 2019, according to the agency's data.
According to the US Commerce Department, international students contributed $45 billion (£36 billion) to the country's economy in 2018.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @06:59AM (6 children)
IMHO, the sane and proper way to handle this is to treat online classes as in-person classes if the school would have held them in-person before the pandemic.
For example, if Harvard goes all online, you're still OK if you were enrolled as an in-person student there previously. OTOH, University of Phoenix online doesn't qualify because it was online before the pandemic.
Of course that makes too much sense, and it would be fair to a group of people that Trump doesn't like; so it won't happen.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by zocalo on Wednesday July 08 2020, @07:40AM (2 children)
For students signing up *now* to do a course, knowing full well that it's online only, then sure - no F-1 or M-1 visa for you. If you really want to study overseas, I guess you could still find some options for a resident study course in the US, but if not then there are plenty of other countries that have highly ranked Universities to choose from, and some of those counties even have their Covid-19 outbreaks pretty much under control as well. Really, it's just another couple of factors to consider in your selection of Alma Mater. It might rule out a highly favoured preference, but there are always other options.
Also, for someone who (rightly or wrongly) seems to have a serious beef with the potential for fraud with mail-in voting *and* a strong preference to get the US economy back to normal while denying Covid-19 is still a problem, doesn't it seem rather strange that Trump wouldn't have a similar beef with the huge potential for, say, paying someone more competent to sit exams for you that having courses online presents?
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Wednesday July 08 2020, @08:03AM (1 child)
some universities are managing the risk [dailymail.co.uk]
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @09:37AM
I don't like this approach at all. I was bothered by iClicker's mobile app using GPS to "verify" that a student is actually physically present in a classroom instead of participating from their dorm or apartment. Using GPS in that manner isn't necessarily effective, either, because GPS can be spoofed. While that was draconian enough, but this seems even worse.
Perhaps assessments should be less about recall and more about higher levels of work than remembering and recalling information [vanderbilt.edu]. Even if classes and exams move online during the middle of the semester, students could be given 3-4 weeks to complete an assignment that tests higher levels of learning and substitutes for the exam.
Another approach for smaller classes is to have an oral final and administer it via Zoom. My PhD advisor used oral finals and released a pool of questions prior to the exam. That way, there's no advantage to taking the exam later and asking students who took it earlier about the questions. It allows the instructor to ask students follow-up questions if they're uncertain, to really assess what the student knows. The instructor can also provide a bit of assistance if a student doesn't remember a detail. This benefits the students because if they get stuck on one small aspect of a question, they can get help and still demonstrate proficiency in other aspects of the question. Such an exam could be administered via Zoom and really isn't prone to cheating because the instructor should be able to tell pretty quickly if the student understands the material or not. It only works for smaller classes, but it seems like a good idea.
Rather than turning to draconian and creepy approaches, instructors should be designing better assessments for their classes.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday July 08 2020, @01:04PM (2 children)
Not entirely disagreeing with you OP, but I graduated 15 years ago from a blended school where you could randomly take any class live in person or online with very few exceptions (public speaking, performing and some fine arts, most gym classes...)
All my math credits transferred so I didn't need to retake diffeqs, but I'd have taken math classes in person for the study group atmosphere, if I had to. I ended up taking most of my classes online and frankly did most of my daily grind type of classwork at work during lunch. Some have night school, I had lunch school. Plenty of writing C++ at 3am on the weekend of course, but day to day grind was during lunchhour.
Anyway the point is for technological reasons even a decade and a half ago sometimes its not clear cut online or offline.
My kids are getting older and this seems VERY popular now and is creeping into high school for obscure subjects. They can't get enough HS senior students in one school to run an Accounting III class but they can online across all the schools in the district, so ...
I get this weird feeling that in a decade or two, schools will mostly be giant study halls and study group rooms and maybe some wandering teachers to keep the peace and keep the kids on track but traditional instruction might completely disappear in favor of videos, at least for middle school and up. Which will be convenient if we're still fighting covid outbreaks 25 years from now. My kids school district is being weirdly quiet about next semester plans and the future might arrive in September this year, who knows? I can imagine something like "show up on campus if you have group project that can't be done on video, or if you're behind on getting work done as a punishment, otherwise don't show up". I donno if that's online or offline on the short term. Its online today if he needs help on his math homework, and its offline tomorrow if he's doing fine on the homework.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 08 2020, @04:34PM
Are your kids at least more enlightened than their father? Or are you steering their heads towards their butts?
(Score: 2) by quietus on Wednesday July 08 2020, @07:20PM
For the love of everything I hold dear, I cannot understand this whole video instruction thing. It is as dumb as those breaking news scrollbars underneath an interview or news report. The prime requirement of learning is focus, and focus is best achieved in isolation, no?
I think this joke of everybody being famous for at least 5 minutes has gone way too far.