100 New Saudi Students at UA May Be Reversing Trend
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Author: Arizona Republic (Associated Press)
Released 30 March 2006
PHOENIX, ARIZONA, (USA) - March 26, 2006: About 100 new Saudi Arabian students have enrolled for the summer at the University of Arizona, which could signal the reversal of a post-Sept. 11 trend of declining enrollment of international students in the United States.
The students are part of a new large-scale scholarship program by the Saudi government, which will send about 6,000 students to American universities this year after just 1,442 Saudi students had visas to study in the United States in 2004.
About 80 of the students are at UA, enrolled in English-immersion classes before they start their academic programs in the fall. More are expected by the start of next semester as they secure visas.
After Sept. 11, 2001, federal procedures and delays in obtaining visas caused a decline in the number of foreign students in the United States.
International-student enrollment at UA surged from the late 1990s until 2002 but has dropped sharply since. UA had 3,011 international students in 2002, but that number was down to 2,446 last fall.