The readings for this week addressed key concerns higher education institutions are currently facing without the addition of internationalization. It was mentioned that transparency would be beneficial, especially in regards to providing information on tuition, fees, and other expenses for foreign students. However, current citizens already struggle with lack of transparency in higher education. Although institutions place the cost of tuition and fees on their admissions page each year, it doesn’t allow the student to determine how much out of pocket expenses they will actually have to pay. For example, I have a veteran acquaintance that was accepted to Columbia University for a Bachelor’s program. He didn’t have orientation until the week before classes started. It was then he was able to register for courses (many of the required courses were already taken for his major) and determine how much how much student loan he would need to borrow, after the deduction from the military supplement. If our own home students are left in the dark, how can we expect to offer transparency for international students? I think it would be really neat if we had a FAFSA mechanism established earlier. A student should have an ongoing FAFSA application as a freshman in high school and be able to change information as necessary. When applying to schools, each institution should have a tuition indicator page that will allow a student to plug in their ongoing FAFSA info and the system will generate the cost of tuition for that individual student, without scholarships of course, similar to how HR Block does tax refunds online. I think this would be more transparent and international students would be able to utilize this tool as well within their home country.
The reading also touched on dual degree programs. I understand that there needs to have solid structure in place to prevent overlapping competencies, but I am concerned about the lengthy process it takes to implement a dual degree program. There is a pre-proposal, pre-proposal assessment, and then a full proposal assessment. Wouldn’t it be easier to require a full proposal with an abstract page? More time and energy should be spent on fleshing out the proposal and strengthening its positive attributes for the institution. Or running a pilot program. I remember a Floridian high school student earned her high school and college diploma within the same week. I am sure the schools that collaborated spent less time on proposals, but more time on developing a structured curriculum and offering necessary resources. I believe this is one of the major issues with internationalization. I have mentioned this in previous blogs, but the readings expounded on this concept further. Faculty and staff have to be more culturally and linguistically diverse in order to provide assistance to foreign students and the schools need to offer more student services. It will be difficult for commuter institutions to help a student acclimate on campus due to the lack of student housing, co-curricular activities (although events are offered, commuter students tend not to attend), and providing flexible student services. However, if top administrators fully support and exhibit the overall plan, it will trickle down to faculty and staff.