American colleges and universities are an “essential part of our nation’s diplomatic outreach” and critical to building the cross-cultural relationships necessary to solve the world’s most pressing problems, a U.S. State Department official said at an international education forum Tuesday.
“The citizens of just one nation alone will never overcome our global challenges,” Thomas A. Shannon, Jr., U.S. Under Secretary for Political Affairs at the State Department, told attendees at the forum.
“Economic opportunity, good governance, energy security and global security can only be advanced by committed individuals, institutions and nations working together to find solutions,” Shannon said. “It’s all about partnerships.”
Shannon made his remarks on the second day of the eighth annual forum of EducationUSA, a State Department network of over 400 international student advising centers in more than 170 countries. Among other activities, the network helps American institutions of higher education better understand how to recruit international students from diverse parts of the world.
Shannon’s remarks come at a time when American colleges and universities are increasingly benefitting from international enrollment. It also comes at a time of uncertainty for international students who wonder about their safety and security at a time when many believe anti-immigrant sentiments have been stoked by President Donald J. Trump, whose campaign rhetoric, border crackdowns and travel bans they say have created an atmosphere of hostility to foreigners.
With the possible exception of a joke about how hot and humid it was last week in D.C. — “and I’m not even talking about the weather,” Shannon said, an apparent reference to chaotic shifts in staff at the White House — Shannon steered clear of any talk about Trump’s politics. He said 2016 marked the first time that more than one million international students were studying in the United States. He cited statistics that show international students contributed $35.8 billion to the U.S. economy and supported an estimated 400,000 American jobs, statistics which he said make international higher education the nation’s seventh largest service sector export.
At the same time, Shannon said international students “contribute far more to U.S. colleges and universities than can ever be measured economically.”
