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While UNM officials and local organizations agree that international students are beneficial to the state, the best way to attract them to come here remains unclear.
President Robert Frank said the University strives to attract international students to help boost Albuquerque’s economy and to create opportunities for the campus community.
“We believe that making (UNM education) available across the world is a great opportunity,” he said. “By opening the doors here at the University of New Mexico, we create a globalization of our campus. We create an opportunity for more students to fill our seats, which then creates ways to make our college more affordable for New Mexicans. So it’s a win-win for everybody.”
Frank said he appreciates the participation of Santa Fe-based organization Think New Mexico in the search for ways to attract international students.
“I’m really pleased that they’re looking at this issue,” he said. “It’s great to have a think tank of their stature examining the issue and we’re pleased that they are joining us in recognizing the value that international students can bring to New Mexico.”
While he agreed international students benefit the state, Frank said UNM would not have suggested offering in-state tuition to international students.
“The specific tool that they propose of offering them in-state tuition is probably not the way we would have gone,” he said. “We’re interested in the idea they’ve put on the table. We will study the report and see what we can glean from it.”
Since out-of-state tuition for UNM is generally lower than tuition for other colleges, lowering the rate further is unnecessary, Frank said.
According to the UNM admissions site, tuition for out-of-state students is about $9,732. Arizona State University costs about $11,568, University of Colorado Boulder ranges from about $14,976 to $16,731 and University of Tennessee is about $18,190, according to each University’s respective websites.
“We could charge full out-of-state tuition and people could come here and pay that and still have an incredible deal compared to what they could get in other states,” he said. “So there’s really no reason to discount our out-of-state tuition.”
Frank said UNM is more interested in the portion of the report that talked about creating jobs for graduate students.
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“The most important idea, we think, that they’ve talked about is creating more jobs for graduates,” he said. “That’s really where the opportunities are.”
Once New Mexico establishes more opportunities for graduates, more out-of-state students will come to UNM, Frank said.
Frank said UNM has set up offices in other countries to attract international students.
“We created an office in Beijing… We did that I think within six months of me becoming president because we believe that Asia is a great opportunity to attract students to America,” he said.
“American college degrees are still the gold standard of higher education in the world.”
Mary Anne Saunders, special assistant to the president for global initiatives, said UNM also wants to open offices in India, Saudi Arabia and Latin America.
“Latin America for sure is our natural ally,” she said. “We are focusing now on Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil and Mexico, especially. We would like to become the university of the Americas.”
Saunders said many of the universities in the state work collaboratively to “market New Mexico as an appropriate, educational option for students.” She said the global offices, such as the office in China, work in different ways to recruit students and build connections with other countries.
“Our office in China definitely recruits students,” she said. “They’ve prepared materials in Chinese. They go to expos and fairs…They make sure that Chinese students and their parents understand that this is an American state, because there is some confusion about that. But they also build relationships between UNM and other universities.”
The relationships with universities abroad are important not just for international students, but for UNM students and employees as well, Saunders said. She said such relationships provide pipelines for UNM students to study and for faculty members to go conduct research abroad.
Saunders cited a study published by the Institute of International Education called “Open Doors” that stated the economic benefit of international students in New Mexico amounted to almost $73 million per year.
“There are about 3,600 international students total in the state of New Mexico,” she said. “California has 106,000 international students. Imagine the impact on the California economy of 106,000 students. It’s unbelievable. New Mexico has so much more capacity to attract international students and that’s going to have a big impact.”
Frank said attracting students to UNM remains a high priority for the University.
“It’s an area that we’ve invested a lot of time and energy, and we see great opportunities for UNM,” he said. “I think you’ll continue to see our numbers improve dramatically over the next couple of years.”
