Case Western Reserve University welcomes the largest international class in its history this fall and experts expect the infusion of global talent to have an impact far beyond University Circle. Watch video
Zheng Lin Huang, left, and Tianlong Chen, are two of more than 400 new students from China on the campus of Case Western Reserve University. The two engineering students enjoyed free soft drinks on the Main Quad Friday afternoon. CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Junpeng "J.P." Wang stepped off a plane in Cleveland two weeks ago nervous, excited and anticipating an adventure. He was 7,000 miles from his home in Shanghai, China, in a new city in a new world.
What he found on the campus of Case Western Reserve University surprised him.
"Too many Chinese," said the good-natured Wang, 19, who had hoped to try out his high school English on Americans, not other Mandarin-speakers.
Still, he met young people from India, Africa and Europe at orientation for international students, and phoned home with good news.
"They're all very interesting people," said Wang, one of about 1,200 incoming freshmen at CWRU. "I found out Case is a great school."
He's not the only one in China who suddenly thinks so.
This fall, Cleveland's esteemed research university is welcoming its largest international class ever, a new multitude striking in its diversity and dominated by smart, upwardly mobile young Chinese like Wang, who is majoring in biomedical engineering.
For the first time in memory, the top hometown of CWRU's freshman class is not Cleveland or Pittsburgh. It's Beijing.
Shanghai ranks third.
The university accepted more than 400 new students from China into graduate and undergraduate programs this fall, the most ever. It added a couple of hundred more students from 80 other nations to shape a student body now 20 percent international, up from 12 percent just five years ago.
Experts say the growing diversity could be powerful, and not only for CWRU and its University Circle neighborhood. While administrators talk excitedly about offering students a global education on a multicultural campus, researchers spy an economic impact both immediate and long-term.
Limited in their access to financial aid and scholarships, foreign students typically pay full freight. That's nearly $60,000 a year at CWRU.
"It's new money coming in, as an education export," said Neil Ruiz, a senior analyst for the Brookings Institution who is studying the economic impact of America's growing ranks of international students. "That boosts the local economy."
Of greater significance, Ruiz says, is the infusion of skills.
The cultural breadth of Wang and his classmates contrasts with a narrower academic focus. The international students flock to business classes and degree programs in the so-called STEM fields---Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.
In other words, they are honing skills that area employers say they need. Those who stay on after graduation could help the region compete in the global economy.
"If you see what they're studying, these are highly economy-oriented fields," said Ruiz. "These students are valuable. They're entrepreneurial. It's easier to start up a business here than many other countries and that's what many of them want to do."
He cautioned that the value of international students could be fleeting.
Immigration reforms recently approved by the U.S. Senate would make it easier for foreign student with valuable skills to stay on after graduation and work. But the reform effort is stalled in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Under current law, students from China and India--the two largest foreign student sources for CWRU---face years-long waits for immigrant visas.
"It could be considered a loss, to the economy and to local employers, if they learn special skills and have to leave," Ruiz said.
But the international students are here for now and for awhile, and CWRU is hustling to acclimate them to Northeast Ohio.
Wang arrived on campus earlier than his American-born classmates for international orientation, which the university began three years ago. For three days, he met other international students at "icebreakers," toured the campus and downtown, went to an Indians game and bowled his first strike.
The newcomers were led by student ambassadors like Bahja and Rahma Sofiane, upbeat sisters from Tunis, Tunisia, each in their second year studying chemical engineering.
Over coffee at the Starbucks on Euclid Avenue near Little Italy, a café crackling with languages, the sisters described the international student experience as akin to extended travel.
Young people are adaptable and most fit in quickly, said Rahma Sofiane, 20. "But it still takes time to get used to 24-7 American culture."
International students express surprise at the casualness of American students, the partying and the loud music. They say they want to mix with Americans but often fall back into cliques of cultural peers. All struggle with English as a second or third language and many face financial pressures and homesickness.
American-born and international students mixed on the Main Quad Friday afternoon for an international fair promoting study abroad. About 20 percent of CWRU students hail from a foreign land. "There are so many things that we can't share with the American students," said Jiejing Hao, a senior from Shanghai.
Bahja Safiane, 19, tells freshmen it's OK to be different.
"I think Case wants international students on its campus because we are different," she said. "It's making our community vibrant."
Some want to transfer that vibrancy to the larger community and to the economy, as fast as possible.
On Tuesday night, Global Cleveland, a nonprofit group hoping to grow the regional economy with international talent, will co-host a networking reception at the Thwing Center on campus. The event is designed for international graduate students from both CWRU and Cleveland State University, which has seen a strong influx of students from India.
The invitation to area employers, asking them to send representatives, hints at opportunity knocking.
"Do you want access to the best and brightest talent?" a promotional flyer asks. "Do you conduct business in China?"
David Fleshler, the associate provost for international affairs at CWRU, said the idea is to help the students develop networking skills that will lead to internships and, ultimately, jobs in the area.
"It's the first of what I hope will be many of these kinds of things," he said.
Fleshler, appointed to his position four years ago, helped to design the international attraction efforts, a strategy many universities have initiated as the global economy expands and the U.S. college-aged population shrinks.
CWRU always attracted the world to its graduate and professional schools, where enrollment is now about 25 percent international. Fleshler sees new diversity in the undergraduate ranks as key to offering a global college experience.
International enrollment became 10 percent of the undergraduate student body this fall, up from 3 percent in 2007.
Recruiting and welcome efforts are helping, he said, as are partnerships with foreign universities and programs designed to entice foreign students here. For example, a new master's of financé program was flooded with Chinese applicants eager to learn American business.
Then there are the global tides that CWRU is tapping.
China's fast-rising economy has given rise to professional parents with new wealth to shower on what is often an only child. China's university system can't yet match that desire, and American schools are attractive.
"Many Chinese, they know about schools in the U.S. They think they can get a good education here," said Jiejing Hao, the new president of CWRU's main Chinese student group, the Chinese Student and Scholar Association.
Hao said Chinese students like the ambiance at CWRU, the bustling campus near research hospitals and the academic rigor. They spread the news back home.
"The environment here, we call it a nerd school, honestly, she said, laughing. "The workload is very high. It's kind of like the Chinese study environment."
She's not sure many of her peers will try to stay on after graduation but she said the culture and the city grows on newcomers. Already, some of her friends are involved in local start-up companies.
"Personally, me and my friends, we all want to experience what jobs are like in America," she said.
America does not mean Greater Cleveland, of course. International students scan a vast job board. An American degree can mean a good job in Asia or Africa. Linguistic and cultural skills attract recruiters here.
Bahja and Rahma Sofiane illustrate the mobility of STEM-field students with a passport and a world view. Both hope to take chemical engineering degrees into the pharmaceutical industry and go to work for a drug company. Or start their own.
"Hopefully, in the U.S.," Bahja Sofiane said. "If not, somewhere in Europe."
She and he sister, she noted matter-of-factly, each speak five languages.