Marketing US-based higher education to Lebanese students became an executive matter for ambassador Jeffrey Feltman when a tandem of private sector college road shows converged on Beirut last month. Held consecutively at the Moevenpick and the InterContinental Phoenicia Hotels, the two road shows represented 37 US colleges between them, all vying to draw Middle Eastern students to their campuses.
As he praised the virtues of US colleges and the quality of degrees they offer at an opening press conference, Feltman also intimated that American ambassadors worldwide have received a “directive from the State Department to assist in promoting US education to international students”.
While US diplomacy banks on the cultural good will that they expect visiting students to develop towards America despite not really resolved obstacles Middle Eastern youngsters face in obtaining US student visa, American colleges also have a substantial financial interest in attracting international students. “On average, 600,000 foreign students are enrolled every year in US, spending $13 billion annually. International education has become an industry in the United States,” said Tarek Elshayeb, associate director for international student services at Plattsburgh, a college affiliated with the State University of New York.
The colleges self-financed their participation in the road shows, said the managers of US Education Group and Linden Educational Services, the two competing companies which organized the events. Each school participating in her fair had paid $11,500 for going to five Middle Eastern cities, said Linden’s president, Linda Heaney.
Annual costs of undergraduate studies at universities in the Linden fair were predominantly in the medium $20,000 to $40,000 bracket, as the biggest names in the education business usually stage their own shows. “We do small programs for select universities that are very committed to international students,” Heaney said.
As for return on their investment, admission officers at the fair emphasized that they were looking at their promotion work as “sowing seeds” without strict recruitment targets for each stop on the trip, but some were avidly goal-oriented. “We want to increase enrollment and I want to find at least five students from Lebanon that would enroll. If we can register 25 students during this entire tour, I will be a happy camper,” said Ashraf Al Zawaideh, assistant director for international admissions at the University of Bridgeport.
