Taipei, Nov. 15 (CNA) The United States is still the No.1 destination for Taiwanese students studying abroad, but it is facing an increasing challenge to recruit more Taiwanese students, U.S. officials and a group of Taiwanese professors said Wednesday.
According to Open Door 2006, an annual report on international academic mobility published by the Institute of International Education (IIE), 27,876 Taiwanese students are currently studying in the U.S., which is the highest number in four years and an eight percent increase from the previous year.
Although the U.S. education system is widely considered the best in the world, many countries such as Australia and the U.K. are challenging the U.S. in the "international students market, " noted Leung Yanwing, deputy director of the Center for International Academic Exchanges, National Taiwan University (NTU) in a digital videoconference organized by the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT).
Officials from the U.S. State Department in Washington D.C. and university representatives in Boston and Taipei all discussed by videoconference the challenges of international exchanges in Taiwan.
"Taiwanese students are looking for a more diversified exchange program," Leung said, adding that today's students are more affluent than in the past and thus have more options available to them.
And many more students are choosing local graduate programs -- which have been rapidly increasing in number in recent years -- for the cheaper tuition, said Leung. In addition, it usually takes only one year in the U.K. to receive a master's degree.
"These factors probably explain why we have seen less NTU graduates pursuing master's degrees in the U.S.," Leung said.
However, the U.S. is still confident that the quality of its education and support system will win out because Taiwan is currently the sixth largest group among foreign students, said IIE deputy executive director Jack Bailey.
Dorothy Mora, senior program officer of the State Department's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, admitted that the U.S. is facing tougher challenges from other countries but noted it is "more of a global trend" in diversification.
A common misconception, she claimed, was that the U.S. has been rejecting more student visa applications after the 911 terrorist incident in 2001. In fact, the U.S. "market share" of international students, which was as high as 37 percent in 1995, has been consistently decreasing in the last decade, she said.