Georgetown University’s 1,882 foreign students spent $67 million during the 2009-2010 academic year, according to a report published by the National Association of Foreign Student Advisers. The spending figure is $7 million higher than the previous academic year’s.

Across D.C., foreign students spent nearly $300 million during the same period. George Washington University led all D.C. schools with $98 million spent by 2,666 foreign students.

The NAFSA report, which accounts for financial aid given to students, also reported that foreign students spent a nationwide total of approximately $19 billion.

h/t Washington Examiner

A globalized economy means we’re all equally subject to hefty tuition bills. Last week, the Washington Business Journal reported that foreign students contributed about $17.6 billion to the American Economy last year, making higher education one of the United States’ top service sector exports.

Students attending schools in DC contributed about $304 million, and the 1,804 foreign students who attended Georgetown University last year contributed $59.7 million in enrollment, tuition, fees and living expenses. Georgetown’s international students were second on the impact list for the District, trailing students from George Washington University, who contributed about $92.3 million.

A report by the Institute of International Education found that the number of foreign students studying in the US rose over eight percent last year, the highest yearly gain since 1980.

According to data from Georgetown’s Office of International Programs, 16 percent of the students who attended Georgetown University during last year’s fall semester were undergraduates while 55 percent were graduate students. They represented 124 different countries, and South Korea (199 students), China (161 students), and India (142 students) were the most highly represented.

Photo by Flickr user bradipo, used under a Creative Commons license.

It’s never too early to invest in your dream house!

If dorm living’s got you down and you’ve heard the horror stories about local landlords, the Washington Times has a new solution for you: go buy a house (or, more precisely, go get your parents to buy one for you).

The Times ran a whole feature story on the new trend of parents buying homes for their college-age kids to live in while they’re at school.  While buying a house seems like a drastic step, the article explains that with the rent and dorm prices rising and the housing market in shambles, buying a house and selling it off or renting it out to other students after graduation often makes financial sense.

While the phenomenon is most widespread in the Midwest where real estate is the cheapest, but it’s also gaining ground here in D.C.  The article features one real estate agent who sells as many as eight houses per year to Georgetown and GW students.  The piece also profiles recent Georgetown Law grad Jim Pyle, whose mother bought him a house on Capitol Hill which they sold for about $200,000 more than they paid.

Turns out last year’s economic nosedive caused more than just the stock market to decline—Georgetown’s yield rate also took a hit.

The yield rate, the percentage of students accepted to Georgetown who chose to enroll, dropped to 43 percent this year, down from last year’s 45 percent.  That makes 2009 the second consecutive year Georgetown’s yield rate has slumped. From 2005 to 2007 the yield rate remained at 47%.

Charles Deacon, the Dean of Undergraduate Admissions, pointed to the economic downturn as an explanation for the drop in yield rate.

“The yield fell about three percent this year as the financial crisis affected virtually every college and family whether they were financial aid applicants or not,” Dean Deacon wrote in an email.

The yield rate for students who applied for financial aid was roughly 39 percent, significantly lower than the 49 percent yield for students who did not apply for financial aid. This disparity helps explain the markedly lower yield for minority students, roughly 80 percent of whom have applied for financial aid in recent years, according to Deacon.

In addition to a drop in yield rate, the number of applications Georgetown received also declined this year.  A total of 18,617 students applied to Georgetown this year, a slight drop from 2008′s 18,700 applications.  The 2008 applicant pool was the largest in the University’s history, though, so while this year’s numbers aren’t record-breaking, they’re still higher than any year besides 2008.

To combat the flagging yield rate, and the disparity between financial aid seeking applicants and non-financial aid seeking applicants, the University has increased its fundraising efforts and plans unveil additional steps later this week.

If this fail proof tactic didn’t work, there’s always litigation!

If you’re one of the many jobless recent grads out there, Monroe College alumna Trina Thompson may have found the perfect solution for you: sue your college’s career center for failing to find you gainful employment!

Thompson, who graduated from the New York school in April with a bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, recently filed a lawsuit against her alma mater alleging that their Office of Career Advancement did not help her find a job. She’s suing them for $72,000—the cost of tuition plus $2,000 for the emotional stress of her job search.

Thompson—who had a 2.7 grade point average—also alleges that the College’s Office of Career Advancement treats students with higher GPAs preferentially.

According to CNN, Monroe College had this to say about the lawsuit:

While it is clear that no college, especially in this economy, can guarantee employment, Monroe College remains committed to working with all its students, including Ms. Thompson, who graduated only three months ago, to prepare them for careers and to support them during their job search.

This weekend the Washington Times ran a lengthy feature about the myriad of problems college students are facing in the rough economy (hey, I wonder why no one else has thought of running that…).

The article is pretty broad, hitting on everything from excessive student loan debt and poor employment prospects to skyrocketing tuition costs and the pressure students feel to avoid low-paying careers in the nonprofit and public service sectors.

What sets the Washington Times‘ woe-is-the-college-student piece apart from the rest, though? The fact that it features none other than Nick Troiano (COL ’11), GUSA rabble-rouser extraordinaire!

Read the rest of this entry »

Economic hardship: not just for the common folk anymore!

This weekend the Washington Times reported that the poor economy is having and impact on everyone—even chic Georgetown boutiques! Disbelievingly, they tell tales of outrageous, unprecedented retail behavior, like sales starting in July rather than the end of August and napkins retailing for a mere $35 rather than $125. The horrors!

They have some sad stories from Nakita McLelland, the owner of The Dutch Lady, a linen store on M Street, who has seen her “sophisticated” loyal customers stop coming in because they’ve lost so much money in the stock market, as well as some quotes from consumers bragging about all the good deals they’re getting.

The most absurd quote of the article, though, comes from Sharon Amar, the manager of Celine de Paris, a boutique on M Street:

“I am normally against sales. Americans go crazy for them, though. I have always felt that if a woman waits until a product is on sale to buy it, she has lost months where she could be wearing it and loving it,” said Mr. Amar, a native of France.

Photo by Flickr user ehpien, used under a Creative Commons license.

Only for the fortunate few, now more than ever

The recession has led to a lot of hardship and disappointment all around. This year’s crop of high school seniors deciding where to go to college are in a particular bind, having to reconcile their academic dreams with economic realities.

The Associated Press has an especially heartstrings-tugging story out today about the issue. The article is largely focused on Laura Mueller-Soppart, a Chicago senior who had her heart set on the School of Foreign Service (which was “sparkling with erudite conversations about international affairs” and employs her personal heroine, Madeline Albright):

She got accepted, but when the financial aid award letters arrived, her family’s expected contribution was way beyond what they felt they could afford, given how the drop in the stock market had cut their savings by more than half. She also had two younger brothers to think about.

So when Northeastern University in Boston offered her a nearly full ride, she asked herself: “Do I go $200,000 in the hole because so many told me Georgetown was indispensable, or do I take the full ride?”

She is taking the full ride.

“It was really hard for me, hard to the point where I cried all the time because I felt it was so incredibly unfair,” Mueller-Soppart said. “I told myself I could have worked half as hard as I did and ended up in the same place.”

The article goes on to explain that because Georgetown uses federal financial aid forms to assess a family’s expected contribution, Mueller-Soppart’s family was at a disadvantage because they hadn’t invested their savings in retirement funds (which can’t be counted for determining a family’s financial contribution). She still hopes to come to Georgetown for grad school, though.

Here’s what University Spokesperson Julie Green Bataille had to say about the story:

[W]e know that students and families are making difficult decisions about college this year and that’s why we’ve taken the steps we have in terms of limiting tuition growth and increasing our financial aid budget.

Photo from Flickr user ehpien, used under a Creative Commons license.

A recently released AP-mtvU poll of 2,240 students at 40 different four-year colleges shows us as a remarkably happy bunch, a little more than half of whom are concerned about the economy. Paradoxically, this year’s poll shows students happier than they were last year, but also more stressed.

Conducted from late-April to early-May, this year’s poll included many more questions about students feelings about the economy. Fifty-two percent said the economy had contributed to their daily stress and 58 percent said they were worried about finding a job after graduation (keep in mind, though, that the survey was of college students of all levels, not just seniors).

Interestingly, 7 percent of respondents (or 10 percent of those who reported having student loans) said they’d had difficulty having their student loans paid because of their banks’ own financial problems.

For more data, check out the graphs above or the full data set.

Via the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Now, we all know that the economy is awful, but did you know that it’s especially awful for this year’s graduating seniors? A couple recent stories from the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Business Journal paint a pretty vividly depressing picture why.

First off, finding a job is extremely difficult due to a triad of terribleness:

• Unemployment is on the rise among our age group, with the rate up to 13.9% among 20- to 24-year-olds and 10.9% among 25- to 28-year-olds
• To deal with the recession, employers are cutting down on their payroll and hiring less
• Even if employers are hiring, they’re less likely to seek out recent grads given the large supply of experienced and unemployed workers

Even if by some miracle you manage to get hired, you may be screwing yourself over in terms of long-term wages:

Even those who land jobs will likely suffer lower wages for a decade or more compared to those lucky enough to graduate in better times, studies show … Economic research shows that the consequences of graduating in a downturn are long-lasting. They include lower earnings, a slower climb up the occupational ladder and a widening gap between the least- and most-successful grads.

According to the WSJ, if you can find work in your desired career field, you’ll be better off in the long-run since you’ll learn the relevant skills and be more in demand once the economy recovers.

However, with employers saying they’ll hire 22% fewer college graduates than last year, the best bet may be to opt out of the job market all together. And you’re not alone in choosing that path—applications to AmeriCorps tripled, Teach for America saw a 42% increase in applications and graduate school are reporting an 8% increase in applications.

Um, happy graduation Class of 2009?

Photo from Flickr user adobemac, used under a Creative Commons license.