Bulletin Board

Community Colleges Draw From Abroad

For many American universities and colleges, the world is getting farther away. International enrollment in the United States is flat or down after many years when visitors flocked here to learn.

The reasons are familiar: a less welcoming environment, tightened visa rules, competition from other countries for students. First-time international enrollments at United States colleges fell 6.6 percent last year, new figures show. And the number of graduate school applications from abroad declined for the second year in a row.

Buried in these numbers, however, is a surprising trend: Tens of thousands of the international students still coming here are not going to research universities or elite institutions, but to community colleges.

International students at community colleges number a comparatively small 95,562 out of more than a million international students total. But since 2012, that number is up by 9 percent — a bright spot for a sector that has lost 19 percent of its overall enrollment during that time.

“Community colleges can be that steppingstone, that nurturing environment, and if all goes well — just like domestic students — they’ll transfer to a four-year school,” said Richard Garrett, chief research officer at the consulting firm Eduventures.

Community colleges have one other advantage: “They’re often in big urban centers where there are different languages spoken, different cultures,” Mr. Garrett said. “Compared to the average four-year school, community colleges are, in terms of their domestic profile, very international.” JON MARCUS

Learning to Appreciate School

Jennifer Sanchez grew up in Los Angeles, where she took her educational opportunities for granted. On track to drop out, she was referred to Sunburst Youth Academy, a military-style program offered through the Orange County Department of Education and the California National Guard.

This semester, Jennifer, 16, watched the documentary “Girl Rising,” which follows nine girls in developing countries struggling to get an education. She discussed the film online with teenagers in Argentina, Japan, the Palestinian territories and Uganda. It made her realize what some United States students squander.

“Some of us decide not to go when it’s given to us free,” Jennifer said. “These girls are here trying to fight for their education. It can be really hard and risky for them to even go to school.”

This insight turned Jennifer into a fierce advocate for school attendance.

The “Girl Rising” project is one of many offered by the International Education and Resource Network (iEARN), which connects students around the world to work together and share ideas. The nonprofit organization says 70,000 students in 120 countries participated in 2017-18, and every year they wrap up their projects by taking action.

At Sunburst, for example, Jennifer and two classmates found someone in Pakistan seeking a loan (through Kiva.org) to make school improvements in urban slums; she and her peers won $250 in a “Shark Tank”-style student competition that will help.

“Hopefully by lending money, if we can change a little girl’s life over there, or even a little boy’s, that would be really good,” Jennifer said. TARA GARCÍA MATHEWSON

Canada Welcomes Refugee College Students

Refugees who dream of resettlement and college face tough odds. Just 1 percent or less achieve either goal. But a Canadian scholarship program gives refugees access to both simultaneously.

The Student Refugee Program, run by the World University Service of Canada, or W.U.S.C., takes advantage of Canada’s immigration laws, which allow private organizations to sponsor refugees for resettlement as citizens. Colleges waive tuition and fees, and their classmates are required to give a small amount to help defray living expenses.

It’s a rare opportunity for refugees who would otherwise face major immigration hurdles, according to Michelle Manks, a senior manager at the World University Service of Canada. “Because they come from conflict-affected countries, student visas are almost impossible for them to get,” she said.

Refugees might be denied visas because they lack the required documentation or stable home countries to return to after graduation. One recent W.U.S.C. scholar from Malawi was offered a full scholarship to an American college, Ms. Manks said, but couldn’t get a visa to go.

Ms. Manks says that higher education systems worldwide should play a role in providing protection, in addition to education, for refugees. W.U.S.C. hopes to replicate its program in other countries, including the United States, but many unanswered questions remain about how to do so under American laws.

Meanwhile, the 40-year-old Canadian program plans to grow to 150 annual spots by 2020, from 130 now. It reports that nearly 85 percent of its students graduate from the Canadian colleges where they begin, and nearly 60 percent go on to additional studies. SARAH BUTRYMOWICZ

An Olympian and Role Model, for Africa and Beyond

Less than four months before the 2018 Winter Olympics, Simidele Adeagbo discovered skeleton, a terrifying sport that sends competitors hurtling headfirst down an icy track at speeds as high as 90 miles per hour. She had just enough time to learn her way around a sled and complete the five Olympic qualifying races.

“It was really about survival at first,” said Ms. Adeagbo, 37, a former marketing manager for Nike. “The thing that motivated me was this bigger purpose.”

No African woman had ever participated in skeleton at the Olympics. By competing for Nigeria, where she spent part of her childhood before moving to the United States, Ms. Adeagbo helped bolster the representation of Africans in the Winter Games in South Korea.

In the year since, she has placed her story at the center of a “master class” for girls across Africa. She aims, in a two-hour course combining sports with exercises in leadership, to help girls identify a way to make history and change the world.

Ms. Adeagbo has tested the program with a few hundred young women in Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa. Later this year, as a fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs at Yale, she plans to refine and expand the curriculum.

“Unfortunately, the world doesn’t affirm African women,” said Ms. Adeagbo, who also sees the class as a rare chance to expose girls on the continent to a sports program. “We live in a context and a world in which the contributions of Africans are not seen as equal.” CAROLINE PRESTON

Developing Global Bonds Through an Online Academy

Noa Fay, 18, grew up in the United States, hearing various stereotypes about men and masculinity. But in a gender studies course she took through the Global Online Academy, or G.O.A., Noa heard from classmates in Kenya, Hong Kong, England, India and South Africa about how masculinity is defined where they live, and she learned that the American perspective isn’t ubiquitous.

Noa had to check her assumptions several times last semester, in large part because of what she heard from her peers abroad.

“The way I’m thinking about things is probably forever changed,” said Noa, who just graduated from the private Noble and Greenough boarding school in Massachusetts.

G.O.A. is a collective of more than 70 member schools around the world offering accredited, online classes to middle and high school students. The courses, across a range of subjects, encourage students to develop global perspectives. Students cite additional benefits.

Adriana Castro Colón, 18, who grew up in the United States and just graduated from an international school in Portugal, considers herself a creative thinker. In a medical problem-solving course last fall, she worked with students from Hong Kong and Taiwan and found them to be more analytical thinkers. And she said her group benefited from both perspectives when tackling complex medical problems.

“While they would focus on one aspect of the problem, I could bring in something else,” Adriana said. She said she had also been incorporating some of their approach in her solo work, which has made her more efficient and organized.

G.O.A.’s class sizes are small, and students learn more than academic content. Communicating with one another through discussion boards and video calls, they find out that it’s possible to forge close relationships with people half a world away. Sometimes they are surprised by the strength of their virtual connections.

Noa finds those relationships particularly noteworthy as the United States curtails ties abroad.

“It’s important to understand the significance of making those global bonds,” Noa said. “Not just for the purpose of extending your own view of things, but also just to develop relationships across seas.” TARA GARCÍA MATHEWSON

Graduation Guidance

This season brings out the graduation speakers. Here is a sampling of their messages.

MICHAEL BENNETT
N.F.L. defensive end

University of Hawaii, Manoa

It takes more courage and integrity to dig deep within your heart and find compassion and empathy for others. Because a man or a woman isn’t judged on their moments of comfort, but how they respond in their moments of adversity and discomfort.

SONIA SOTOMAYOR
Supreme Court justice

Manhattan College

My hope for all of you here today is that you find a life filled with meaning, and that you create that meaning by serving your communities and the people in your life. Education, hard work and a sense of community are what made me who I am.

LAVERNE COX
Actress

Pitzer College

You will get to where you’re supposed to be, but you will have a lot of detours. And what I want for you is — don’t give up before the miracle. … What that means is just keep trying to figure out how to take the next right action.

PEGGY NOONAN
Author

University of Notre Dame

You cannot hate and denigrate government, the press, the courts, our institutions and claim at the same time that you are trying to be constructive. You are not. You cannot hate the other side and claim you are trying to help. You are not.

MELISSA STOCKWELL
Paralympian

Southern Utah University

I can honestly say I’ve done more in my life with one leg than I ever would have done with two, but I have come to see that I was capable of accomplishing just as much with two legs. Those abilities were always within me. So I guess the bigger question is how do you skip the traumatic part? … A huge part of doing that is simply believing that you can, believing there is more in you.