Going to Iowa State may no longer be worth the hassle for many international students.

Heightened national security and intense screening in response to international violence, along with an improving global economy, are causing Iowa State to lose foreign students to less restrictive countries, ISU officials said.

“The fact is that with the uncertainty of visa applications, and the increase in the world economy, international students are simply choosing universities in other countries,” said Marc Harding, director of admissions.

More international students are choosing universities in places such as Canada and Australia, mostly because of problems with visa applications, he said.

“There is a broad range of reasons why Australia and Canada are more attractive to international students lately. A major one is that visa applications here are just too much of a hassle here,” Harding said. “Economics and major are other huge factors.”

Economics, Harding said, often have been a big reason why foreign students have picked state universities such as Iowa State in the past.

“With a 60 percent increase in tuition here, coupled with the visa hassles, international students are simply going other places,” said Dennis Peterson, director of international educational services.

Iowa State’s international student undergraduate applications are down 31 percent for fall 2004, a decrease that not only costs the university thousands of dollars in tuition, but represents a loss of key researchers.

The increase in the global economy’s health—especially in China, the home of many ISU international students—is a key reason more students are remaining closer to home. Universities in Australia or Britain, which require a three-year commitment, are reporting increases in enrollment of foreign students.

“International students contribute millions of dollars every year to this community, and now we’re losing them to places like New Zealand and Canada,” Peterson said.

“It’s not contributing to national security — it’s hurting the American economy and holding out some good people who want to contribute their knowledge and possibly learn something about American democracy,” he said.

Jie Ma, graduate student in physics and astronomy from Hefei, Anhui, China, said a large reason for visa delays is what the student is majoring in.

Students majoring in sciences, such as aerospace engineering, nuclear engineering or physics are more likely to be delayed when getting a visa, he said.

“I know people who were delayed from coming back to Iowa State for seven or eight months, forcing them to take an entire year off,” Ma said.

Peterson said there is the chance international students could be delayed weeks or even months.

“We are telling international students not to go home unless it’s absolutely an emergency,” he said. “For graduate students who do research, this could be devastating because they could lose their position — the professors need the work to be done.”