 It's looking to the east, looking to Japan with Steve Zercher, who is a professor at Kanzai, Gadae, did I get that right, University in Kobe, Japan, and he is also a member of the faculty at the Shidler College of Business here in Hawaii, and he's an international person. He's been an international person for many years, and he can appreciate the exchange of students from the point of view of an educator between the U.S. and Japan. So today, we're going to talk about trends in international study. I guess that means exchange student study for the U.S. in Japan and for Japan in the U.S. We're calling it Japan Yes, USA No. Hi, Steve. Good morning and good afternoon. Thank you so much, Dave, for taking time to talk with you once again. This is a subject that's very near and dear to me. I originally came to Japan as an exchange to myself. I did that for one year, my sophomore year in college, and that profoundly changed the direction of the rest of my life, the arc of my life. So I believe in international exchange. I think I tell my students in Hawaii and also here the ones I understand that the fact that they're on an exchange program, they're spending the semester or two abroad is the most important thing that they can do during their undergraduate college years, but that's certainly what's true in my case. So now, as you pointed out, I'm a professor and also a dean at Kansai Gaida University, and part of my management area is watching over the exchange program at Kansai Gaida. And of course, I watch closely the trend in terms of international exchange for foreign students. This is a big business for America. It's a huge business for America. I think your listeners and certainly you know, Jay, a large portion of the students who are studying at American universities are not native born Americans. And for the university, it's one of the primary revenue courses for the university because oftentimes, local students are on scholarship or there's state regulations that allow them to go to school at reduced rates and so forth. But foreign students, they come in, you know, they cannot apply for any of that and they're not likely to get scholarship. Well, usually they pay full tuition when they're studying. Like my wife went to Berkeley, she's Japanese. It's the first year she was a non-resident. I think it was like $35,000 a year back at that time. Of course, it's much, much more. And the local people, California residents were paying probably $15,000 or $20,000, so much, much less. So this is a big business. Well, there's a difference too, is there the attitude that students have when they come over from another country. You know, the U.S. is a big deal. They've been told and they've fully integrated the idea that you can get a good education here. And they're like immigrants and immigrants are motivated and they're more motivated. They're not here to play sports necessarily. They're not here to go to fraternity parties and meet girls. They're here to work hard. They're here to get a really good education that best the U.S. can offer. And as a result, most of them seem to me anyway, you can correct me, are really good students and they get good grades and they learn more perhaps than the average American student in the same school. Yeah, I agree with that, Jay. I have to say that there is an exception that's like $20,000. When it comes to my own experience, looking for girls was an important part of my foreign exchange experience. But anyway, in general, I think you're absolutely right. And that's just one of the students that I have at Consigai there. They're from all over the world. And Disney professors that come in, they were Mark and I have the same impression that these students, they're kind of self-selecting students that go abroad, are generally more motivated, seem to be more on the ball, maybe a little bit smarter, more kind of aware of what's going on in the grander scheme of things. And as a result, they end up being better students. So that's my experience, my direct experience each year over the last eight years. I really enjoy teaching foreign exchange to them. So does it work the same way? Does it work the same way in reverse? How do you find that American students who come to Japan, how do they compete with the Japanese students in the same school? Again, I think it applies. The American students that come are self-selecting. They're a little bit more courageous than the standard American students. It's still, if you look at the overall population of college students in America, the number of students that go abroad is about 10% through the course of four years. And this is the short-term trips as well. So it really is a minority of the general American students that do go abroad. And I find that the American students that are studied here in Japan, accounts like I did, to be good students and open-minded, curious, intellectually skilled in many respects and generally higher performers when I compare them to the domestic Japanese students who are sometimes in my classes as well. Well, let me make a short rant, if you don't mind. My rant is this. I've been suggesting to the parents of high school graduates or college graduates here in Hawaii for years and years and years that the best thing they can do is urge their kid to go to Asia. That means Japan or China learn the language in those countries and become a citizen of the world. You know, have the special globalist kind of education you can get if you study in another country. And I wouldn't put down studying in Europe either, but I think it's really important for somebody in Hawaii who has so much contact with Asia simply because the way Hawaii is set up to go to Asia. But what I find over the past few years anyway, it seems to be not happening. Despite my advice to all these people, their kids do not go to Asia. Their kids do not go to school in Asia. And they wind up going to the mainland. They wind up, I don't know where they wind up, but not in Hawaii and not in Asia. And I feel that's really a loss. I don't think we encourage the kids here in Hawaii to do that enough. Maybe we don't express the value of doing that to them and they don't incorporate that value in their own planning. So my rant is I would like to see more kids from Hawaii study in Asia. And since China is having human rights issues and oppression issues lately and surveillance and what not, social quota issues, probably a better place right now would be Japan. So if some parent came to me right now and asked me what should he advise his kid, I would say go to Japan. But it's not happening, is it? Couple of things, Jay. It's as usual an excellent question, excellent observation. I have the data here from the open doors organization. They study international exchange and every year they produce the report on the trends in international exchange that applies to U.S. universities and your students. So to your point about where Americans are going, if I look at the top 10 destinations by country, China is number seven and Japan is number 10. So if they do go abroad, American students, number one country is United Kingdom, about 11%, 11.5% in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Ireland, so the top six are all European countries. And I agree with you. I'm sure they have a good time, but if you think about the future of world economics and where the growth is, it's here. It's all in Asia. So the students who decide to go to Asia are investing more broadly, I guess I should say, in their future. Europe is not going to be growing. UK is having tremendous problems, but yet students go there. It's probably Jay because they think the part of the challenge you're going to Asia is that psychologically, the greater distance in their head and then also they think, oh, I have to study Chinese and I have to study Japanese. So that's a part of the issue. And then to your point about going to Japan, the good news is that Japan is cool. American students just seem to have an interest in it over the last three years, according to this report, the number of American students year over year has increased three years ago, it increased 18%. And then last year, 2018, it increased 5%. And this year, according to this recent report, Japan number of Americans increased year over year 12.4%. So the raw numbers total still, yeah, that's good. It does seem to be a preferred destination among Americans in terms of the growth rate. The raw numbers are still far below the day. The number of Americans in the country is about 8,500 last year. And the United Kingdom is 40,000, so it's five times higher. Well, you know, one thing that I have noticed is that if you go to say Harrow or Cambridge in the United Kingdom, you are not only getting a good education, I believe they give good education there, but you're rubbing shoulders with people who will be your friends for life. And it's not just social. Those people are going to go into business, who knows what, foreign service could be anything, and you will know them, and they will know you, and you will have deep relationships with people far away. It's the same thing in Asia, I think. And I might add one other point is that here in Hawaii, there's a thing called the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies, which is run by DOD. It's a Dan Inouye project in Waikiki right across from the military hotel in Waikiki and Darusey, Fort Darusey. And what happens is they invite and pay for various management people, both business and political and military, to come from their respective countries in Asia and go to school right there, Fort Darusey and the APCSS. And they house them in condos that are in Waikiki, and for months they get to live with each other, people from different countries. And so by the time it's over, these people know each other from the classroom setting and from living in a condo together, spending a lot of time together, and they're friends for life, and they're from different countries. And so you have a built-in diplomatic connection and business connection between these various people from various countries. This is invaluable to them and to the United States because they like being here, they like the United States. So the result is that everyone involved in these programs is a citizen diplomat for life. And that is a very valuable asset to have. And I would certainly like to see that expanded. But when you have isolationist government in Washington who wants to pull back on things like that, then you lose the benefit of this citizen diplomat result. What do you think about all of that? Yeah, yes. So just a quick example of how true this is. I went to Consigai Day as a foreign exchange student. I mentioned my sophomore year, and I went back to the states and completed my studies. And then out of the blue, this is one of my friends, one of my colleagues, a student from America as well who's on the space program with me, that I'm starting a spa for business in San Francisco. And would you like to join me? And I didn't even know what the software was when he called me, but I said yes, I ended up working there. And that's how I created my career in the software industry, was to do that connection that I had made while being a foreign exchange student in Japan. So that's how it worked out for me, because again, why I'm such an advocate of this, you're absolutely right. We often have the consul generals from Australia and the United States come and give presentations to our students at the closing ceremony, or when we start the academic year. And they emphasize the same thing. Don't represent your country. You have a wonderful opportunity here. Make connections, and these connections will be valuable to you over your lifetime, no matter what you do, whether you go into pharmacy or business or teaching or whatever it may be. And that's absolutely correct. But the tagline for this session today was, and yes, so we see that the numbers are up for American students going to Japan. Unfortunately, in the other direction, that is Japanese students going to America, and actually more general foreign students going to America, this report sadly indicates that the numbers are down. So the year on year for Japanese students, the number of students who went abroad to America was reduced by 3.5% year over year. And then overall, international students going to America was slightly down about 1%. The trend over the last couple of years is a negative trend. So the NASA organization, which is the trade conference, the organization that supports international exchange, is indicating that this is having a significant material, financial effect on universities in America that they're losing approximately $5 billion because of a drop-off in international students going to America. So why is that happening? I mean, I know that's so when you have a school, HPU here downtown, HPU relies on foreign students. And if their visas are not forthcoming, if the immigration service is sitting on their application of a visa or turning them down, that has a direct effect on the school that relies on foreign students. Is that happening around the country? Yes. So the numbers are the last academic year. The number of students coming from all sources to study in America is down approximately 1%. And then compared to 2015-16, which was the peak, it's down 10%. So yes, US universities are suffering now because the number of international students going to study there is down 10% from a few years ago. Now, that 2015 year, what happened then, Jay? Ah, we know what happened, Jay. You know, that's one indication. Yeah, exactly. The message out of the United States now is not a welcoming test. You know, we're going to make this harder, use the process to support difficult now. And students who are in America often are under the bed, or they feel that their visa may be revoked as well for various reasons. And this happens to some foreign students. Of course, that gets out into the broader news. But that's one thing that's not the only thing. There are other factors. The cost of education in America is bureaucracy. So American education now is the most expensive in the world. So parents who have to pay for those out-of-state tuition are going, oh my god, you know, I have to pay $50,000 in America. And if I send my students to Canada, it's only going to be 20, or I send them to Australia, it's only going to be 20. Oh, by the way, the number of international students going to other countries is a tag rock. So the increase in the UK over this period of time is on 30, 40 percent. Australia is just booming. The Consul General for Australia, facing globally, whenever he sees me, he comes up to me and he says, thank you so much, Steve, for electing your current president, because it's making my education business boom. He just says that too. Thank you so much. Well, we shouldn't be thanking him because he's hurting us. He's hurting the schools. And, you know, my point earlier, he's hurting the relationships, the future relationships, the diplomatic and business relationships that our country has with the countries that would send students over here. So when you go isolationist, it has a long-term effect, an effect that you really can't control, years and years, you know, a diminution of the central connection between this country and all the countries that would send students and couldn't. And all those students go somewhere else. And when you said, for example, that the Japan students go to the UK, I think some of them go to the UK because they can't get into the US. And the UK benefits, they have the money and the connections, and we lose in that same vein. Where else are they going? Aside from the UK, where are the Japanese students going? I don't have any information on that. Since this report is kind of American, that trick, I'd have to get that from the Japanese side. I know from my own interaction with the countryside guide, the majority of them still want to study in America, but Europe is the second location. Some want to study in South America as well, because we have some connections with sister schools there. So it's spread out. But I would say the majority of, and this maybe just because of the historic nature of our program, we started in the 1970s and they're really focused quite strongly on American universities. So within the student body that goes abroad from countryside guide, the preference still is for American school. But maybe I can look that up for you and find out. I'm just wondering also about the cost. You talked about the economics and I think that's really important. And it's remarkable how much more it costs to go to college now in the US on average than it costs back in the day. I went to Queen's College of the City University in New York City. It was a very good school and its graduates are all over the country doing well. And it cost me $12 a semester for tuition. $12. So now it costs $10,000. And I just wonder how, and then what happens is the students get student loans in the US to pay these extraordinary charges. And then now Trump is trying to, and then it was a program under Obama to forgive the student loans. But Trump is not respecting that. So then the students have to find a way to pay the loans back, which can be very, very difficult because of the amounts involved. I wonder if the student loan program taken together with the cost of American education is affecting the students who would come from Japan. Can Japanese students make student loans under the American student loan policy? Are they affected by this? I, generally the way it works in Japan, and I would imagine this would extend Japanese students who are studying abroad, the contract is that the parents pay for their children's undergraduate education. Japan doesn't have the same kind of student loan or deed program that America does. In fact, when I talk about state financing for students, Japanese administrators at my university don't know what I'm talking about. So probably the way it works is the child wants to study in America and they're not under some kind of exchange program. The parents are paying for that out of pocket. So the increase in the tuition at American universities would have a negative effect if the parents do the research. I mean, if the son is the daughter of state, I have to study in America because that's where, you know, I want to, then the parent will probably say, okay, at least that's my impression of countryside guidance. And we're kind of a slightly richer school, maybe average, not super rich, but higher than the middle class, I'd say. That's how it would work. So I think that the tuition increases in America is probably driving their look at alternatives. And as I mentioned, Australia, UK, those number of, their number of enrollments at those universities is going up. So some other factors to our prime. I just read this recently in the Chronicle of Higher Education, which is the Bible for us academics, in terms of what's going on in the university transit business. So, you know, every other month or so, we have a horrible news coming out in the United States that gets well reported here in Japan. So there's also a little bit of an element of fear about studying in the United States as opposed to Canada or Australia or other places that are more. So that's not a major factor, but I think that's a factor that's driving the numbers down for us for Japanese students to study in America. And that would include the gun control issue, too. I mean, security on the campus for the women and for kids who would be concerned about gun episodes, which do happen on American campuses as well. I think, yeah, that's unheard of here in Japan. We just, the gun laws here are very, very strict and that type of crime doesn't exist. But parents who are going to study the students, their children abroad in America, they do read or hear about this, because it does get reported when it happens. But unfortunately, you know, it happens on a periodic basis. Well, let me let me ask you this, Steve. I'd like to bring on. Go ahead. Go ahead, Jay. Well, I was, I was gonna, you know, you're an international person and you know both systems. In fact, you, you know, the international education in general. And you've done research on it and all that. And if I, if I was the president of the United States, or Congress assuming that Congress becomes functional again. And I asked you, Steve, what, what kind of legislation should we adopt here to regain, enhance the benefits of student exchange, say between the U.S. and Japan or other countries in Asia? What would you recommend that I do in order to take full advantage of the fact that people in Asia like to study in the U.S. but are being held back for one reason or another? What should I do? What legislation should I pass? What programs should I adopt? Yeah, I think there's two things. One is non-relative. One is messaging that you're welcome to be here. We want you here. So I think that's very important message to send out. That's not being sent out now. So that's, I think, encouraging students. And then through the legislative aspect of this, I think making it easier for the students to go through the visa process instead of making it more difficult and the government controls the levers on that without question would be helpful. And then beyond that, one of the reasons I think also why the number of applicants for two American universities is going down is because they think that when they finish their degree, it will be highly unlikely that they can work in America. So the H-1B visa program is being produced, is being made more difficult. I'm primed from the Bay Area. I grew up in Silicon Valley. The number of entrepreneurs there is about a third or so. There's the Chinese group and the Korean group without those immigrants. Silicon Valley would not be what it is today. Oh, sure. If you look at the, you know, like Google, Google, those are immigrants. Yes. So many examples. Yes. So you should be more welcoming to people who are educated and talented and do as we talked about before, have proven themselves by self-collecting and are willing to leave their home country be one of the 10% and take the risk to go to some other location and study. Those are the people we want to stay. So I think that would be a very important thing, Jay, when you become president, that you change. And that will encourage, I think, more applications in a much more positive environment at university level and much more growth down the road as you graduate and integrate themselves into DACA or wherever they want to be. You can count on that, Steve. And that's why we have to keep talking. We have to talk about this and other issues that affect the U.S. and Japan and Asia. And I look forward to our next discussion. It's always great to talk to you, Steve. Steve Zercher at Kansai Gadai University in Kobe, Japan. Thank you so much, Jay. An international educator and philosopher. Thank you so much.