Foreign students are valuable to the United States. Most have to pay the ful

Foreign students are valuable to the United States. Mast have to pay the full coasts for their education. That helps universities meet their budgets. International students and their families put twelve-thousand-million dollars into the American economy last year. That number is from the Institute of International Education, based in New York.
    Now, many education officials my they are concerned that fewer students will come to the United States for the next school year. The officials base their concern partly on a decrease in students planning to attend intensive English programs during the summer.
    Just over half the schools in the American Association of Intensive English Programs were questioned for an online study in May. The members said they expected nineteen percent fewer students than last summer. They said they expected more than thirty percent fewer students than in the summer of two-thousand-one.
    The members said one rex*on for the expected decrease is slower and more restrictive United States action on travel documents. Security has increased since the terrorist attacks of September eleventh, two-thousand-one. The schools also blamed the travel problems caused by the outbreak of SARS.
    In recent years, an increasing number of students have come to the United States to study. The Institute of International Education says these students represent more than four percent of all students in American colleges and universities. It says the number of international students reached a record high of more than five hundred-eighty-thousand last year. The largest number came from India. Before last year the largest number came from China.
    For some years now, it has been possible for students in other countries to get an American education without leaving home. Several schools offer academic degrees online. These include Jones International University in Englewood, Colorado, and the University of Phoenix in Arizona.