ROSEANNE CHAO/Daily

Universities across the United 

States, and especially those in 
the Midwest, are struggling to 
attract international students to 
their 
campuses. 
International 

enrollment has most noticeably 
declined in non-flagship state 
universities, where funding for 
classes and facilities has dried up 
due to the lack of international 
students who are willing to pay full 
price for tuition.

University of Michigan students 

on the Ann Arbor campus, who are 
used to seeing more international 
students every year, may be 
surprised 
to 
find 
Michigan’s 

public institutions are not immune 
to this decline. Of the state’s 15 
public universities, 10 reported a 
declining 
international 
student 

population over the past year, 
including U-M Flint, Michigan 
State University, and Wayne State 
University. However, several of 
these universities have embraced 
strategies like shifting their focus 
to domestic out-of-state students 
and online courses to offset falling 
enrollment rates and revenue. 
These new strategies have been 
successful so far.

Forces behind the decline
James Cotter, director of the 

Office of Admissions at Michigan 
State 
University, 
said 
several 

factors could be responsible for the 
decline in international enrollment, 
including the tense political climate 
in the U.S., represented in policies 
like President Donald Trump’s 
travel ban.

“In the last five years, there’s 

been some things that changed,” 
Cotter said. “Perhaps the climate 
within the United States and the 
lack of a sense of welcomeness that 
the country may be projecting, 
whether that be true or not … We’re 
hearing from students that that’s 
an issue.”

According to its enrollment 

report, 
MSU 
has 
seen 
its 

international enrollment fall from 
its fall 2014 peak of 7,645 students, 
or 15.26 percent of the total student 
population, to 6,850, or 13.69 
percent. Cotter said the numbers 
back in the day may have been 
“artificially high” because other 
universities around the world 
were not as interested in recruiting 

international students, and saw the 
current numbers as appropriate.

“Those international numbers 

(from 
2014) 
may 
have 
been 

artificially high … Most of us in the 
enrollment management profession 
knew that those numbers weren’t 
necessarily sustainable,” Cotter 
said. “Everyone seems to be in the 
game of recruiting international 
students now and that wasn’t 
necessarily the case back in 2011, 
2012, 2013.”

Engineering senior Mary Rose 

Shi, an international student from 
Myanmar, said the high cost of 
tuition in the United States was a 
deterring factor for many of her 
friends back home.

“We’re 
becoming 
more 

globalized, so the opportunities 
available at U.S. colleges are very 
much available outside of the U.S. 
as well,” Shi said.

Funding 
from 
foreign 

governments 
also 
influences 

how 
many 
foreign 
students 

study abroad. Ahmad Ezzeddine, 
associate 
vice 
president 
for 

Educational 
Outreach 
and 

International Programs at Wayne 
State University, said a major factor 
was the rise and fall in government-
sponsored scholarships. As a result 
of the Brazilian government ending 
its Brazilian Scientific Mobility 
Program, Ezzeddine said Wayne 
State’s population of international 
students decreased almost four 
percent, ending a four-year trend of 

increases.

In China, the number of high 

school graduates has been steadily 
decreasing every year, due to the 
country’s one-child policy, which 
was in effect from 1979 to 2015. 
Cotter cited the demographic shift 
in the country and the Chinese 
government’s investment in its 
own higher education system as 
reasons why Chinese students, who 
make up the bulk of international 
students at many universities, 
come in smaller numbers now.

International 
factors 
affect 

some 
schools 
more 
adversely 

than other. The University of 
Michigan-Flint campus has seen its 
international enrollment dwindle 
to 348 students, 4.44 percent of the 
student population, or almost half 
of its 2015 peak of 720, 8.5 percent, 
according to their student profile.

Kristi 
Hottenstein, 
vice 

chancellor 
for 
Enrollment 

Management 
at 
U-M 
Flint, 

explained the decline in Saudi 
Arabian 
students, 
who 
make 

up more than a third of the 
international student population 
at Flint, was a major factor in the 
school’s decline in international 
enrollment overall. The Saudi 
government 
cut 
funding 
for 

students studying abroad in 2016 
due to falling oil prices.

“Any 
enrollment 
decline 

has budget implications for a 
university, and that holds true for 
U-M Flint,” Hottenstein wrote in 
an email interview. “However, our 
university has planned accordingly, 
and we continue to actively recruit 
students from Saudi Arabia, across 
the Middle East and around the 

Community 
members 

gathered to attend the second 
meeting of the 7th annual 
Sustainable Ann Arbor Forum 
series 
on 
Thursday, 
which 

focused on methods to measure 
and 
track 
the 
progress 
of 

sustainability. About 40 students 
and 
Ann 
Arbor 
residents 

attended the event at the Ann 
Arbor District Library.

Attendees came to discuss the 

success of the city’s sustainability 
programs. 
Moderator 
John 

Mirsky, executive policy advisor 
for Sustainability for the Ann 
Arbor City Administrator, began 
the forum by emphasizing the 
importance of measuring and 
tracking sustainability.

“If you speak with data, that 

drives informed improvement,” 
he said.

According to Mirsky, the best 

way of measuring progress is 
through metrics and by tracking 
the information through review 
meetings, along with community 
engagement.

“Stay 
engaged,” 
Mirsky 

said. “Hold (the city and) the 
University 
accountable 
for 

michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Friday, February 9, 2018

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM

See SUSTAINABILITY, Page 3

City Forum 
talks data 
from green 
 

initiatives

ANN ARBOR

Methods to measure and 
track sustainability efforts 
discussed in city meeting

NATASHA PIETRUSCHKA

For the Daily

Despite declining international enrollment across 
state, Ann Arbor campus sees steady increases

Regional public institutions adopt new strategies to increase out-of-state enrollment, boost revenue

ISHI MORI

Daily Staff Reporter

It’s 
not 
uncommon 
for 

University 
of 
Michigan 

students to spend late nights 
studying at the University’s 
many libraries. That’s why 
free 
university-sponsored 

transportation 
services 
like 

Campus SafeRide are designed 
to take students, faculty, and 
staff where they need to be 
after-hours. But this service 
created 
to 
bring 
students 

home safely at late hours can 
sometimes leave them waiting 
longer than expected.

The 
SafeRide 
system 

depends on four drivers Sunday 
through Thursday, and three 
on 
Fridays 
and 
Saturdays. 

SafeRide encourages the use of 
their app, which automatically 
assigns a destination to the 
most 
launchable 
driver. 

If 
students 
call, 
drivers 

manually record the necessary 
information.

Some University of Michigan 

users have reported waiting to 

be picked up by SafeRide times 
significantly longer than the 
service advertises. A source 
from SafeRide who requested 
to remain anonymous indicated 
wait 
times 
are 
generally 

15-20 minutes. However, LSA 
sophomore 
Lillie 
Heyman 

experienced twice that when 
she was told her wait time 
would be 40 minutes. 

After the Law Library had 

closed at 12 a.m. on a Saturday 
and buses had retired their 
routes, Heyman needed to get 
back to her dorm at Oxford 
Housing. Never having tried 
SafeRide before, she decided to 
call them. 

“I called the number and 

the person answered, and they 
asked if I wanted to be added to 
the queue of people waiting for 
SafeRide,” Heyman said. “The 
wait was 40 minutes.”

Students 
often 
turn 
to 

SafeRide before transportation 
apps like Uber or Lyft to avoid 
the potentially hefty fees they 
charge, which can exceed $10 
depending on the location. 

University’s 
ride service 
struggles to 
suit demand

See RIDE, Page 3

SARAH KUNKEL/Daily

Amiyah Scott speaks at the 4th Annual W.M. Trotter Lecture titled “My Life. My Story! Centering the Voices of Trans Lives” at the Trotter Multicultural Center 
Thursday. 

CAMPUS LIFE

Equipped with few drivers and resources, 
SafeRide leaves students with long waits

NATASHA PIETRUSCHKA

For the Daily

“My Life. My Story!” lecture celebrates acclaimed members of the trans community

As attendees filled Rackham 

Auditorium 
Thursday 
night, 

a slideshow flashed images of 
acclaimed figures in the trans 
community, both living and dead. 
A few of the many honored were 
actress Laverne Cox, “Survivor” star 
Zeke Smith and Sylvia Rivera, the 
late activist and drag queen. Over 
250 people attended the Trotter 
Multicultural Center’s lecture “My 
Life. My Story! Centering the Voices 

of Trans Lives,” honoring the lives, 
works and stories of transgender 
and nonbinary people. 

Jessica 
Thompson, 
program 

manager for the Trotter Center, 
did much of the organizing for the 
lecture, reaching out to trans student 
speakers at the University, as well as 
the celebrity keynote speakers. At 
the start of the event, she expressed 
her appreciation for the student 
speakers’ willingness to share their 
stories. She said while the celebrity 
speakers brought inspiration to the 
event, it was the students she felt 
were most impressive.

“Although they (the celebrities) 

are amazing, I have to be honest, 
that’s not what makes this event 
star-studded,” Thompson said. “It’s 
the students that make this event 
star-studded.”

The student speakers came from 

diverse backgrounds and different 
parts of the University: Art & Design 
senior D. Wang Zhao, Information 
graduate student Vidhya Aravind, 
Max Mendez, a recent graduate 
from the School of Social Work 
and 2017 LSA graduate Leo Sheng. 
Each student expressed their story 
in different ways, but all included 

their struggles, perseverance and 
gratitude for the support of friends 
and family.

Zhao told their story through 

poetry, using the color blue to 
represent their fluid gender identity 
and 
express 
frustration 
with 

discrimination.

“My blue is not masculine-

centered, not feminine-centered, 
but fluid and indistinguishable,” 
Zhao said. “My blue is of transience 
and of being an immigrant of 
having aesthetics that involve of 
yes, bleaching my eyebrows like I 

ELIZABETH LAWRENCE

Daily Staff Reporter

See TROTTER, Page 3

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Daily Weekly 

INDEX
Vol. CXXVII, No. 73
©2018 The Michigan Daily

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O PI N I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

A R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

S U D O K U . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

CL A S S I F I E DS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
michigandaily.com

For more stories and coverage, visit

See SPENDING, Page 3

Transgender, nonbinary stories 
highlighted at annual Trotter event