When Natalija Koreka decided to attend Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, Calif., she knew it was one of the best decisions she could make. After two years, her plan was to transfer to a top U.S. university to study business. Koreka stuck with her plan and is now a junior studying business at the University of Southern California.
She is not unlike many community college students who ultimately pursue a four-year degree, but one big difference between Koreka and a traditional community college student is that she traveled from Latvia, a country in Northern Europe, to attend Foothill, located in northern California.
According to the Foothill-DeAnza Educational Master Plan 2005-2015, both Foothill and DeAnza community colleges are committed to providing access to higher education for international students. “Serving international students here and abroad is an essential element of the district’s commitment to foster understanding and build global partnerships,” the report states.
However, not all California residents are in agreement that community colleges should be building global partnerships.
A recent article in the San Jose Mercury News about the recruitment of international students at San Francisco Bay Area community colleges fueled an online debate about the role of community colleges.
“This is enraging,” one reader wrote. “Why should our local colleges and universities be focusing on students who are not in our communities? We have major problems educating youth from many sectors of this valley and yet DeAnza-Foothill is focusing on foreign students?”
Another reader wrote: “This is such a disservice to tax-paying California residents who have helped build and support these institutions. I would much rather see them doing more to recruit among the local populace.”
George Beers, dean of international education at Foothill College, says Foothill- DeAnza has been recruiting international community college students since 1989, adding that the people who responded to the Mercury News article were “misinformed.”
