Spending on Sevis
New system to track international student enrollment leaves educators stressed, while the federal government reports its success
By Kendra Hamilton

It's been a bruising year for everyone involved with international education. And no one in the community of international educators can yet breathe a sigh of relief, because soon colleges and universities, trade schools, certificate programs and even high-school exchange programs will face a critical milestone.

Thirty days after their (student) enrollment periods end, "Every single (school with an international enrollment) will be reporting on every single student in the same relative time frame," says Ursula Oaks, spokeswoman for NAFSA: Association of International Educators. With a total of over half a million international students enrolled at postsecondary institutions and over a million international and exchange students in the United States, "It'll be quite a data load to the SEVIS system."

What is the SEVIS system and why is it causing such stress? In the alphabet soup of educational acronyms, this is one whose importance has been looming larger than ever since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The Student and Exchange Visitor Information System or SEVIS is an Internet-based program which the now-defunct Immigration and Naturalization Service put in place to monitor the movements and enrollment status of international students in the United States. And according to international educators, it's changing the face of the field.

"The profession can't function any longer without the technology component, and that means hiring people with technical skills," says Peter Briggs, director of the Office of International Students and Scholars at Michigan State University. "Some people are actually choosing to leave the profession because they don't want to make the adjustment.

"We're no longer spending our time doing the sorts of things, using the kinds of intercultural competencies, that drew them into the field," Briggs adds. "How do we spend our time these days in international education? Mostly we spend our time on SEVIS."