In a report featured recently on CBSNews, Seth Doane reports on 50 Iraqi university students who participated in the U.S. State Department’s Iraqi Young Leaders Exchange Program, managed by World Learning. These students were brought together to “witness democracy in action” in the United States, and have participated since their arrival in team-building workshops, leadership training, and community service projects.

The internationalization efforts of higher education institutions in Canada and Hong Kong were featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education today. As the Chronicle reports, both countries have expended increased energy on internationalizing university programs and providing a global focus for their students.

The economic downturn has led many U.S. colleges to review and rethink their international education programs, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

Inside Higher Ed reports that enrollment of Chinese undergraduate students at U.S. universities has soared in recent years. The number of Chinese undergraduates at American universities increased by 64.7 per cent from 2006/07 to 2007/08 and another 59.8 per cent from 2007/08 to 2008/09, Inside Higher Ed notes, citing data from the Institute of International Education’s (IIE) most recent Open Doors report.

Plans to open branch campuses in South Korea of a number of prestigious Western schools are being viewed as “a bold experiment, one intended to bolster opportunity [in South Korea] and attract investment from abroad,” reports the New York Times.

In March, the U.S. Department of State issued a travel warning for citizens intending to visit the regions of Mexico most afflicted by drug-related violence. As a recent Chronicle of Higher Education article reports, this travel warning has led to declining numbers of American students participating in study abroad programs in Mexico.

Sher Bano, the YES program alum whose previous dispatches in the New York Times are available here and here, is back with another blog post, this time tackling the difficult and emotional subject of the devastating floods affecting her home country of Pakistan.

In a recent Huffington Post article, 17-year old Maad Sharaf shares his thoughts about how a year abroad in the United States through the Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program has changed his life. Originally from Aden in the Republic of Yemen, Sharaf came to Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, where he quickly learned that the image he had gotten about the United States, based mainly on media coverage in Yemen, did not correspond to reality:

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that U.S. colleges and universities are putting increased efforts into easing foreign students’ transition into American college life and integrating them both academically and socially. Schools are now focusing more strongly on engaging all students on their campuses in orientation, as well as organizing social and academic programs that bring domestic and foreign students together.

Applications from international students to U.S. graduate schools rebounded this year to their 2003 levels, reports the Chronicle of Higher Education, noting a new report released by the Council of Graduate Schools: