Columns:: Around Academe

since 12/15/98

Columns::April 7, 2003

Around academe

SEVIS database not ready
The Student Exchange Visitor Information System--SEVIS, the database designed by the federal government to track international students--is not ready for use three months after its due date.
According to a report from the U.S. Department of Justice, the database--which is supposed to contain information on all international students--only contains information on new students and won’t contain information on all foreign students until Aug. 1. The main complaint lodged against SEVIS is its incapability to detect visa fraud.
Those who work with SEVIS say the report does not accurately reflect the real situation and that a Congressional panel was made aware that student data would be due at different times. Some of the problems, according to the report, were not the fault of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, but rather lack of funding and manpower that divided attention between projects.

Students flee war-torn area
Hundreds of non-Arab university students studying in Kuwait, Jordan and Syria have left their studies and begun heading home because of the war in Iraq. Many are having a difficult time getting out of the area because of suspended airline flights. Some Malaysian students were picked up and transported back home by the Royal Malaysian Air Force. Other students haven’t been as lucky. Several Indian students from Saddam University, in Baghdad, ran out of money on their way home to India and are stranded in Tehran.

Cost to attend Harvard increases
The cost to attend Harvard University is going up next year by 5.5 percent, the largest percentage increase in a decade. A Harvard undergraduate will pay $37,928 for tuition, fees, and room and board for the 2003-2004 academic year; this year’s total was $35,950.
University officials in Cambridge, Mass., attributed the increase to the weak economy, higher expenses and Harvard’s unwillingness to cut services.

--Leslie Bakun

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