The falling value of the dollar has spurred high numbers of international students to enroll in U.S. colleges for this fall, as an American college education is now less expensive for many foreign students, The Boston Globe reported Saturday. Nearly 583,000 international students have enrolled in American colleges this year, the most since 2001, when Congress tightened student visa requirements following the World Trade Center attacks. At Babson College, where foreign student enrollment saw a 67 percent hike, international students will constitute a quarter of the school's incoming class, according to The Globe. The largest percentage of international students were from India, followed by students from China and Korea, The Globe reported.
The Hanover Planning Board appeared to support the College's revised proposal for the Rivercrest affordable housing development in a meeting on July 1, according to the Valley News. The proposal will raze 61 units of affordable housing built by Dartmouth 50 years ago and create 272 units of new affordable housing for employees of the College and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. The housing will consist of apartments, duplexes, single-family homes and town houses, the Valley News said. The College plans to initially build 150 units, and will complete the full project at a later unspecified date, depending on the success of the initial phase. Some board members expressed concern about the lack of a timetable for the second phase of the development, while some Hanover residents at the meeting worried that the project will increase traffic, according to the Valley News.
The recent downturn in the U.S. economy could bode poorly for the financial state of colleges and universities, according to a report issued by Moody's Investors Service, The Chronicle of Higher Education said. Although the financial state of colleges and universities received overall high marks in the report, returns from college endowments have been mainly negative this year, and many colleges have had to restructure their debt as their current interest payments doubled or tripled in value, The Chronicle reported. Colleges, however, still have significant funds available to ride out the financial downturn. Total financial resources have grown by 10 percent annually for three of the past four years, and student fees have continued to rise, according to The Chronicle. Moody's report was based on financial data from 281 private institutions, and most colleges were given a high rating, the article said.
