“American education mostly attracts foreign students as well as Azeri students”, The Hill

Baku, August 2 (AzerTAc). The American famous newspaper “The Hill” writes, a look at a copy of the Rochester Community High School yearbook from 1974 reveals page after page of smiling Indiana teenagers busy with completing schoolwork, attending sports practice and posing for club photos. It also shows young Jorge Argüello, smiling alongside his Midwest classmates in every picture. He still smiles when asked about his senior year of high school. “My routine was that of any other American teenager in those days,” he said. “From waking in the morning to have breakfast to catching the school bus to having lunch with everyone to going after school to practice sports — dating some, making friends. Doing all the normal things you would do.” Argüello was different from the normal American teenager, however, and a notable alumnus. Born in Cordoba, Argentina, and raised in Argentinean Patagonia, Argüello currently serves as Argentina’s ambassador to the United States. Prior to that, he served as permanent representative of Argentina to the United Nations from 2007 to 2011. The number of foreign students seeking an American education has reached an all-time high, and is only predicted to rise. It’s also worth noting that nearly one-quarter of foreign diplomats to the United States have some form of American education. That presence is greatest at the collegiate level. International student enrollment in U.S. colleges and universities has risen drastically in the last decade, increasing by roughly 32 percent. There were 723,277 international students at the post-secondary level during the 2010-11 academic year, representing more than 80 countries around the globe. Elin Suleymanov, ambassador to the United States representing the Republic of Azerbaijan, is the product of a global education. After earning his undergraduate degree in his home country and in Moscow, Suleymanov was accepted into the Edmund Muskie Graduate Fellowship Program and earned his first master’s degree from the University of Toledo in 1994. Nearly a decade later, he returned to the American education system a second time, earning a master of arts in law and diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. The article also says, during his time at Fletcher, the ambassador noticed what he saw as a distinct aspect of the American college experience — classes geared toward applying knowledge to real-world scenarios. “Often in international politics classes, there are a lot of discussions, all very theoretical. At Fletcher, it was all very practical. It was very useful in terms of future employment,” he said. Suleymanov said although his initial placement in Toledo was a random designation through the Muskie Program, it served as a valuable introduction to the United States that has since informed his fundamental understanding of America. “If you go to the Midwest and you visit a state like Ohio, you begin to like America very much — they’re very open, very good people,” he said. “That experience, for me, was actually more of an introduction into how America works.” Suleymanov said there has been discussion of defunding the Muskie Program, which provides assistance to students in the former Soviet Union and Eurasia for attending school in the United States and encompasses 12 countries. “At the end of the day, the best investment in America’s long-term security and high-profile international prestige is to have exchange students, and to have people come and visit America,” he said. “It is not only that people come to study, but that they also see the United States and get to know Americans in a way they wouldn’t get to otherwise.” Former Afghan Ambassador Said Jawad currently serves as the Chief Operating Officer of Capitalize LLC, a strategic consulting firm focused primarily on Afghanistan and the Gulf region. His current consulting work and his experience as ambassador after 9/11 were aided by the understanding of American business and policy he learned while attending Golden Gate University in San Francisco, where he earned his M.B.A. in 2000. “It deepened my understanding on how U.S. companies and government work — their mindset, how their priorities are set and how issues and problems are dealt with,” he said. Jawad said Afghanistan has worked steadily to increase its higher-education presence since 2001. There are now more than 90 universities in the country, and student enrollment has skyrocketed from 4,000 in 2001 to more than 100,000. He added that the country’s fledgling colleges mean many Afghan students still choose to study abroad, and he spearheads the Foundation for Afghanistan as one of the organizations dedicated to helping Afghan students succeed. Indian Ambassador and former Harvard University fellow Nirupuma Rao has come to appreciate the institution of American higher education. India is second only to China in the number of students it sends to the United States each year — roughly 108,000. Many of them choose to enter the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, as well as politics, economics and computer science. Conversely, many U.S. institutions have incorporated Indian studies into their curricula in some form. Her two sons have both benefited from an American education. “As a result, I think they’re very international in their outlook,” said Rao. “The world has become so much more interconnected,” said Rao. “In terms of what the U.S. has to offer, it is the quality and reputation of your universities that attracts students from all over the world. It widens their opportunities.”