The following is an excerpt from a story about international students at Wichita State University. The article appeared in the Jan. 27 issue of The Wichita Eagle.
Armin Gerhard runs Wichita State University’s international education program. He has helped hundreds of foreign students study at WSU. They come here from 110 countries. There are currently 1,400 at WSU, he said, and another 400 former international students in the U.S. still working with WSU. Most of them face eventual visa deadlines to leave the U.S., he said.
Many want to stay. Many trained at WSU to become engineers, scientists, math teachers, entrepreneurs. After we train them, we make them leave, Gerhard said.
“We haven’t been smart enough to keep these people here,” he said. “With our immigration policy, we welcome them here, they become virtually a part of our country—they become very American in many ways.”
He’s been glad to hear that politicians in Washington are talking about changing that.