For over a century, some of the brightest minds the world over have flocked to U.S. campuses in pursuit of the holy grail of the developing world: an American education. Until they didn't-at least not as much as they used to, in 2001, the attack on the World Trade Center and ensuing world conflicts led to tighter U.S. borders. Meanwhile, the number of mobile, moneyed students ballooned. Countries like Australia, New Zealand, and Britain started taking up the slack, aggressively recruiting those students who might have brought their brains, books and, let's be frank, money, to the United States instead.

Mitch Leventhal

Mitch Leventhal saw it happening long before he arrived here in 2005 as the University of Cincinnati's vice provost of international affairs. He didn't think the U.S. was doing all it could to attract those talented, far-flung students and promote exchanges around the world. UC President Nancy Zimpher, who was chairing a multi-university task force that had just published a paper entitled "A Call to Leadership:

The Presidential Role in Internationalizing the University" thought so, too. Since getting the job, Leventhal has centralized and expanded UC's international services, increased international enrolment, and created a nonprofit organization to help other universities do the same. And in what might turn out to be his crowning achievement, he's spearheaded an innovative tracking plan to keep the various segments of the sprawling campus and business community on the same page, whether they're in Clifton or Cameroon.

What drives Leventhal today is the tenet that an American education is a valuable commodity, a service export with enormous potential that the US has long failed to calculate and cultivate. As he works to change that, Leventhal has put UC at the centre of what has become a national push to make international engagement in education more than just an esoteric adventure.

FOR YEARS, MOST American colleges and universities were content to take a laid-back approach to attracting scholars from overseas. Aside from occasionally attending international college fairs and distributing written material, most schools were like Ohio University. "We just waited for the world to come to our doorstep," says Josep Rota, OU's associate provost for international programmes. The passive tactic shows in the numbers.

The US has 623,805 international students at approximately 3,500 colleges, universities, and community colleges; that's about 22 percent of the total of international students worldwide. By comparison, the United Kingdom has about 325 universities but commands about 11 percent of the market. And in the wake of 9/11, when the new focus on border security meant fewer student visa approvals, it got worse. Ohio University "lost 20 percent of our international student population," says Rota. Ironically, at the same time, the explosive growth of China and India-as well as increased affluence in other countries-put more university-hunting students in the marketplace.

UC's numbers remained fairly stable, with about 1,800 students from 115 countries on campus each year. But the decline on other campuses was still alarming. International students bring diversity to the classroom, educators say. And the addition of their talent, particularly in the sciences and mathematics, can't be overstated. "Some of our programmes would literally collapse without international students," Leventhal points out. That includes engineering, where 544 of the total 866 graduate students are international.

These students aren't dislodging US citizens, he says; they're swelling the ranks in departments where "the [additional] tuition is helpful to subsidize the mission to our students." There are other financial benefits to having a hefty international student body. Most pay out-of-state tuition, and while some qualify for grants or other assistance, an estimated 62 percent pay with personal and family funds. Plus, a report issued last year by the Institute of International Education estimates that they spend $15.5 billion annually on tuition, housing, food purchases, and other living expenses. That's money coming into the US economy-a substantial foreign investment.

Mitch Leventhal is leaning against a counter talking to a student when I arrive at his office. He's relaxed, wearing an olive green suit, a tie emblazoned with cartoon animals, and campus-appropriate Merrell hiking shoes. The outfit belies his tall frame and an intent, angular face that seems to belong more in a boardroom than on a campus. But the contradiction makes sense: Leventhal has straddled the two worlds for years. He's a native of Washington, D.C., who earned undergraduate and graduate degrees in developmental politics at University of Pennsylvania before getting a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, where his dissertation examined the development of medical schools in the Eastern Caribbean. He has set up businesses in Singapore and established business services for China, Vietnam, and Japan.

A further sign of his global street cred: one side of his business card is in Chinese.
Before landing at UC, Leventhal was president of the U.S./Canada subsidiary of IDP Education Australia Ltd., then a nonprofit owned by Australian universities that recruits overseas students and develops business opportunities for them. About 25 percent of those in Australian higher education come from outside the country-a whopping proportion compared to U.S. universities' 3.5 percent foreign enrolment. Such experience was valuable, but it was Leventhal's strategic plan that sold Zimpher. UC's president had commissioned a study of what the university was doing in the world arena, and she made the report available to all the candidates; only Leventhal showed up with a proposal in hand for elevating UC's reputation and activity around the world. But a key part of his plan was, and remains, controversial: The practice of paying agents who work with students looking to matriculate abroad. Similar to real estate agents, these people help students explore, choose, and apply for the colleges they feel would match their needs. Agents then earn a commission, paid by the university the student attends. (UC pays 10 percent of the net first-year tuition.)

But recruitment agents are something U.S. schools have long avoided-publicly, anyway-because of concern about the potential for ethical breaches. "Putting recruiters on any kind of commission makes them out-and-out sales agents," Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers told The New York Times last year. The Times article examined the problem of unscrupulous agents who collect excessive fees from students while also getting paid by the universities. Leventhal contends that reputable, professional agents do exist, and that not using them puts the US at a distinct competitive disadvantage. "Australia and Britain have been doing this for years, and it's very successful," he says.

Under Leventhal's watch, UC has become the first large public research university to openly employ the practice (many smaller schools have quietly done it for years, he claims); he's now the de facto national spokesperson on the issue, quoted everywhere from The New York Times to The Times of India. cincinnatimagazine.com