Camelot: 1960–2000

Between 1960 and 2000, colleges and universities in the United States continued to attract a substantial majority of the world’s international students and scholars. In 1960, at the beginning of this period, every state, including the District of Columbia, was hosting foreign students. John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon were endorsing efforts such as the African Airlift, with American baseball legend Jackie Robinson lending a hand. Events such as the Iran Hostage Crisis in 1979, and Deng Xiaoping’s decision to re-open China’s borders to education exchange, had the effect of generating ebbs and flows in international enrollments, but America’s top status in the field of international education remained securely in place. The period would end not long before the events of September 11, 2001, a devastating attack that would forever change the field of international student exchange in America, as the government developed and administered new immigration policies, and systems of student tracking.