As the anthropology instructor engaged her class, a fault line quickly developed. American students answered and asked questions, even offered opinions, but the foreigners — half the class, most from China — sat in silence.
It became clear that some had understood little of the lecture here at Oregon State University and were not ready to be enrolled. In fact, they are not, at least not yet.
Instead, those students fit into a fast-growing and lucrative niche in higher education, of efforts to increase enrollment of foreigners with transitional programs to bridge the cultural divide — often a chasm — between what it means to be a college student in their own countries and in the United States. Oregon State’s program, a joint venture with a private company, Into University Partnerships, prepares students to move into the university’s mainstream after a year, as Oregon State sophomores.