Research Blog #2--develop more ideas about my research topic.

Today's class was extremely beneficial in terms of teaching us to do research on scholarly articles and journals that can help develop our research topics. I was able to generate more ideas about my topic based on the articles that I found on ERIC: "Where We Are Now--The Presence and Importance of International Students to Universities in the United States", "Tuition Fees for International Students in Finland: Where to Go from Here?", "International Students as a Resource for Achieving Comprehensive Internationalization" and "The Interplay of International Students' Acculturative Stress, Social Support, and Acculturation Modes". I located two main sub-topics for my research topic . On the one hand, I would like to explore more details about how the growing admission rate of international students affect the cost of attending public higher educational institutions. Also, I would like to explore issues about acculturation. There exists substantial differences between Western culture and Asian culture whereas universities have always been viewed as a place where diversification is valued. I would like to conduct interviews with some international students from China, Japan and Korea and ask them if they had a smooth cultural transition upon entering Rutgers and/or if they had experienced instances involve racial discrimination. I assume that the acculturation process may cause stress both psychologically and physically, which in turn adversely affect international students' academic performance. More importantly, I was able to detect some controversies over my topic because although it seems unequal to charge twice the tuition for international students, admitting more foreign student tends to be an inevitable and necessary step for American colleges, due to the decreasing amount of state fund and tax. From international students' standpoint, the fact of having the opportunity to attend American universities is extremely beneficial for their future development. Therefore, the deal seems to be a win-win situation for both parties. I believe that the bargain is worth exploring in addition to the problems associated with the rise in tuition cost.