30% drop in US bound students

Hyderabad Feb. 6: The number of students aspiring to study in the United States has come down apparently because of the series of killings of AP youth in recent months in that country.
In all, eight youth from the state have been murdered in the US in the last one and half years. The latest killing to be reported from the US was that Mr R. Sudhir Kumar, a techie from the city, who was found dead in Atlanta on Tuesday.
Educational consultants in the city said that the number of students applying for higher education in the US had fallen by at least 30 per cent this year compared to last year. Of course, recession is one reason for the decrease but the killings are also been cited as a reason.
“Parents are naturally worried about the safety of children,” said Mr Rajeev Dhawan of Global Education Consultants. “The recession and lack of jobs in the US has also brought down the numbers.”
Authorities of Uniti Foundation, an arm of the US consulate, also said the number of students had come down this year after increasing from 83,833 in 2007 to 94,563 in 2008.
“Safety is one of the parameters,” said Manjiri Ganu, educational advisor of Uniti Foundation in the city. “Now they will probably give it more weight.”
She added that increased awareness on how to ensure personal safety would reduce apprehensions of students going to the US .
The Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University in the city has decided to conduct an awareness seminar in collaboration with the US consulate on safety precautions to be taken in the US .
Meanwhile, it is learnt that the postmortem report of Mr Sudhir Kumar will be released only after two more days. Mr Azad, vice-consul from Indian consulate general office, has been camping in Atlanta to oversee the paper work required.
Dr Satyanarayana Reddy, president of Telugu Association Metro Atlanta, said donations were being collected to send the body back to Hyderabad . “It would cost nearly 12,000 US dollars for the transportation,” he said. Back in Hyderabad , relatives of Mr Sudhir Kumar approached Minister for NRI affairs, Mr Shabbir Ali, and apprised him the state of affairs.