International Herald Tribune

PARIS: International student enrollments at U.S. colleges and universities rose 3.2 percent in the 2006-07 academic year, to 582,984, according to a November survey by the Institute of International Education - the first rise in four years and the largest since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks triggered a sharp U.S. security clampdown on foreign student visas.

The sliding dollar surely played a major role in cutting costs for foreign students and rekindling their interest in U.S. education. Still, the annual Open Doors survey of more than 700 higher education institutions, by the IEE, based in New York, showed that more than 3,000 international college students were in the United States for one specific reason: to study for sports-related degrees.

Smoothing the way for them are organizations like National Scouting Report, a business set up in 1980 to steer aspiring young athletes to scholarships at American sporting universities. NSR now has offices in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Europe and Asia.

Unlike state-funded universities in Europe, American universities can afford to hand out generous scholarships, paid from the huge endowments that they have built up from alumni donations, said Ian Elvin, director of sport at Northumbria University in Britain.

"There is definitely an increased awareness to the potential and needs of talented athletes in Britain. There are a good number of universities who are beginning to support their young athletes. But I must admit that this support is fairly modest in comparison to that given in the States," Elvin said. "Here in Britain we still need to find a significant amount of money."

Northumbria, which has been selected by the government to become one of five centers of excellence for aspiring athletes, spent £50,000, or $100,000, on sports scholarships last year; a drop in the ocean when compared with scholarship budgets at institutions like the University of Tampa in Florida, which hands out an average of 64 scholarships a year at $20,000 each - a total of nearly $1.3 million a year.

When comparing themselves to colleges and universities in the United States, universities in Europe have a hard time implementing state-of-the-art sporting facilities, hiring sports specialists and providing athletes with a solid financial base.

Because they lack private funding, universities in Europe are dependent on the help of government bodies, sponsorship and money from national lottery funds. In France, for example, most public universities have limited sporting facilities and are forbidden by law from increasing tuition fees to pay for improvements.

"It's a different culture in the States," said Larry Marfise, athletic director at the University of Tampa. "Universities look at sport as a marketing tool. We go down the notion that not all education is done in the classroom."

Hence the story behind Christopher Ewing, 29, a former apprentice player at the Scottish premier league soccer club Motherwell and a member of the Scotland schoolboy international team.

In 1999, aged 21, Ewing lost patience with the "cutthroat" nature of Scottish soccer after being released from the Motherwell club.

He applied for and won an athletic scholarship at Adelphi University in New York after a family friend from Glasgow, who had emigrated to America, encouraged him to pursue his career there. From Adelphi, he later transferred to Tampa.

The move offered him the chance to study for a degree and develop his talents in the National Collegiate Athletic Association, an organization that he said provided training comparable to the best at British professional soccer clubs. In Florida, Ewing earned a degree in sports management and obtained professional coaching certificates qualifying him to coach at the Paris Saint-Germain soccer club in Paris, where he has lived since July 2004.

Early in 2006, with that experience under his belt, he set up his own company, Edusport, to match up young European athletes with U.S. scholarships.

"Talented young athletes are simply not enlightened to the opportunities that exist in the United States," Ewing said. With French sporting institutions chronically underfunded, "I foresee a real market here. There is a pool of talent waiting to be discovered that just doesn't have the necessary support or knowledge about the chances that exist in America."

François Furlan, a 21-year-old soccer player from France, was one of Ewing's first clients. "This year I'm studying at San Diego City College, a community college. Next year I'm transferring to Point Loma University, with a full scholarship," Furlan said, referring to Point Loma Nazarene University, a small private college also in San Diego.

"With this scholarship I can study for four years and get a bachelor degree without paying anything. Studying and playing a sport at a high level is something impossible to do in France. That's why I went to the U.S."

Edusport employs talent scouts in Paris and Madrid. Ewing said he received applications from candidates all over Europe and helped them to create a portfolio, including video footage to showcase their talents - an essential requirement for entry to a top U.S. sporting university.

In addition to marshaling their sporting credentials, Ewing's company offers clients the opportunity to take part in summer camps to prepare candidates for SAT examinations and Test of English as a Foreign Language qualifications.

While America has long led the way in sporting education, other countries are starting to follow.

Last month the French national lottery company started a campaign to publicize state funding programs for young athletes. In 2007 the lottery injected €383 million, or $590 million, into French sporting institutions. In Britain, too, a program, the Talented Athletes Scholarship Scheme, finances access to coaching and physiotherapy and helps with competition and training expenses.

Still, Ewing says Europe does not put enough emphasis on sports education.

"The goal is to create a reciprocal relationship between sport and education whereby one is no more important than the other," he said. "We must establish a reputation of trust. What we are dealing with is not a regular business where you buy a product but with people's dreams and ambitions."