ABSTRACT
This chapter draws mainly on preliminary findings from a research program with which the author is familiar, sponsored by the Committee on Cross-Cultural Education of the Social Science Research Council. Foreign students especially need the sense of social support because the stresses of adjustment to a radically new setting leave them with a feeling of inner depletion. The participation of government in the support of student exchange has made explicit the statement of objectives of national policy. The pressure of work, the testing of personal goals, the need to know how one stands with one's teachers, the search for social roots in the lonely crowd of a major university—these problems and many others bear no tag of nationality. Under a variety of auspices, research has recently been launched to throw light on what in fact happens to foreign students here and on their return, and what circumstances lead to different outcomes of this experience.
