COLLEGE OF THE CANYONS TO KEEP TUITION DOWN IN MOVE TO WOO STUDENTS.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

As part of an effort to attract students from out of state and around the world, College of the Canyons officials recently decided not to raise tuition and to establish a program for foreign students.

The board of trustees for the Santa Clarita Community College District voted last week to hold fees at $110 per unit for non-California residents and $120 per unit for students from other countries, said Glenn Hisayasu, dean of student services.

In a report to the board, Hisayasu said College of the Canyons' fees are lower than those of neighboring campuses in the San Fernando Valley and Ventura County.

Out-of-state and foreign student tuitions are $125 and $130 per unit, respectively, in the Los Angeles Community College District that includes Pierce, Valley and Mission colleges, he said. That district is asking its board of trustees to increase the fees to $128 and $133 per unit.

The Ventura County Community College District, Hisayasu said, charges $114 and $128 per unit in nonresident tuitions.

By comparison, California residents are charged a standard $13 per unit at all of the state's 106 community colleges.

Hisayasu said the lower tuition rate keeps College of the Canyons competitive to attract a geographically diverse student body.

``College of the Canyons is currently engaged in establishing a comprehensive international student center and program on campus,'' Hisayasu said in his report. ``We are actively marketing and recruiting new international students, and having a stable tuition fee would likely add to the attractiveness'' of the campus, he said.

Of the 6,650 students enrolled in the fall semester at College of the Canyons, the combined number of international and out-of-state students was fewer than 100.

Although the campus makes more money on the visiting students than on state residents, Hisayasu said the college's motives aren't entirely about financial gain.

Foreign students, he said, ``add a diversity, an international flavor to our campus,'' he said. Besides, the extra revenue allows the college to offer more programs and classes that benefit everyone, Hisayasu added.

History Professor Bruce Pelkey, director of COC's International Student Program, said a room has been set aside on campus for a center to serve that group.

Plans call for the center to be in Room S-118, in the same building that houses the campus cafeteria. Pelkey said he hopes the room can open sometime in February, staffed in part by a Japanese foreign exchange student who speaks both English and Spanish.

Pelkey said the International Student Center will be a place where foreigners are offered services like academic and personal counseling, career selection and study groups. The college also is considering marketing itself and recruiting, perhaps by sending brochures and promotional materials to foreign consulates and embassies, he said.

Pelkey recalled his days studying abroad, when he was a master's degree student in Sweden, England and France. ``I know what it's like to be a foreign student myself,'' he said.

In this age of computers, communications satellites and international trade making the world increasingly like a global village, having students from around the world seems to be an idea whose time has come, Pelkey said.

Each foreign student brings a perspective unique to their homeland. Classroom discussions, Pelkey added, ``are enriched when you have a student from Italy in row one and a student from Lebanon in row three.''

Students on campus come from Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand, Lebanon, Egypt and South American, he said.

Pelkey theorized that because COC is a small college, students, foreign and domestic, are drawn to it because the ratio of teachers to students is better than in the jammed lecture halls of big universities. And the increasing number of San Fernando Valley residents who enroll at COC may indicate they prefer the one-campus community college district to the L.A.'s nine-college system.

In Southern California, by far the largest number of international students attend Santa Monica City College.

In the fall 1996 semester, when overall enrollment was 25,067, there were 2,294 students visiting from 96 countries. International students are defined not as people born elsewhere but as those in this country on a student visa, said Santa Monica City College spokesman Bruce Smith. That figure ranks the highest among all community colleges in the nation, he added.

The largest contingents of international students at 68-year-old Santa Monica campus were those from Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong, Smith said, noting that the most popular fields of study among international students are business administration, liberal arts, business management, computer information systems and cinema/theater arts.

Smith said Santa Monica City College ``aggressively recruits'' overseas and is seen by students as a steppingstone to nearby University of California, Los Angeles. ``We have a real good transfer record of students going on to four-year universities,'' he added.

Pelkey recalled how a student brought one of his American history lectures to life. ``Students didn't understand the Cold War so well until a Hungarian student in my class stood up and said: `My family was killed in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956,' '' Pelkey said. ``The class was dead silent.''