Education News
US encourages foreigners to keep studying at American universities
By DPA
Apr 17, 2007, 19:02 GMT

Washington - The US government said Tuesday the mass killings at Virginia Polytechnic Institute should not discourage foreigners from studying at American universities.

'This is a case the likes of which we have not seen in this country ever before,' US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. 'So, in that sense, it is unique.'

McCormack said federal and local authorities do everything possible to ensure universities are safe. The US government issues about 200,000 visas per year for foreign students, he said.

The United States 'is a place where I expect foreign students will want to continue to come to study,' he said.

Police on Tuesday identified the shooter in Monday's massacre at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginnia, as a 23-year-old South Korean student named Cho Seung-Hui who grew up in the Washington suburbs.

Cho is believed to have opened fire in two locations on the campus and shot 32 people to death in what was the deadliest shooting rampage in US history. Cho then fatally shot himself.