That was my initial view as well, but having read the Harvard/MIT complaint I’m more convinced that the decision was a violation of the Administrative Practices Act.
I have no problem with the discussion. In fact, I’m participating in it. I’m just giving a perspective that the issue of international students is just a piece of the problem. It is not the main problem and over emphasis on it by the schools is adding to problems for other students and potential students
It’s the main focus of this discussion, which I started, because the title of this discussion is ICE to deport international students at colleges and universities that have gone online for COVID.
If you want to start a discussion about new freshmen at colleges in hotspots, that sounds good to me. Certainly there is much to discuss about how dangerous traveling might be, how students can protect themselves, what might happen if the covid situation gets worse, how likely it is that the situation might get better before move-in, and other subjects of interest to parents and students who frequent this site.
It’s happening already for internationals… very sad.
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/7/9/freshman-stopped-belarus/
My question is why would anyone, not just international students, go to an airport in Europe or Russia to come to US at this moment? Ongoing bilateral travel bans are still in place, except for essential workers or citizens.
Harvard, if you plan to spend millions on legal fees to fight for internationals, please cut tuition for everyone. Princeton did 10%, you can too. Also, don’t forget you have a bunch of kids here on US soil waiting to be taken off WL…
You missing one important thing in your logic. For those, who never will be US citizen or permanent resident, absolutely doesn’t matter how good is life in USA.
If it is too dangerous to have domestic students at Harvard, why should internationals feel safe there? If students from Florida and Kansas and California can’t get to class, why should we make it a priority to get students to Cambridge from Europe and Asia so they can take classes online?
If the student from Hong Kong can get back to the US for online classes, the student who stayed in LA can get back to Hong Kong. Planes fly both ways. I have a friend who works with hs exchange students. At the end of March, she was able to get about 20 of them back to their home countries. Took a lot of travel planning and country hopping, but they went home.
Any diversity those students bring to Harvard (and I think they do add a lot to the culture and benefit the community) will have to be done online anyway. Does it matter that the student from India is adding to the econ discussion from a room in New Delhi or Framingham?
" first criteria what side of an imaginary line you were born."
Borders and air spaces are not imaginary lines, try crossing one and see what happens. The result will be pretty real.
@Caligorilla @twoinanddone You guys make some great points. Whatever benefits us also benefits internationals but not necessarily vice versa. In particular, the point on very limited social interactions, like restrictive access to other dorms or buildings, curfews, no big social events etc. Guess we can meet our international friends via zoom but not in person. We can do that on FB and Instagram now, right? How’s that a logical diverse community? Not just for internationals. I want to meet someone from Montana or the Dakotas. That part of the education is also gone, but tuition remains the same…
I’m sorry, but coming onto a thread whose focus is specifically on International students and demanding that we talk about American students is like going onto a thread about Yale students and demanding that they talk about Stanford students.
Sigh.
A university is not a business.
I repeat - a university is not a business.
The sooner that people get this through their minds, the sooner we will be able to get our education system on a better track
Now regarding the rest of the post - I am sorry, but this is irrelevant. It is speculative, and you have no facts to back up your claims.
You are also engaging in the game of making ominous hints about shadowy figures in the background, etc. Throwing out hints at conspiracies is a classic fallacy, similar to dog whistles. If you think that somebody else is behind this, come out and say so, instead of playing the “wink wink” game.
ICE is playing a dirty trick, and claiming that the colleges “should have known” is shifting the blame for this despicable act away from the people who are actually responsible.
Wow, just wow.
What can I say - internationals whose right to stay in the USA was questioned were responsible for the fact that American Universities became the top world universities from the 1950s. Before that nobody thought that Harvard or MIT or Stanford could even compete on the same playing field as Oxbridge, the top French, German, or Swiss universities.
A major reason that international students want to attend American universities is because of what international faculty provided, and still provide, to these universities.
27.5% of all American Noble Prize Laureates were born outside the USA, and 32% of those who were awarded for science or medicine. In fact, if we add the children of internationally born, we would have almost 40% of all American Nobel Prize Laureates being internationals or the children of internationals. Immigrants have made up between 14% and 5% of the population of the USA over the years.
So no, we aren’t “allowing” international students to study here. We WANT them here. We NEED them here. Not for the money, for the minds. What sort of idiot thinks that importing the smartest people from across the world is a BAD idea? Every top international student who attends an American university adds a little more intellectual prestige. Every international student who stays is a win, not something to bemoan or complain about.
Having students from around the world clamor to attend American universities is something to celebrate, not destroy.
Another thread keeps on mentioning the coming “demographic cliff” as the number of students drops what as much as 15%. That is what, 300,000 students? Aside from investing in primary and secondary education to increase the college-ready population, we have a vast number of international students who would gladly attend an American university.
In 2019, International students contributed $44.7 billion to the American economy. That year, spending on higher education across federal, state, and local governments was around $172.4 billion. So international students cost the tax payers less than $9 billion (since they are 5.5% of the students, but do not benefit from federal aid and most state aid), but contribute almost 5X that much.
Seems like an amazing financial deal to me.
But some Americans will never realize that.
I think this issue is distracting the schools from doing right by the students they do have and who are able to come. They need to count the numbers and close out the waitlist. So many of the international kids weren’t coming anyway due to visa issues. No one knows which classes, if any are f2f in many schools and if they can even come to the school at all (NY). Schools need to figure out what is possible quickly and move forward for the sake of the 95% who are here. So discuss, sure. Hold up 95% of students who’ve already been derailed, no. Schools should step forward. It’s july this lawsuit could drag out and I don’t think it’s any more important than solidifying plans for most available students
My comments are specific to this discussion. The international issue is detracting from schools getting a plan and moving forward. They are waiting to see what happens and that is causing chaos for the bottom 95%. The 5% is holding up everything. No one is more special. I added comments about all students having issues that affect them because I was making that point. No one knows what they are doing. And we won’t know because schools are waiting for a small segment. I don’t buy that they are worse off. If you can afford full pay at Harvard or mit, you can figure out a place to study back home online with WiFi. We need to wrap this up
This fine thread is available for those who wish to discuss schools’ general responses to covid-19:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/2180028-school-in-the-fall-coronavirus.html
Definitely they can. But what sense for them to do that?
I mean to full pay at Harvard or MIT and then sit at home. It much more reasonable to sit at home for free.
@ MWolf
Wow. We are not saying that international students should not ever come to the US to study. We are saying schools need to move on for the sake of the great majority of students. Let’s say only 2% are international students who could get here, or are here already. Do you think it’s reasonable to hold up the lives of everyone else? The majority of these kids want to go to Harvard and the work as bankers and consultants. They have tremendous means to weather the storm during a brief hiatus from school that allows online learning from home, like everyone else. You make it sound like we’ve suddenly gone against international students and Americans are a bunch of idiots who won’t survive a year of social media relationships with their international peers. Bringing up the brain drain to the US of times past and using it as evidence in this scenario is outlandish. Kids who can start school, online, hybrid or p2p need to know now what they will be doing in a month. It’s unfair to the majority to have this hold things up any longer. Enough is enough. We count too
How are schools holding up anything because of this ICE ruling?
@MWolf You honestly believe Higher Ed isn’t big business? Wow. Just because you repeat something doesn’t make it so.
Why is everyone throwing around the $45B that international students bring into the country then?
Why do people want student athletes to get paid?
Why and how do schools pay asset managers to manage $Billion endowments?
Why is student housing now an investment class for average Joe investors.
I can go on.
Should it be big business…No…but we’ve pretty much financialized everything in the US.
For the record, I’m fine with international students. We should try to attract the best and brightest. But I also think they’re being used for political gains on both sides of the aisle in this case.
You ask for proof. Do you have proof that ICE is playing a dirty trick as you put it for political gain or is that just your belief? Taped conversations? Documents? Emails?
It’s also funny that when the exception was graciously granted in the spring there was no fanfare or thank you’s in the media. Now that ICE is actually doing their job and enforcing an actual law there’s outrage everywhere and it’s plastered all over the media.
I just think it’s naive and disingenuous to think that that schools had no idea that ICE might do something like this. They could’ve and should’ve gotten out in-front of this. This should’ve have been a top priority for schools who were considering online classes this fall. They’re well versed in immigration laws. These schools employ smart people who are connected. They have many lawyers on staff. I’m sure they have many grads in government who knew this was possible.
I guess we’ll just agree to disagree that only one side doesn’t own any responsibility for this issue…
Unfortunately this effects more than the students trying to come (which I understand may not have been able to anyway with travel restrictions) but more importantly it effects the students that are already here. Sophomores through grad students that never left, possibly leased apartments, that now have to leave immediately or risk deportation. IMHO - those students deserved more notification, whether in spring when the adjustment was made - “extended until September but will revert back if classes are not in person” or now “until June”, so that students AND colleges could plan ahead.
Trump seems to have a record for making huge demands in the beginning, then backing off just enough to get what he originally wanted. That seems to be his negotiating style. I am hopeful that this will be another example and next week we’ll get news that they’ve extended the date (probably year end) giving colleges a few more months to come up with a solution on how to move forward in a pandemic era. Sadly, at some point it does need to happen.
@Caligorilla - I feel your pain. My D is still on a waitlist that would be her top choice. At this point, I’m well aware that she is just an insurance policy for the school. Had there not been a pandemic, she most likely would have been rejected by now. (Sad but true.) In the meantime, she is happy to attend the school she committed to. We see it as a win win.
Can you explain how this is holding things up? Harvard has already made a decision on f2f. Other schools are probably not basing their decisions on the outcome of the Harvard/MIT lawsuit.
It’s what all students will be doing with the exception of freshman who are allowed to take online classes from dorms for one semester. In the case of other schools it is everyone at home online. International students don’t have it worse. Singapore or LA. I see no difference. They should not be holding up the schools from making plans for the greater majority of students. We are all dealing with this.