<p>“China, which sends more students to U.S. universities than any other nation, became one of the school’s more reliable suppliers of young people.”</p>
<p>"But as an audit made public Friday revealed, lax recordkeeping and oversight resulted in hundreds of degrees being awarded to students who didn’t finish their course work. Others enrolled who couldn’t speak English or hadn’t achieved the “C’’ average normally required for admission.”</p>
<p>“The report depicts Dickinson State as a diploma mill for foreign students, most of whom were Chinese. Of 410 foreign students who have received four-year degrees since 2003 most of them in the past four years 400 did not fulfill all the graduation requirements, it said.”</p>
<p>“The report raises questions about whether public universities, strapped for cash at a time of sharply declining state support for higher education, are cutting corners to attract foreign students who typically pay full out-of-state tuition. It also comes amid an unprecedented boom in the number of Chinese students studying at U.S. universities.”</p>
<p>In short, is it really about colleges wanting to increase diversity or is it simply about the money? Of course, it’s probably a combination of the two, but this article had me thinking that the money theory may very well trump the diversity theory.</p>
<p>Depends. The top 50 or so privates can easily fill their classes with U.S. students whose parents are in the top 1-5%, and can pay full freight. (They already make up 50%+ of the student body now.) Since they make up the plurality/majority of population (and way more than a plurality of the income potential for the institution), you could think of the rest of the class as providing the best opportunity/education for them. Diversity is one of the things they value.</p>
<p>For many of the publics, they are looking for OOS students wherever they can find them (and it makes no difference if they are from Missouri or China). Go further down the chain, and there are hundreds of colleges, good colleges, with faculty from many of the same universities as the top privates, that are beginning for students - any students.</p>
<p>I would say in the Dickinson State case it was about the money. I don’t understand why they granted degrees when they students did not complete the requirements. I think they were missing some money opportunity there myself. They could have kept the Chinese students longer and got more money making them really fulfill the requirements for graduation. Lost opportunity there.</p>
<p>^I found this article. I interpret this as the less selective colleges using international students more for money than for diversity while the more selective colleges can pretty much pick and choose who they want to attend their institution.</p>
<p>From the article:</p>
<p>“We have a great product. Our offering is still the best in the world. But we don’t want to rest on our laurels,” says U.S. Commerce Undersecretary Francisco S</p>
<p>What I don’t understand is the desire of so many students from China to attend second rate colleges in the US. What’s in it for them? Is a degree from ANY American school, regardless of quality, that valuable to their careers back in China? Or is it just the opportunity to live in the US for four years (even North Dakota)?</p>
<p>Mostly its about English language, an undergraduate degree in China is fine for subject content.</p>
<p>There are too many graduates in China in general, so graduates of low ranking Chinese or US colleges are not going to find it easy to get a job. Certainly there is no assumption that foreign undergraduate degrees are generally better.</p>
<p>^^^^^ China will find out the hard way that unless meaningful employment is created for all those college grads, foreign or domestic, they’ll all work as shift supervisors at Foxconn or similar.</p>
<p>My own birth country has a similar - tho not as hard to get thru - national entrance exam system and it is safe to assume that at the undergrad level, foreign students coming to the US are typically those who could not get in to any school in their home country. (aka the Chinese or other national version of 2.5/25/2500/25000 metric (2.5 gpa, 25 act, 2500 student small college, 25k tuition :)). Cajun State was full of such students, and over the years only the composition - ethnic make up - changed. We had the Iranians, then the Arabs, then the Lebanese, then the Venezuelans, then the Nigerians, then the Malaysians, and so on. You’d see a group that would manage several hundred undergrads at a time. I was one of a handful of people from my country that came as a second undergrad or grad and you could see a noticeable drop in academic performance comparing the two sets… Likewise with many other nationalities. </p>
<p>Schools that were more expensive and tougher academically would attract top talent, but still not people good enough to get into some of the tougher schools in the home country. </p>
<p>The ‘why they do it’ is simple. The foreign degree is still valuable because in the grand scheme of things, it’s still something rare. So, Directional State U. trumps Long Wall State U… In a few years, and as jobs don’t pan out, both DSU and LWSU will be about as useless as they can get.</p>
<p>You are more pessimistic than me. If college grads are shift supervisors…one can only imagine the bleak future one ends up with without a degree. Not to mention, the degree is also for status and family pride and other intangibles beyond just jobs. I mean we see this in the US too…degree holders who aren’t getting jobs requiring a degree and it certainly hasn’t stopped hordes of Americans from pursuing college degrees. Or maybe I’m misunderstanding your point Turbo.</p>
<p>I have been accused of worst things :). True, there is some value to status and pride of an American education (here, in my home country of Elbonia, or China), but at the end it comes down to how many people can afford it and whether it is ‘prestigious enough’.</p>
<p>Ultimately when enough DSU grads go back and figure out they have no better chance that the graduates of LWSU the parents will figure it out. A friend who graduated with a BS Aerospace Engineering went back to Elbonia and now runs a paint factory; he could not even get a job at the semi-nationalized airline… Others went back with MBA’s only to push paper just like the locals.</p>
<p>There will be some job market for good grads from good schools, but not for the 140-odd thousands of Chinese students that are currently attending US colleges… That’s my guess.</p>
<p>Sadly, this is already the situation in China today. Many returning Chinese students, with high hopes, are finding no good paying job waiting for them, after exhausting the lifetime savings of their parents and sometimes grandparents to purchase some worthless diploma from overseas.</p>
<p>Nowadays, college degrees from a third rate U.S. school is no better than a degree from a third rate Chinese university in the Chinese job market; it just costs a few hundred thousand dollars more. Unfortunately, it will take a few years for people to finally catch on.</p>
<p>People need to understand how the foreign student - and immigrant worker - experience works; the difference between the perception and reality of living in the US as an immigrant by our compatriots back in Elbonia. </p>
<p>In other words, the immigrants from <insert country="" here=""> feed all kinds of out of context and unrealistic info back to their compatriots in <insert country="" here=""> or the locals misunderstand it and this creates a nasty feedback loop. More people hear about the streets lined with gold and all that and think it’s real. </insert></insert></p>
<p>University education is not any different. The first batches that made it to the US were from wealthy, connected families that could afford the dollars; then, they’d go back and get a job with their connections (and presumably ‘knowledge’) and all would be peachy. Repeat as needed.</p>
<p>I do not agree with this at all. My home country has an EXTREMELY competitive academic environment. Those kids who apply to TOP US colleges are groomed from the 10th grade at the latest and frequently much earlier to apply to foreign, mostly US, top universities. These are NOT the ones who couldn’t crack the code in the domestic “market”. They actually follow a different curriculum from their peers aiming at domestic top schools and they go to “international” high schools that mirror USA HS school education, only far more competitive and are held to a much more rigorous curriculum: all AP level and such. These are kids who would be a very competitive candidate if they chose to follow the “domestic” path. They tend to be not only extremely academically strong but also from a wealthy family - the latter being the determining factor for their choice of the international route. In fact, most kids who are academically competitive enough to shoot for the tippy top US elite schools would love to seriously consider that option if their families had enough money. US top college degree is very desirable. Caveat: only top US elite school degrees are welcome. Second and third rate schools are a waste of money from their perspective, and yes, for those applying to lower tier schools can be the ones who couldn’t compete domestically. I heard from my relatives recently that the trend is now such that even the degrees from top Canada or other English language countries are valued, except for Cambridge and Oxford. </p>
<p>I believe this is the case in tippy top private high schools at Beijing and Shanghai. I know a few Chinese business associates that I dealt with who have kids in those schools, and they were being groomed for several years to apply to Harvard, Stanford, U Chicago, etc from the 8th grade or so. </p>
<p>I echo the sentiment earlier that we need to make a distinction between tippy top schools vs. lower tiered schools. At the top level school, getting international students is really a matter of diversity and some degree of prestige (USNWR use this as one of the ranking factors). They have no problem cherry picking the very best from a vast pool of extremely talented foreign students who are eager to get elite education in USA. However, I suspect if third tier schools suddenly start boasting a large number of full paying foreign students, it starts to look a bit odd and a more plausible explanation is the financial consideration.</p>
<p>I know quite a few of them too. Well-to-do families abandoning the fiercely competitive Chinese college entrance exam (Gaokao) and aiming for US or UK top tier schools. And many send their kids to pricy US boarding schools. But generally speaking, even for the smart kids, it is still easier to get into some top US schools like UVa, UMich, even Berkeley, than to top tier Chinese schools. For these kids, it is pretty much assured to get into one of the top 20-30 US schools, but not for the top 20-30 Chinese schools if they had chosen to compete with their fellow Chinese students in Gaokao. </p>
<p>HYPS is a total crap shoot for Chinese nationals, unless you are one of the princelings; and MIT gets to pick up some Olympiad gold medalists and a couple of future Putnam fellows from China.</p>
<p>I also know a few expats with kids in international schools in Shanghai. These schools don’t do very well placing their kids into HYPMS.</p>
<p>I would agree that top 20-30 level US schools won’t be more difficult, or even easier, for the foreign students from competitive academic environment than their own domestic schools below the local tippy top tier. </p>
<p>However, when it comes to top 10 USNWR schools, the kind of students who can get into any one of them would be equally, if not more, academically competitive vis a vis their counterparts following a domestic path for a top school in their home country. </p>
<p>This is precisely why the elite employers of their own home country won’t bat an eye unless the foreign college diploma is from the tippy top USA schools ranked in the top ten range. </p>
<p>There is another reason not discussed so far on this thread why top international students are aiming for US education. It’s not just because it’s easier to get into US elite schools (below the top ten level). In many cases, it paves a way to eventual migration to the USA main stream society. USA is still considered a land of opportunity and a more alluring place to settle down with a less stressful, uber competitive life style that just does NOT quit when you graduate from a college, and many youngster and their parents with financial means would like to have the option of settling down in USA. And, a college education at a top USA schools is a good starting point. At least, this is the case in my home country with extreme competition at all levels as a way of life from the age of 5 to 65, where HS students and college students committing suicide for academic reasons is a routine affair and does not get reported unless there is a wave of such suicides or if 10 of them did so in one ultra competitive college during the same semester. In my home country, there are global fortune 100 company executives committing suicide because of the stress generated in ultra competitive, cut throat work environment. Compared to all this, life is VERY easy in USA, and many youngsters and their parents would rather have that option.</p>
<p>But this is a path only available for very good students who can get into top graduate programs. There is virtually no legal pathway for a foreigner with only a BA degree from a mediocre school to a green card and legal employment.</p>
<p>Edit: Of course, some chose to marry U.S. citizens as a way to stay.</p>
<p>actually when the economy is good, foreign nationals with US undergraduate degrees from top schools with an excellent GPA stands an excellent chance of getting a job at least in the high tech field. Not sure about other industry. But, I know a few international students who got a job last couple of years (tough environment) with only a BA from a top 10 USNWR schools in non engineering fields.</p>
<p>Even for the graduate school admission, education at top USA undergraduate colleges DOES have an advantage over applying from a university overseas. For instance, if they are aiming for the Ph.D. program, many graduate schools would prefer those international candidates with proven English proficiency (they may use them as a TA) than those who don’t. On top of that, internship, research collaboration experience etc needed to be admitted to top US graduate school programs are all MUCH easier to get if you are already attending a US undergraduate program</p>
<p>I would guess India from the above - true, there are some countries that for one reason or another send their bestest and brightest kids for undergrad in the US - After spending 30 years in the US, half of them in college, I’d say a good number, in my view at least the majority, of students coming to the US for undergrad study from any country are in one of a few basic categories plus a few outliers.</p>
<p>There may be ways, depending on one’s country of origin, backlog, degree, job, grad school possibilities (aka night school), and so on in a technology or other perceived need field. A BA in Horticultural Packaging (aka basket weaving) probably not, but someone motivated enough to go H1 for a few years, night school, MS IT degree from yet another mediocre school or diploma mill, a few more years on H1… You get the idea.</p>