American students don’t bad-mouth other countries for those countries not granting them full-tuition scholarships to study there, like it’s an entitlement.
@GMTplus7 Racial and ethnic divisions generally have a similar effect. The reason that race matters in HS is because some groups (AA/Hispanic/especially Native Americans) tend to attend schools with fewer resources, come from families where their parents don’t provide much support, have trouble learning due to linguistic issues in some cases or cultural exclusion in others, and thus perform worse on average than a typical WASP kid. In the Baltic nations, ethnic Russians tend to attend schools with fewer resources, come from families where they don’t get much parental support, find themselves excluded as a result of linguistic and cultural barriers, and thus perform worse than ethnic Estonians/Latvians/Lithuanians.
Maybe Russians and Latvians are both largely white, but an ethnic Russian in the Baltics generally won’t be in a better situation to succeed in school than an underprivileged son/daughter of recent immigrants is in an English-speaking school. Ethnic Kurds in Syria may be Arabs, just as the country’s Alawites are Arabs, but that doesn’t mean the former don’t face disadvantages comparable to those of URM students in underperforming schools.
The only way one can argue that an underprivileged ethnic group is at less of a disadvantage in school than an underprivileged racial group is by asserting that there’s a difference of ability between different races, and I doubt that’s the point you’re trying to make.
As an international student FROM the United States, my education was very heavily subsidized by the Australian government, particularly the state of New South Wales. I’ve always been grateful for that. And through my work, they have received a pretty substantial return on their investment over the years.
Being from California, I do not even want to apply to UC’s because 1) It’s incredibly difficult to get in since they hardly accept in-state students anymore because they want to make money off of out-of-state and international students 2) if you get in, there are so many students that instead of being there for 4 years, many people only get their undergraduate degree in 5-6 years.
@rubyyy do you have a proof for your no.1 ?
@paul2752 I am assuming you are asking for proof that this is happening at UC’s. Take a look at UC Berkeley’s class profile: http://admissions.berkeley.edu/studentprofile. As you can see, there is only a 2.5% difference in acceptance rate between in-state and out-of-state students. International make up for nearly 10% of those admitted. Compare Berkeley’s acceptance stats to UNC, a similarly prestigious but PUBLIC school. http://admissions.unc.edu/apply/class-profile-2/ Look at that: 52% of in-state students admitted versus 19% out-of-state. That’s how public universities SHOULD work. They have an obligation to provide in-state-students that are qualified (MANY who are rejected are completely qualified) an affordable and in-state education.
@rubyyy There’s a common calculus for state university systems. They can have two of the following: lots of in-state students, reduced budgets, and a quality education. The state of California has cut the UC system’s funding, leaving them with a choice of accepting more OOS students or making the UC system worse. They’ve chosen the former.
There’s a $25,000 difference in tuition for in-state students and OOS students, so the 30,000+ internationals and OOS students in the UC system provide nearly $800 million in funding for the state’s public universities. If Californians want to reduce the OOS population by, say, 20,000, they should be prepared to pony up $500 million via state funding or tuition increases, because the money isn’t going to appear out of thin air.
@NotVerySmart That is true, but I would prefer a lower budget system where I could actually go to school while staying near my family with an in-state tuition. I don’t think it’s fair to simply increase OOS admission just to make UC’s better. They should be catering to Californians. UNC has stayed prestigious without admitting an almost-equal number of OOS students.
Private universities – if you mean schools like Harvard, Yale, and MIT – are, indeed, subsidized by tax dollars… both by property tax exemptions and research grants.
Americans are incompetent? There are over 300 million people in this country. How many do you actually know?
I believe jobs in the US should go to Americans first. I read posts all the time from American students who would love to go to college but their low income families are having trouble affording it. Educating international students is a good thing, but I think what started as a way to help international students get experience so they could return home and use their skills to the benefit of their own country has turned into a revolving door of low cost workers to the detriment of US citizens. And the attitude of many internationals on this forum doesn’t inspire us to want to help them. They don’t seem to want to stay to get job experience; they want to stay permanently. We have too many low income citizens who need an education to be able to properly support their families. It’s not appropriate, in my opinion, for internationals to be able to leapfrog over US citizens on the climb up the ladder. We owe it to the people who were born in this country to make sure that they have a shot at achieving the American Dream before we start giving it away to the rest of the world. Personally, I’d like to see a cap on the number of years companies can make use of those VISAs. If the US needs STEM workers, we should start training them. NYS offers free tuition to state residents in the top 10% of their class who major in a STEM program. There should be more programs like that.
“If the US needs STEM workers, we should start training them” – @austinmshauri – as long as Americans will make more money in finance or business, we will lack not just STEM workers, but also STEM professors/teachers/instructions.
And to fill those gaps, international students will step in. (The biggest reason most TAs in STEM are foreign is because graduate school is their only way to stay in the US, since most won’t get H1B visas to stay.)
So to address the STEM issue we need to start by first treating our STEM teachers and professors better. That will make STEM a more attractive field. We then need to find ways to ensure STEM grads can remain in their careers after 40. Right now, most engineers (for example) age out, and unless they move up into management, will find themselves obsolete - and prime fodder for layoffs. No wonder the best and the brightest avoid STEM: the career options and earning potential just isn’t that great.
We live in a society that values those who make things less than those who know how to make a profit off those who make things.
Sadly, fixing it isn’t as easy as saying “let’s cap visas.”
"I read posts all the time from American students who would love to go to college but their low income families are having trouble affording it. " It is especially troubling when we talk about state schools. There is a facebook page called SUNY cars. I think it is telling.
Uhm what??? I never said the jobs should go to foreign people first. I do think that they should prioritize the Americans, but hey companies can do what ever the want, right?
I didnt’ say Americans are incompetent. I m talking about those who think we just “take away” jobs form them. We don’t, well at least the REAL professionals, not the"disney H1B" workers. The process is very costly and we need to prove there aren’t other citizens who can take jobs, which I think is not easy to
UNC-CH has about 18,000 undergraduates in a state with 10 million population (1 to 555). UCB has about 27,000 undergraduates in a state with 39 million population (1 to 1444). Even with no out-of-state students, UCB would be much more competitive for admission based on the number of in-state students applying.
There are 9 UCs and 23 CSUs to choose from, many of which are not super-competitive in admissions.
UC 4, 5, and 6 year graduation rates tend to be better than predicted by the entering students’ stats.
The main issue is not getting the classes you need for your major; it is getting into your major if it happens to be a popular one.
IMO if you want to get into UC colleges other than UCLA and UC Berkeley, it’s cheaper and easier to go to community colleges and do reasonably well and then transfer. You will have a very good chance to transfer to UCSB etc after 2 years. In some sense, you can take it easy in high school and still end up at many UC colleges. This is one definite way to stay away from the rat race and study at your own pace.
@rubyyy It’s all relative, but other than UC Berkeley and UCLA, UCs are not all that difficult to get in. Also, one EASIER way to attend UC college is to attend a community college and do reasonably well, and you will almost definitely be able to transfer to a UC college after 2 years. This is a cheaper and easier way to attend a UC IMO. Again, IMO it’s not that hard to do reasonably well at a community college and transfer to a UC.
In fact, isn’t it harder for international applicants to get in? This is what ends up happening when you have a place like America in which most of the top universities in the world are found. But for public schools, the residents of the state should not have to pay as much because they already pay taxes that support the school
@Regulus7 [Respectfully] What makes you think that an intelligent international student with brains will pay 100K per year when they can get comparatively better education at much lower price. Even the Ivy leagues will think twice before raising their tuition to 100k level and let me open your eyes a bit, UC’s are in nowhere near Ivies in quality of education. Moreover if you had taken Basic Economics 101 in High School you would know raising prices in a very elastic market drives consumers away.