@cmsjmt, it doesn’t seem like you realize how it works. Full pay OOS (including internationals) are subsidizing in-state students. At most publics, state funding from tax dollars isn’t enough to cover the in-state discount that in-state students receive these days, so it’s wrong-headed to say that internationals are receiving tax dollars. You also talk blithely about cutting spending, but spending at most publics already definitely have not kept up with spending at the elite privates as the proportion of a school’s budget funded by the state in some cases have shrunk to almost nothing, so many of the top publics have been losing faculty to privates as their pay has not kept up. It seems that you want to turn your flagship in to a school with the characteristics of a directional/branch campus (which would definitely decrease the flow of internatonals), but if that’s the case, why not just attend a branch campus? I’ve heard UW-Bothwell praised and I’m sure it doesn’t have many internationals.
It seems that you want to have it all ways. You’re OK with decreased state spending (or a decreasing percentage) and you don’t want your flagship to admit internationals with their money, yet you want the prestige and opportunities that your flagship currently has without it suffering. Sorry, unless you’ll willing to pay a lot more in in-state tuition, that’s akin to a child stamping her feet and demanding a pony.
In Seattle, a rich 18 year old from China bought a Mercedes the day after he arrived to attend a CC, went out for a joy ride, went 70mph on a 35mph neighborhood street, ran a stop sign and crashed into a car with 4 locals, killed the 25 year old driver and severely injured 3 others. He was indicted for vehicular homicide and his punishment was 17 months in a state prison followed by deportation, banned from re-entering the US for (only) 10 years. Why do we need more of these people in the US?
I think even their relatives can’t stand them. In my neighborhood, one house was sold because the uncle was mad that the nephew had too many parties. The uncle decided to get rid of the house so there will be no more parties.
Is it that simple? In numerous older threads, certain posters used to claim that even full-pay students at public universities were being subsidized to a substantial degree. If that is true, then foreign OOS students are being subsidized, unless they are paying an additional premium over the OOS rate.
I’m going to guess that most Chinese foreign students are STEM majors. If there is any limitation on the number of STEM students admitted to STEM programs at public universities, then admitting them does take away from opportunities for US residents, to our detriment.
Thats ridiculous. Those full pays are gone in a year and then there are empty spots in the subsequent classes that may nbot be able to be filled with transfers. Schools are a business. They do not want to accept students that they feel will not succeed .
I think schools need to enforce a certain minimum standard for all students (foreign or domestic, in-state vs. out-of-state). It doesn’t make sense to admit a full-pay student who will have to drop out in a year or be expelled in a year. Sure, you’re getting one year of higher tuition but then you have to scramble to replace that person which means that you have to incur the costs of processing a separate application as well as the general costs of marketing.
Another key issue about that is the prevalence of faked applications especially from foreign schools where it’s not possible for U.S. colleges to directly oversee what’s going on there. It may be time for colleges that have high numbers of foreign students to put more pressure on foreign high schools and testing centers to ensure that the information being received about applicants is of better quality. Right now, the talented and legitimately high-achieving students from countries like China have to compete with other students who have equally impressive (but fake) resumes, fake SAT scores, etc.
I’m not sure if there’s a way to change this, but I do think it’s unrealistic to expect colleges to stop admitting students from outside the U.S. or for state universities to stop admitting out-of-state or international students.
Re #11. I agree for CA schools, although I don’t know about other states. In the UC’s, oos students pay triple the tuition of in-state, and have practically no chance chance for financial aid. In practical terms a UC ends up costing oos about the same as Duke or other elite private universities.
In fact in the recent budget deal I believe in-state tuition has been frozen for the next couple years while oos will be rising about 8%. The UC’s are fortunate to be able to charge such high tuition based on their rep, making oos tutuition basically a piggy bank they can dip into as needed.
@Bay, sure, if you’re fine with Cal having faculty the quality of UNLV.
Again, you can’t have it all ways.
@DmitriR, even with minimum standards, a percentage will screw up, not be able to adjust, flunk out, etc.
What’s the comparable rate for American students? 2-3% does not seem like a lot. I know that the dropout rate is far higher for American students at many publics.
I wonder if the age of the internet has helped increase the number of Chinese national students attending US colleges, in the sense that the internet has made cheating so much easier. Anyone can have a non-student write his/her paper or complete his/her take home test easily and quickly now. Obviously, this would apply to all students, not just Chinese nationals. But those students who have limited English skills and are inclined to cheat can do so more easily now than back in the days when one would need a conspirator close by in order to get the papers and tests done.
My D has had several Asian national students with limited English skills in her business classes. She says that while they tend to score highly on tests/work, they generally contribute nothing to cooperative assignments because they cannot keep up with the fast-moving conversation, and so do not say a word.
@Bay, what did you think universities spent money on?
Faculty salaries + benefits + temporary academic salaries + other academic salaries + other academic benefits add up to a lot. Granted, so do staff salary and benefits.
Sure, but why not make them repeat the TOEFFL or SAT/ACT (or other easy to score standardized test) as soon as they arrive on campus. If they fail, the education visa is pulled.
A large part of that was due to a combination of Mainland China not having enough of an upper-middle class to be a critical mass, US higher education being supported much more by Federal/State grants/subsidies so there wasn’t as much of a need to chase rich internationals, admission standards at many colleges set up in such a manner most internationals actually had to meet higher admission requirements than their US citizen counterparts AND demonstrate full-pay viability for 4 full years unless they received a scholarship from an outside source or more rarely the college itself, and the competition for college or even academic high schools in Mainland China were so much more competitive students who were viable candidates for college domestically and internationally were a much smaller percentage of the 18+ population back then.
Another thing to keep in mind is that up until the extreme late '90s, attending college in Mainland China was practically free provided one qualified for admission on the exceedingly competitive gaokao. Right around the end of the '90s/early '00s, Mainland China started instituting tuition for undergrad students.
Then again, there were far fewer colleges and the middle/academic high school gatekeepers were much more inclined to cull off students who weren’t perceived as “college material” than they have been more recently partially as a reaction to the Cultural Revolution when the Maoist inspired movement undermined Mainland Chinese education to the point they were admitting illiterate peasants/workers solely because they were from “good class backgrounds” and were good Maoists.
Part of this is also generational as the Mainland students who attended college 15-20+ years ago including most classmates at my LAC were old enough to remember China in the midst of her transition along with living a much more economically constrained lifestyle and being expected to make do with what one had.
This was one of the factors for why most Chinese and other international students during my undergrad years were IME much more serious and fiscally responsible students than their American counterparts…especially those from the upper/upper-middle class.
Guess who took any job like cafeteria service that was left over after the American work-study students were hired for higher paying/more comfortable jobs? It was the international students from Mainland China and other countries. And after the Asian economic crisis of 1997, many South Korean students including some who were formerly well-to-do joined them.
Incidentally, of all the dozens of international students I knew at my LAC, I’ve only known 2 who had serious academic issues…and that was due to misprioritization of their time*…not lack of preparation. One took a gap period and the other repeated frosh year.
Too much time socializing/partying, not enough time hitting the books. An issue many more American classmates at my LAC including classmates/friends had serious issues with....sometimes to the point of academic suspension/expulsion.
My experience was different than what you wrote. During my undergraduate there were two groups of Chinese students. One group was from mainlaind China. This group had full scholarships. The other group was from Hongkong or Taiwan.
I did not see any of them work in the cafeterias, or even in the libraries. Most of the guys flipping burgers in the kitchen were Caucasian or Asian Americans.