It heartens me to see genuinely smart students from developing countries take their US education and US values of liberty & rule of law back to the home country. I’m hoping it will speed up the overthrow of the corrupt conmunist govt in china. Recall that during the student rallies before the massacre in tianammen square, the students had constructed a “goddess of liberty” that looked a lot like our Statue of Liberty.
But the sickening super rich kids have no interest in upsetting the status quo trough that has fattened their crony parents.
Why pick out these two schools as examples? Michigan State undergrads are 15% international, fairly high for a public university. Ohio State is about 8%, still fairly decent. Of course, both schools have a huge number of international grad students and faculty.
I agree with your point that there is value in interacting with international students (as well as OOS students).
The large number of international students represent US soft power. Not only does it cause a brain drain from foreign countries to the US, but those that return home are strongly influenced by American ideals, theories and culture. This is a significant advantage for the US.
@Gator88NE Yeah, I didn’t word that well (post #135). I meant to say: Do you really want a place like Michigan State or Ohio State to be a school where you don’t have contact with any international person?
I admire both of those schools greatly and my point, responding to post #131, was that banning international students would alter those schools immeasurably, for the worse IMO.
I’d also add that some people would be really surprised at how little direct taxpayer money some of the big publics actually get nowadays. Of course they get indirect benefits, but that is a point of discussion for another thread.
I know lots of people who care just that their cars are functional. Plus, the idea that other people are careful in the parking lot to avoid dinging your car is not a realistic one.
Yeah @Bay, don’t know where in CA you live, but people around here don’t really seem to care about not dinging our cars, and we have the dings to prove it. One of our cars was even keyed in the driveway.
However, UC still collects the full additional out-of-state tuition (around $23,000 per year currently) for out-of-state students, except those with top-end merit scholarships. UC financial aid typically offers out-of-state students amounts similar to what in-state students are offered, but leaves the additional out-of-state tuition for the student and family to come up with. The minimum net price for a maximum need out-of-state student without merit scholarships is about $32,000 per year (some variation by campus).
UC spending per student is supposedly around $16,000 per year (higher than the in-state tuition, but lower than the out-of-state additional tuition), so even a maximum need out-of-state student without merit scholarships would be subsidizing the system (though perhaps just barely, after taking room and board into account). However, it is likely that many of the out-of-state students who are receiving aid are getting top-end merit scholarships, because most need-only out-of-state students would not be able to afford to attend (exception if they come from divorced families with wealthy and cooperative non-custodial parents, which is probably rare).
Speaking of financial aid, I don’t know many of you are aware of the very common racket of claiming that married Mom + child are a “single household” just because Dad is in China earning big bucks. Mom and child were not forced to come here as refugees or out of poverty. Quite the opposite. The point of establishing a "single household’ is to claim financial need status, and it’s done successfully.
Lots of colleges require both parents’ information for financial aid purposes to counter this method. However, it also screens out lots of actual low SES students with uncooperative divorced parents from being able to get any financial aid (some colleges may find this desirable to keep the number of high-need students down to avoid blowing their financial aid budgets).
@epiphany - I know of an example exactly like you describe, and I can only speculate it’s a very common practice among certain nationalities who are here ‘temporarily.’
Yep. It’s quite regular (extremely common). One such family even tried it for another purpose. That is, I knew about it before I even saw it as part of a college financial aid scheme because I was on the Board of a youth musical group and students were allowed to submit financial aid applications. I knew intimately about the family’s wealth and was appalled when they tried pulling this on our non-profit group which regularly needed to do fundraising just to stay solvent and pay music coach salaries and pay rent. But it’s super widespread as part of the college process. Disgusting.
@PurpleTitan
However they do it, it’s obvious to me --given what they’ve shared with me-- that they are playing both sides of the coin. I don’t know all the technicalities of their apps, because I don’t actually oversee those apps (the FA ones); I just provide information to families who ask for FA guidance, scholarship sources, etc. But the point is that they successfully claim “hardship.” What a load of crap, excuse my language.
It does seem to me that where this is headed is toward a better policing of the accuracy/validity of information included in applications. Without better verification, the cheaters and liars and exaggerators seem impressive and are rewarded, while the honest look comparatively bland and have to look for another school.
This is true for both international and domestic applicants.
In dealing with in cheating in class, technology makes it easier to cheat, but also easier to identify cheaters, schools probably need to do a better job availing themselves of the technology that is available.
They definitely unload the real estate and move into small apartments. @PurpleTitan
Fair question, but the last one that tried that was several years ago, and I have forgotten the details of whether they got the aid. The FA applications that my clients do, they do on their own. Again, I don’t oversee those. Those are separate efforts on their parts because the oversight part is not a service I provide. I only know it’s regularly tried. (But I think that’s bad enough.) My business with them is the college application process, and as you must know, FA decisions (and adjustments) sometimes come after admissions decisions.
I do know about the non-profit situation when I was on the Board. We determined basically 'in concert, haha, that the family was not justified in asking for a musical scholarship; they were denied. The numbers about “hardship” were not adding up.
Yes, I understand that some OOS students (at least the ones that don’t get top-end merit scholarships) pay an additional $23,000 annual in additional tuition, however weighed against this is the fact that their families have not supported the UC system over the years through state taxes. You might note additionally that the student from New Mexico in the article I linked to was offered a place at UC Santa Cruz with a lower cost of attendance that an instate student would have paid due to generous financial aid. I’m not against having OOS and international students in the UC system, but I’d like to see some concrete figures in terms of what these students are contributing financially compared with full pay instate students whose families have supported and continue to support the UC system through their taxes. I have heard much in the news about how UC needs OOS tuition money, but I think it is much less widely known that the OOS tuition is subsidized by the taxpayer. If UC is going to pass over qualified in state students to go after a quick fix of OOS tuition money an honest accounting is needed to demonstrate to California families that it is worth it.