What makes you think colleges still don’t need the cash? Only 5 colleges in the US are need-blind for internationals and meet need for international students. Those students are still bringing cash in, which in turns subsidizes financial aid for US students. I do agree that cheating is an issue, but why do we think those students are succeeding when they beg for a passing grade in a writing class?
International students bring soft power to the US (and we really need it int he 21st century) and if allowed to work here after graduating will also contribute to the US economy. Those on financial aid tend to be stellar students and really if they return to their country it’s a loss for the US (although many of them are “poached” by Canadian companies with less restrictive work visa laws, and there they contribute to the Canadian economy instead of contributing to ours.)
The issue is rich kids from countries with a history of cheating, combined with universities that suffered budget cuts that use these rich kids to make up budget shortfalls. UIUC is a good, if extreme, example. Northridge is another one.
Another, parallel, issue, is that either kids from nationally-verified, non-corrupt systems have to go through the same hoops as kids from the institutional-cheating systems (ie., costly external verification, which means wasted money many don’t have) or universities’ expectations getting out of whack with reality (ie., a TOP applicant from a country with typical low test scores got a 26 on his ACT, which is well above the norm - he was the first from this country to get into a very prestigious program with less than 10% admit rate despite the score. If the university starts evaluating kids from this country alongside kids with inflated stats, this really excellent applicant would be rejected because he doesn’t compare.)
This is false. The aggregate VACANCIES in US colleges is still huge. Sure, taking in more non-US kids may crowd out another dozen spots at MIT if MIT’s administration decide to increase its quota – but to think that on the back end, a dozen American kids are suddenly not going to college is simply untrue.
No but we aren’t talking about the small numbers of MIT but the large number at SUNY of those who come with fraudulent credentials.
MIT and most top schools have a cap on international applicants anyway. Top US applicants aren’t affected and learn a lot from their international peers.
The issue is real for mid-level public universities that end up with students who can’t take the regular classes, not to mention the unfairness to students who did not cheat and were rejected for these fake “stellar” applicants to turn out to be wholly undeserving (and don’t feel any remorse, to boot - getting in was the point, for many of them. 
) Universities are well-aware the problem in endemic in some countries but doesn’t exist in many others so they’re stuck: can they make special policies that will penalize all because of the handful of cheating countries?
Some colleges have found a solution by requiring a monitored “skype-type” interview between the admission official and the applicant from the “systematic, institutionalized cheating” countries, but this can only be done at high-resource universities where adcoms can spend the time on evaluating each applicant holistically and individually. Large public universities can’t do that.
But couldn’t the applicant just have someone else sit in and do the Skype interview for him/her?
Hence the “monitored” setting. You have to produce two forms of ID, you’re watched the whole time, etc. There are now firms that specialize in that.
Even the Skype interview is better than no control, even if it, too, can be cheated.
Surely an easy, but not total, solution would be to require all applicants to submit a photo with their application? Anyone taking the ACT or SAt already has to do that. Schools have student IDs. Submit the photo with the application and it makes the Skype interview less easy to cheat on.
^good point, because it’s cheap and practical.
Besides, a photo reveals so many other things about applicants that might be important.
Sure, like ethnicity or attractiveness – qualities that could be used to discriminate against an applicant, too.
I remember some discussion that maybe CollegeBoard was going to release those photos to colleges after acceptances were sent? But I don’t remember if it was speculation or fact.
I know my D2’s college had the kids send a photo ahead of time. They used it on their badges, and profs also had access. She sent a sort of glamorous photo. One day when she went in early to see a prof for help, the prof accused her of not being “her” because she didn’t look enough like her picture. She was wearing glasses instead of contacts, had her hair pulled back, and was wearing a hoodie. She assured the prof that she was that person, but had been up very late the night before doing problem sets for the prof’s class, and was sorry she did not look as glamorous as expected.
I know a cheater would send their own picture in. But if the college does have access to the CB photos, wonder if the compare.
@intparent , an even better idea! Surely after acceptances, colleges would be able to verify that test photos, school ID and college app photo all matched.
^and cheaters are rescinded. Hence, fewer pictures to review, no effect on non-cheating students, no fear of admissions bias, and a good lesson for the rescinded admit who’ll be blackballed everywhere.
Only certainty of consequence will stop the behavior and such a systematic review will guarantee that.
I have read that many international students ultimately fail at American colleges where they submitted falsified credentials. I have certainly encountered threads created by such students here on CC. They were admitted to colleges (usually large public universities outside of the “top tier”) for competitive STEM programs, and they simply couldn’t keep up. In many instances, they were disciplined for academic dishonesty, as well. I suspect that the most selective colleges, with considerable resources at their disposal, are pretty good at identifying the bogus applicants. This also explains how brutally competitive admissions can be for Chinese or Indian candidates, when their basic stats are scrutinized painstakingly.
@lostaccount I still don’t see your logic. Even let’s say a SUNY decides to allot a doubling of slots to internationals (cheaters or not) without otherwise expanding the student body. It could happen – I agree.
Let’s say the college goes from 300 undergrad to 600 undergrads. That means 300 domestic students can’t attend that campus. YOU are implying that these 300 magically are shut out of college??? Maybe that SUNY but there are PLENTY of schools who would welcome them with open arms (that aren’t being targeted by internationals). Unless a student is in some far off rural area, I’d say a seat at a college is available to everyone on in the country who can afford one (that’s a different thread, I know).
I cant stand cheaters. And when they wash out because they dont speak the language well enough (someone else ghost write their application and they tried to take a cram course in English over the summer) or get kicked out for cheating, it hurts the school (lost revenue) and the students. There seem to be 2 camps in this frequently recurring discussion: The “stay out of it and let the schools police themselves” and the “follow your morals, alett the schools to suspected or documented cheating/fraudulent applications and let them decide how to handle it”. I belong to the latter.
@jym626 , I am with you. If I had any idea who these students actually are, I would report them in a flash. I hate cheaters too. I think if random people on CC can come up with a system to deter cheating, then surely colleges can do the same. It is clear to me, after reading all the links people have posted here, not enough is being done. And I strongly disagree with T26E4 above. No, students are not completely shut out of college, but maybe they are shut out of the college of their choice because of someone with a bogus application. That is wrong, whether it is a state school or an Ivy.
This would never happen, but one option would be for US colleges to temporarily refuse to consider all Chinese applicants and pressure the honest applicants to try to address the rampant fraud within their own country (ie see if they can put the onus back on China to clean up their own mess, and until then, put an embargo on applications).
Us colleges want international money. At all the top UCs there are massive cheating at big classes. Recently on reddit there is a big cheating scandal again at Berkeley in the intro to Computer Science class. Yet though my years that I’ve been here, most kids want to go Berkeley because of the prestige. While on cyber, it’s hard for me to know whether a screen name is Chinese or Indian but the more I sense the prestige hound the more I think they will be cheaters in college, because it was so unreal and they sound so desperate as in a college reputation will save them.
There is plenty of international money to be had, even if the Chinese applicants were put on temporary hold.