The other day I was chatting with parents of an international students who mentioned that many of the students from India come to US universities as these universities are giving ridiculous amount of financial aid probably to meet some target for diversity numbers. He gave example of one student from India offered 90% aid to study criminal justice at Michigan State University. also I was told that student was aware of the fact that studying criminal justice wont be relevant for her as she can not practice that in US unless some company sponsors visa for her nor it would be relevant in her home country but she said if they ( US university) offering this for FREE, why not?
I understand if financial aid is given to few extra ordinary students from foreign countries, its fine but if US universities are bringing foreign students in wholesale and giving them financial aid to make it almost free⊠then who actually is bearing the cost of their education? Is it being paid by other American kids who are denied financial aid as their parents are not poor and paying inflated price or by tax payerâs dollars?
Some discussion is needed here.
I am not sure if this post was intended to cause a debate about racism or diversity but generally when I hear someone make a statement that is obviously meant to stir up zenophobia or racism, I check the facts first. The max a MIchigan State international student could get who is not from Canada or Mexico is 38K assuming their stats were in the top 5% of all students at the school. THe COA for an international student there is $62,000. So if they are the best and the brightest in the entire class (including US residents) they can get the cost down to instate tuition but still have their enormous travel costs. They are not eligible for federal financial aid.
That said, as a smart non racist girl who had never met a middle class black or Indian person before college, I would say that THE one most impactful thing I learned in college was that diversity exists and matters a lot. That I could get that exposure even if I was the least qualified student the school had ever admitted from one of the smartest people the school had ever admitted is considerably more value than giving a foreigner the equivalent of undiscounted in state tuition.
No to pretty much all of this. First of all, MSU explicitly does not give financial aid to international students. They do have 2 named scholarships for international students that give up to a max of $25K in tuition benefit (off ~$50K tuition), one of which is underwritten by an external non-profit (https://www.youarewelcomehereusa.org/2020-scholarship) (I donât know about the funding for the other).
This is demonstrably false- even if there were targets for âdiversityâ it would be met by domestic, not international students. As domestic students with Indian or Chinese heritage will be happy to tell you, being an âORMâ is not typically seen as an advantage. *came back to edit, b/c I notice that in another thread you are concerned about your daughter listing her fluency in Hindi, in case it âprofilesâ her in an unhelpful way, which is contrary to your thinking that Indians are being given special deals to help with âdiversityâ
Be really, really careful about anecdotes that generalize about âothersâ who are getting an unfairly good deal at âyourâ expense. I have a foot in the international-student-coming-to-the-US camp, and I promise you: there is no magical money circuit- and definitely not from public (ie, taxpayer funded) universities.
The other day I was chatting with parents of an international students who mentioned that many of the students from India come to US universities as these universities are giving ridiculous amount of financial aid probably to meet some target for diversity numbers.
They may wish this to be true but a couple minutes of simple research shows that itâs not. Only a handful of US colleges are both need blind and meet need for international students, and those colleges are ridiculously hard to get into. It makes sense if you think about it. Why would colleges bother to make rates for international students so much higher than costs for domestic students if theyâre going to give them enough aid to make it âalmost freeâ? That doesnât make sense.
I understand if financial aid is given to few extra ordinary students from foreign countries, its fine but if US universities are bringing foreign students in wholesale and giving them financial aid to make it almost free⊠then who actually is bearing the cost of their education? Is it being paid by other American kids who are denied financial aid as their parents are not poor and paying inflated price or by tax payerâs dollars?
I do think colleges want a diverse student body, but that means more than just admitting a few international students. Who supplies the grant money will vary by college. I think the most generous colleges have endowments that generate a healthy income.
Eighteen-year-old American kids arenât paying for anyoneâs education at expensive colleges, including their own. Their parents pay. And even they arenât paying the full cost of education. The full pay rate is a percentage of what it costs to educate one student. The colleges make up the difference.
Given the proveably false premise of this post, Iâve closed it.