OP must not be a wage earner of taxpayer. It’s easy to spend OPM.
Sure, it’s galling. However, you find people with an entitlement attitude everywhere. When they are foreign, it’s just a little easier to hang labels like “us” vs. “them”.
You’ll note that the universities providing money for bright foreign students are private entities. I hope you guys don’t feel entitled, somehow, to the funds that they choose to allocate, just because you are American.
Private universities are non-profits that pay no income taxes on their billion dollar investments and pay no property taxes. Their activities are subsidized by US taxpayers.
As an American, I don’t FEEL entitled-- I know I AM entitled to vote for representatives who make laws governing some of the activities of non-profit organizations.
If a private university wanted to fill its classrooms entirely with fullride students from Tajikistan before offering fullrides to poor US citizens first, I will be on the phone to my congressman.
Ha Ha. I guess you do feel entitled.
“You’ll note that the universities providing money for bright foreign students are private entities. I hope you guys don’t feel entitled, somehow, to the funds that they choose to allocate, just because you are American.”
I don’t feel entitled to any funds from any private university. Private universities are allowed to charge whatever they like for tuition, allocate financial aid as they see fit (merit-based, need-based, athletic, etc.), and provide aid or not-provide aid to international students as they see fit. I never said they shouldn’t. I said I don’t like the entitlement mindset of international students that they are “owed” the same thing by American universities as American students are.
How, exactly, do you define fair?
.What’s fair, in my eyes, is that colleges get to spend their money they way they want. And that, in the face of limited funds, that many American schools choose to spend those limited funds, on American students.
So… the kid from Tajikistan should just get their education from Tajikistan i guess
An interesting question. I wonder where we get more bang for a buck - a million spent on “Economic Development” in Tajikistan or a million spent on educating 4 of that country’s best and brightest in one of our universities.
@thegrant: “So… the kid from Tajikistan should just get their (sic) education from Tajikistan i (sic) guess”
No one said that; however, is it reasonable for the people of (for example) Virginia or California – who have invested GREAT resources, over many decades, to attain excellence in public higher education – to subsidize international students and thereby to underfund the in-state students whose families have, in large part, paid the bills for that public educational system? A similar precept exists for private universities.
To the degree that the inclusion of international students enriches the overall educational experience for Americans – and that’s certainly not an inconsequential advantage – universities (and their public/private oversight boards) may opt to admit and/or to support foreign students. Nevertheless, the principal function of American higher education is NOT to be the free-university system for the world. And, yes, the fundamental duty for the education of young Tijikistanies rests with Tajikistan, not with the United States (or any other nation).
Bjkmom–are you suggesting that it is unfair for private institutions, like LACs or private universities, to decide on their own how to allocate aid for student applicants? Do you think the government should step in and require these institutions to fund foreign students who can’t afford college costs because it’s fair?
the grant–what’s wrong with the kid from X country getting an education there if he/she can’t afford to get an education here in the US? I am sure you realize that life isn’t always fair.
What’s interesting is that the most selective and sought after university in America (Stanford) remains “need-aware” for international applicants. They have the monetary means and the wherewithal to be completely “need-blind” even for internationals but they choose not to be…
…they have so many “full pay” top applicants applying from other countries…who meet their “algorithm”…of what they are looking for…they do not need to be “need-blind” to attract top-flight applicants…
…they get so many applicants as it is…I can only imagine…once they declare “need-blind” for internationals…they can easily get another 10,000 applicants 
…
Stanford (and several other outstanding, most-selective private LACs and National Research Universities) have large endowments. CC participants should understand, however, that the overwhelming majority of endowed funds are RESTRICTED – they can ONLY be used for the specific purpose(s) the donors stipulated in the endowment agreement. Therefore, the fact that several of these institutions have $5+B in aggregate endowment funds, does NOT mean much of these enduring capital resources can be employed to support international students. I suspect it is a common misconception that endowed capital can be expended in any way an institution’s current leadership believes is appropriate – however, that is plainly untrue.
@JustOneDad (re #27): “An interesting question. I wonder where we get more bang for a buck - a million spent on “Economic Development” in Tajikistan or a million spent on educating 4 of that country’s best and brightest in one of our universities.”
Share on Facebook
Yes, it is a very interesting – and a very good – question. I’d like to offer two related questions:
- Who is the "we" to which you refer? The people of the United States, or the people of a specific state (recognizing that state funding generally dwarfs Federal funding in public higher education), because their interests are not identical? In this situation, I believe that's quite relevant, because significant disparities exist in the levels of sustaining resources that individual states devote to higher education.
- Much more important, what assurances -- the answer is none -- do we have that the educations (especially at the postgraduate level and in the STEM arenas) that are made available to some international students (even if they pay all costs) will not create legitimate and substantial future national security problems for the United States? It's one thing to highly educate young people from traditional, long-proven allies, but isn't it far risker to do so with youngsters from nations that do not share political, social, cultural, legal, religious and other common values/mores with the United States? To illustrate, the US is currently confronted (and we have been for several years) with a growing threat of Iranian developed nuclear weapons (and other WMDs as well as their delivery systems). How many of the scientists, engineers, researchers, operations analysts, program managers, mathematicians, logisticians, and so forth that are involved in this aggregate effort were educated in America (particularly remembering that during the Shah's era, MANY Iranian nationals attended major American universities)? Obviously, this example is only the "tip of the iceberg," with China and several additional Muslim nations potentially posing similar, long-term national security concerns. I ONLY suggest that such matters be incorporated in the overall evaluation of an ever-increasing percentage international students at American universities (especially the most-selective ones), not that they necessarily be decisive.
“An interesting question. I wonder where we get more bang for a buck - a million spent on “Economic Development” in Tajikistan or a million spent on educating 4 of that country’s best and brightest in one of our universities.”
Nothing obligates the best and brightest Tajikistanis to go back to Tajikstan and improve the economy. For all you know, they’ll wind up on Wall Street here in America with all the Americans. Do you want to make “go back and serve your country” a mandate?
And of course TopTier’s point about what bad people do with good education is well taken.
Thegrant, American resources are not there just for the rest of the world to use or benefit from. American resources come straight off the backs of hardworking Americans who create jobs and pay taxes.
Sure, it’s not “fair” the kid from Tajikstan can’t afford college in the US. It’s also not “fair” the kid from Newark NJ can’t either. Life isn’t fair.
What should be fair(er) is to BOTH stop offering grants to internationals in the form of need-based aid AND be extremely clear about the absolute lack of funding for non residents.
Pockets of merit aid for internationals should be the sole source of funding.
@xiggi omg xiggi i cant believe you posted my thread you are a CC legend this is crazy — everybody on CC knows about your SAT guide it raised my SAT score by 630 points
I interview kids overseas for DS’s boarding school in the US. It’s beyond staggering how these rich foreign families have the gall to ask for FA. It’s hard for american schools to verify the financial status of these overseas families. I see these families drive up in their mercedes and, from their addresses, i can tell they live in much posher digs than i. They basically just lie.
Except for situations were the kids are obviously destitute (e.g., war orphan), i say NO to general institutional FA for int’l kids. Merit awards only. If a private donor wants to set up a restricted endowment for Tajik kids, be my guest.
These are interrelated. Many of the current world leaders are US educated. Some of the aid that the US provides frees up the counties’ available resources to provide scholarships for their top students. While a US state does not provide a full ride to a top citizen from their state, a country of equivalent population may provide one or more full scholarships for their top student to study in the US. Therefore, the foreign students have more access to merit aid in that regard. Secondly, as others have pointed out, the federal and state funding that support US institutions (including grants and fellowships to faculty, land grant and sea grant charters of free property, exclusion of taxes on investment income and property value, economic development subsidies and other state-school and federal-school partnerships) subsidize the operations of all public and private universities. This is a subsidy by US taxpayers.
It is not the individual student’s fault, but from a societal perspective, private and public universities are an investment in the country’s human capital. Allowing foreign students admittance usually is justified in that framework (benefit to US citizens). There is very little expected return on educating a foreign student, and it takes away a spot that could be used to increase US human capital.
In addition, while US students must sign up for Selective Service and their parents must agree to have the IRS directly deliver tax information to the school in order to receive Financial Aid, foreigners with vastly different tax structures can lie without any repercussions (while in the US, lying on one’s tax returns is a federal offense punishable by federal law with heavy potential repercussions). Therefore, an international is advantaged in financial aid- they do not have to sign up for the Draft and they can lie with impunity about their finances. Additionally, the schools would be subsidizing the foreign government by providing funding for a foreign citizen that the foreign government would otherwise have to fund (say an Indian who could attend IIT for very little, a British or Canadian citizen who could attend a home university for very little, or a Scandanavian or German with free tuition). You might say it is unfair that US schools provide as much need-based financial aid as they do to international students- especially with so little reciprocity around the world.
This is why schools assume that need-blind internationals are likely to require a full ride in their going-in assumption.
That actually seems like the solution. There are wealthy tajiks who should appropriately be interested in the education of going people three.