Hello. I’m just curious: What is the reason that MIT has a quota for international students? I find it weird seeing as though it is a private university and thus is not mainly funded by tax dollars (such as public state universities). So, what’s the reason behind having a hard quota?
My guesses would be:
- It’s still an American university. Educating Americans is most likely its first priority.
- It’s need-blind, correct? Many internationals need significant financial aid in order to study here. If they take a class with only internationals–not knowing the FA situation when they accept them–they could screw themselves over by promising to meet need for everyone.
If I tell myself I’m only going to have two drinks at the party, is that a “hard quota”? Can’t I change that at any time?
@bodangles Regarding number 1: I understand that, but I’m wondering why it’s a hard quota? Schools like HYP don’t have a quota, yet still internationals only ever form a maximum of about 11% of their classes. With respect to number 2, even if they didn’t accept any internationals at all, they could still hypothetically accept a fully american class in which every single student requires full aid, so I’m not sure that would be the reason (unless internationals, in general, need more aid than the average US student). Also, none of the other 5 schools that are need-blind for internationals have a hard quota.
@JustOneDad You are right in that they could simply change this quota to suit themselves at any given moment, but then that begs the question: Why even publish one in the first place then?
If quotas weren’t in place, and selection purely by exam, the Ivies and MIT would basically be 100% full of Koreans, Chinese, Indians, and Eastern Europeans, none of whom know how to row crew.
@makennacompton I never suggested that MIT or any other school do selection purely by exam. I firmly believe in the value of extra-curricular activities, character, etc. I was merely wondering why the strict quota. For example, why set a hard quota at 100 students? Suppose one year you have 105 or even 110 international students that you want to accept?
bodangles is basically correct.
MIT isn’t public, but you’d be surprised to find out how much of MIT’s operations are funded by tax dollars, mostly in the form of federal research grants. Research grants are very attractive to universities, because they fund salary and materials costs for individual researchers and their labs (and, thus, the university has to chip in less money for salary), but also because they come with “overhead” costs – a fixed percentage of the total money awarded for the grant goes to the university, and that money doesn’t all go toward paying the electric bills. MIT has negotiated a pretty plum overhead rate with federal granting agencies, and there are a lot of government dollars flowing into MIT.
Also, while it is a private university, it is also a sea / land grant college.
Thank you @MITChris for confirming what bodangles said. I can see that being a reason for having a quota, and I have absolutely no problem with there being a quota. I was more so curious as to why the quota is a hard one and not a soft one.
@molliebatmit Thank you for the clarification and enlightenment. I didn’t realize that so much of the institution’s resources came from federal funding.
Also it is non profit institution which means it doesn’t pay taxes. It is getting many free services from local and state governments. It doesn’t pay property taxes or Sales taxes which are used for many essential services
The OP also wondered if internationals need appreciably more aid than Americans. That is not the issue. If there is both an American and an international who both needed an identical (say) $10000 in aid, for the American, there are a wide variety of sources of government money that will help provide the aid for the American, whereas for the international, that money will usually have to come out of general institute funds. So internationals do not necessarily need more aid, but the aid that they do need, costs more.
Of course, MIT could simply move the line to, say, 95% of where it is now and make the quota soft. But I don’t think that’s what you have in mind.