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Fastest Growing US Export To China: Education
hackingbear writes "While we are importing billions of 'cheap' products labeled 'Made in China,' the fastest growing export from U.S. to China does not even need a label. Chinese parents are acutely aware that the Chinese educational system focuses too much on rote memorization, so Chinese students have flocked to overseas universities and now even secondary schools, despite the high cost of attending programs in America. Chinese enrollment in U.S. universities rose 23% to 157,558 students during the 2010-2011 academic year, making China by far the biggest foreign presence. Even the daughter of Xi Jinping, the presumed next president of China, studies as an undergraduate at Harvard. This creates opportunities for universities to bring American education directly to China. Both Duke and New York University are building campuses in the Shanghai area to offer full-time programs to students there."
From TFA:
So those parents send their kids to US schools to learn "morality"?
This has been going on for some time, for a number of reasons, not least the profit motive. Several English schools and American universities expanded into Asia (especially China) during the boom years. There are also several universities with presence in the Middle East. It's harder than it looks, when you try to meld two educational schools of thought, and recruiting staff for work abroad is harder than many schools think. There have been several high profile flame-outs.
I've read that part of the motivation for admitting more international students is purely financial... universities can charge more, so they have an incentive to have more international students. For the foreign students, there's a certain level of prestige associated with attending an American university, especially for Asian countries which place some additional importance on English language skills.
So... when does higher education bubble burst? Everyone is expecting it to. It makes no sense that while the economy is tanking, colleges can just continue to charge more money at rates considerably higher than cost of living adjustments...
If all you have are silver bullets, everything looks like a werewolf.
To their ideals,... of something or other? Poisoning their youth etc etc.
The US has plenty of excellent public and private schools. These families are aware of that, and will choose where to live carefully. At the primary and secondary level, you also have to consider that these families are interested in obtaining a North American diploma to ensure acceptance in western universities. They also seem to be accutely aware of the cost of education in North America and attempt to establish some sort of residence status in order to pay local rates.
Not when it comes to college and post-grad it isn't.
Disclaimer: I am from China.
From where I stand and what I observed from my friends and relatives, one important reason of sending their kids abroad is because they want to evade some of the selection process in the Chinese education system, like the national entrance exam for colleges, which is extremely competitive. Do they really care about the quality of the education? I am not so sure. It is a strategic and trendy thing to do, at least for many families I know.
It's not about averages or the norm, but the high end - Ivy League.
English-speaking and being one of the main places to do business are advantages. There's also the quality of life and democracy.
Probably some intent to stay too. If they can get into top-end universities on merit and afford to pay for it, far as I'm concerned they're welcome. Not only do we score one fine mind for free, China loses one.
It's so weird that people say the U.S. educational system is so bad, yet things like this happen (people coming from other countries to attend). I mean below college/university level. (Though even community colleges get many people coming from other countries -- even weirder.)
Only at the top end private schools. The comprehensives for the normal people are all about the grades, and good school grades are achieved through memorisation. You can't test complex thinking easily.
I would suppose that if this kind of behavior was widespread, the people with money could simply stop give out loans to them? Or require heftier collaterals?
More demand = higher prices for everyone
Unlikely. A university is closer to a non-profit than a corporation (with some notable exceptions). Foreign students probably reduce the cost for in-state students since foreign students must pay out-of-state tuition and can't receive financial aid.
Tuition prices have skyrocketed recently not because the cost of education has increased or the demand has increased. It is because austerity measures have reduced the amount of money that the States send to the universities. Most US universities are deeply in the red right now. They aren't packing away cash like you suggest.
Why stop giving a loan that's guaranteed to be paid off?
That is the worst description of IQ I have ever read.
Here read this so you know what the hell IQ is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iq
and here is the second part of your post, it is referred to as Emotional Intelligence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence
each seat filled by a foreign student is one less domestic student in that seat and robs the US of future domestic production
Are you kidding me? Foreign students are doing more than just getting an education here... they are learning the American way. They're being exposed to our values, life-style, religions, government institutions, free-market economy, etc, etc, etc.
Some of those foreigners will one day run their country (or be near the top), and they will have more American values than if they did not attend. You're creating a potential ally, or at least someone who is likely to be more friendly to the US.
That is worth a lot.
Don't we keep getting articles posted about how poor the US educational system is?
I guess our educational system is the same as our democracy, it's the worst kind of that type (education/government,) except for all the others that have been tried?
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
There are at least two kinds of intelligence. Call the first one "IQ". It is the memorization of facts and conclusions. Anything that you can add "and it will always be so and we know WHY it it will always be so" to.
This is a terrible definition of IQ.
You've obviously never taken a real IQ test if you think it is all about "memorization of facts and conclusions". The primary objective is assessment of reasoning and cognitive ability. Analogies, puzzles, spatial reasoning.
Floating in the black seas of infinity without a paddle.
My graduate department had more research money than students. More Americans were going into the booming job force with lower degrees. We and our employers preferred more Americans because they had better English skills. But we all adapted to changing talent pool. Once we became mostly international students, we stayed that way.
Or you are creating the biggest competitor imaginable. Imagine a China in 30 years that can innovate like the US, China where people can think about science and engineering like the US has in the last 50 years. If you are a dairy farmer you want to sell milk, not your best cows to your customers.
Those kinds of things America works real well at because they take SOCIAL SKILLS. It involves dealing with controversy, arguments, and idiots on un-named web message boards.
And America is the king of social skills. We teach people how to get along without the rule of an Iron Fist.
America's definition of "compromise" is "our way or the highway". It's not social skills you're good at, it's might makes right.
Yes, you're completely right. You're making them more like us--creating more shared values between us... but it's those values that give America its competitive edge. So if they adopt them, they will be more friendly toward us, but also more competitive with us. It's a double-edged sword.
You are supposing (wrongly) that there aren't enough seats for domestic students, and so a foreign student taking a seat is depriving a domestic one of a seat.
In that thinking you are completely wrong.
When I was an undergrad I had to take 1st year chem and biology. Both of which had well over 2000 students when the largest classroom was 400 at my school. By your logic this would mean 1600 people got screwed out of their degree. By university logic this meant running a total of 6 or 7 lecture sets for the same class, covering the same material. Multiple profs, a bit of a headache at test time, so they used the gym, a few minor logistical challenges. A course that big employed about 20 teaching assistants (some places this could easily be over 60 TA's per course, depends on how much else they have to do) that work for grad students since they're usually TAs and 6 or 7 lecture sets by itself would be 2 full time faculty for a year, so it works out to a couple of extra teaching jobs.
Some schools, the ones that cap enrollment, sure, a foreign student is taking a domestic seat. But those schools only want the best anyway, and it doesn't do them any favours to take a kid with a 97 average when there's one with a 98 average. They care plain and simple about maximizing talent. Those schools are also small, and even then, they can grow if they want to. But everywhere else more students is nothing but good. Where I am now could easily handle double our current enrollment, but we don't have enough applicants who are qualified (at least in useful degrees, if you want to get psych, drama, business, english, that sort of thing, they might have trouble doubling enrollment). I think we have about 35K undergrads but had over 50k for 4 years due to a change in education around here, we could reasonably bounce back up to 50k anyway.
Even in a programme like medicine or engineering where there's a hard cap on enrollment, the presumption that half or 2/3rds of graduates are going to leave (or whatever the number is, depends where you are) is baked into setting the caps. If you train 100 doctors a year but only really need 50 domestically and you have 50 foreign students you're not really depriving a local of the chance to go be a doctor in china.
In the long run the chinese aren't going to move 10 time zones for school, and by then the populations of the US and canada will grow into needing the space in universities. But right now we may as well take advantage of people willing to cough up tens of thousands of dollars a year in education fees, plus thousands more in living expenses. All these chinese students have proven to be very good for a friend of mine who works at a BMW dealership. The little emperor wants to look good when he's slumming it with us middle class types.
Or they're learning our weaknesses and how to exploit them - like Yamamoto.
They should raise tuition significantly- each seat filled by a foreign student is one less domestic student in that seat and robs the US of future domestic production, especially if that seat might have contributed positively to the domestic economy (ie: sciences/computer science/engineering)- I doubt these foreign students are here for liberal art degrees. Unless you actually build new facilities, enlarge existing lecture halls, and hire additional faculty, this is the simple math of the situation.
Don't worry, the graduates will just start building perfect copies of MIT and other top US universities when they return to China, just like they do with everything else. The problem you're talking about is only temporary.
Or you are creating the biggest competitor imaginable. Imagine a China in 30 years that can innovate like the US, China where people can think about science and engineering like the US has in the last 50 years. If you are a dairy farmer you want to sell milk, not your best cows to your customers.
It is not a zero sum game. The industrial might of the US didn't make Europe poorer. In fact a rich US and a rich Europe provide trade opportunities that enrich both.
Right now a poor China is stealing shit from the US. But if a rich China can innovate like the US, it won't need to steal. It will trade with the US and the world will be better for it.
Not only that, many of them want to stay here. It's the Chinese brain drain.
Normal Chinese citizens are not allowed to take money out of China. Many would like to do that just in case things go bust or the political scene changes. There is a loop hole however. Chineese students can take vast sums of money out of China if it is to help them learn abroad. The last previous condo I was renting was worth ~$700,000. The owner a 20 year lady from China studying at UBC. Lots of Chinese parents use their kids to get money out of the country.
Nope. American culture is like crack. Dipped in chocolate. Wrapped in bacon. With hookers.
Oftentimes, they care about maximizing endowment potential as much as they care about talent. And those new wealth Chinese families have cash to burn, and many of them enjoy seeing (and showing off) their name near the top of donor lists.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Mainly because america is the only culture that could come up with bacon wrapped chocolate dipped crack.
Go across the pond and they'd probably try making the crack into a white sauce, or bread it and soak it with balsamic vinegar.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
I'm a professor. My college's strategy for dealing with the economic crisis basically boils down to "let's get us some wealthy Chinese students up in here." They don't qualify for financial aid or tuition reduction, so it's full-price, cash money on the table. And it's a great cross-cultural thing for both them and our American students.
Somebody elsewhere said that bringing in Chinese students is wrong, because they are displacing qualified American students. But for many colleges, that's not how it works right now. With the economy down, colleges are having more trouble filling seats with qualified students who can pay. Chinese students aren't kicking out Americans: they're taking empty seats left by Americans who can't afford college because their Dad got laid off. (That shouldn't be allowed to happen. But trust me, it does.)
One bad effect of the Chinese influx is that it does allow colleges to keep charging high tuitions rather than lowering them as the demand drops. But for a lot of reasons (tenure, pension debt, health insurance costs), tuition prices are not very elastic. For quite a few colleges, the choice is stark: admit more international students, or wither and die.
Although Yamamoto did spend some time at Harvard, he actually graduated from the Japanese naval academy. Ironically, having spent much time in the United States (he was later the Japanese naval attaché), he was firmly against attacking the US as he thought that Japan had no hope of winning a protracted war.
As to how the pearl harbor attack was so successful? Many attribute it be a copy of the battle of taranto (the first all-airplane attack launched from an air-craft carrier) where the UK destroyed some docked Italian battleships. My take is that Yamamoto copied the US war exercise where US Admiral Yarnell performed pretty much the exact same attack on Hawaii with pretty much the same result...
He didn't learn our weakesses in school, but by studying history. Based on Yamamoto's prewar pro-US stance as a function of his time here, I'd say let more folks like him in.
The highly qualified one usually goes to the top-ranked universities, while the trust-fund-kids goes to the no-name ones.
New Economic Perspectives
True, but either way, if a chinese guy is richer/smarter than an american guy, and the criteria you are really evaluation on is rich/smart then there's nothing wrong with taking the whichever one best fits the metric you want.
As was said in another thread earlier this week too, education costs money, a lot of it. You can't fault schools for trying to make money because it doesn't do anyone any favours if they run out of money.
This is a fallacy -- because it assumes that the "number of seats" is a fixed quantity. As long as the foreign students pay for their education it's probably a win for the American students. As long as there is more money coming in, there will be a way to increase capacity.
Are you kidding me? Foreign students are doing more than just getting an education here... they are learning the American way. They're being exposed to our values, life-style, religions, government institutions, free-market economy, etc, etc, etc.
You must be speaking abstractly, without any observational experience to back it up.
In graduate school, I noticed next-to-zero foreign students interacting with the american students. They did not socialize with us, or even speak our language. Having had an exercise to critique and evaluate a classmate's written paper, I was downright shocked at the complete lack of any kind of grasp of the English language: half of the paper was plagiarized straight from the textbook, and the other half was poorly constructed syntax intended to glue the pieces together than only a native English speaker would have any hope of discerning (even after a lot of effort).
I'm honestly not sure how this individual made it to graduate school at all, and I'm not sure how they can be learning our values if they don't interact with us and also don't grasp the language. It must be the value of the diploma, not the experience or the education that goes with it.
The grade school system is terrible and needs improvement. Luckily they do not run the university system. The US consistently has more top universities than any other country.
US News and World Report: http://www.usnews.com/education/worlds-best-universities-rankings/top-400-universities-in-the-world ARWU (compiled by Shanghai Jiao Tong University): http://www.arwu.org/ARWU2010.jsp QS World Rankings (compiled by a London corp): http://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2011
One Small example, Stanford, who is #3 in several rankings, has 8 Nobel laureates and 1 Fields Medal among its alumni, pretty good isn't it?
However, this example is completed with the École normale supérieure - Paris (usually out of the top30), despite being very small (compared to the number of Stanford students), it has 12 Nobel laureates and 10 Fields medal.
In France, research isn't as strictly linked to the university (due to the way legal setting is there), as it is in the US, I guess that makes such universities decrease their ratings, and gives US unviersities an advantege in the evaluation (papers and citations generated from the university are evaluated and have weight).
Yes, I am not from America, and Yes, I once studied in America
And Yes, I do not live in America
Why?
Because, although America is good in many ways, I do not feel that America is my home
Plus, not everything in America is hanky dory - there are things that I, no matter how much I tried, just can't accept - like gay marriage, like late-term (trimester) abortion, for instance
American value? Maybe ...
After staying in America for more than 2 decades, for better of worse, I do understand the worldview of many of my American friends
But that does not mean I will emulate _everything_ that I have come across in America in my homeland
After all, in America, I was a foreigner
And America, no matter how good it is, is still a foreign land for me
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Yes, I am not from America, and Yes, I once studied in America
And Yes, I do not live in America
Why?
Because, although America is good in many ways, I do not feel that America is my home
Plus, not everything in America is hanky dory - there are things that I, no matter how much I tried, just can't accept - like gay marriage, like late-term (trimester) abortion, for instance
American value? Maybe ...
After staying in America for more than 2 decades, for better of worse, I do understand the worldview of many of my American friends
But that does not mean I will emulate _everything_ that I have come across in America in my homeland
After all, in America, I was a foreigner
And America, no matter how good it is, is still a foreign land for me
BTW, the businesses that I run do have offices in America, as well as China, among other countries
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Not only that, many of them want to stay here. It's the Chinese brain drain.
Think again
Many of the Chinese (and other foreign) students, stayed in America after they graduated, not because they love America
Because there are so many thing they can learn in America - so many new ideas, new concept, new way of thinking - that they can soak in
I am speaking from experience
After I graduated from college, I stayed in America for almost 3 decades
Did I like America? Well... yes and no
I like America, because there are so many good things in America that I learn
But I just can not substitute America for my homeland
For the 30 or so years that I was in America, not for a day I did not think of my homeland, not for a day my homeland did not beckon
So, after the 30 years I spent in America, after 30 years of learning what America can offer me, I went back to my homeland
So yes, you can say, during the 30 years that I was in America, it was a "brain drain" for my homeland
But ultimately, I came back home
And I suspect many of those Chinese (and other foreign) students will go back to their respective home countries
You gotta understand one thing - the time I was in America, it was when Ronald Reagan was the president, when America was still _something_ to be reckoned with
Not the America now
When I was in America, the "camp city phenomenon" only happened once - when the blue collar worker from rust belt flocked to Houston and Dallas, TX
Today?
"Camp Cities" are everywhere - America just isn't the America it used to be
And that only translate to - More and more of the foreign students ultimately will end up going home
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
no they're not. they're making us learn their way. since we don't no longer have the testicular fortitude to stand up for our own culture out of some misguided attempt at 'multiculturalism,' we're setting the stage for a 'bloodless takeover.'
Instead of making english the official national language, we're teaching our kids spanish and mandarin in school. we're giving full blown scholarships to immigrants because of their immigrant status, while american citizens have to pay.
It is a fact of human nature that societies have to stand up for themselves and their identities, or else they ossify into someone else's.
GP is nothing but a lousy troll
If you forgot, here's what GP wrote:
Have you any idea of what Chinese ethics consist of? Typically, it's "I got mine, screw you"
How can anyone ever take such crap seriously?
People, of any racial background, come in all kinds of personalities - some good, some bad, some in between
By saying that only the Chinese have the "I got mine, screw you" mentality, GP has shown off two fallacies:
I. People of all races - not just those from one specific racial background - have this "I got mine, screw you" trait
II. The Chinese, like all people, come in the "Good", the "Bad", and the "Ugly" varieties
Sure, there are Chinese with the "Screw You" POV
But there are also Chinese who do not subscribe to that POV
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I hate to say it, but this AC is right. The average immigrant AND the average american today, are NOT the kind of people who made this country what it once was.. We need to bring some of that culture back, or our 'culture of immigrants' that helped build this country in the last century will become a culture of thieves who come here on scholarships or H1Bs, and siphon wealth back to their home countries before leaving again. America is a country dying a death of millions of tiny paper cuts.
To be fair, it's not just immigrants who cut and run. There's also what corporations, government, and social/financial lobbies are doing to undermine liberties for the sake of power grabs, ideologies, and profits of course. I won't side with left or right here. There's plenty of blame to go around. America needs to step out of this right/left dichotomy for a bit and look at this problem from the multidimensional perspective that it exists in. Once it has done this, then it will become clear where the country should focus its industries, politics, and sense of identity. If it stays mired in stupid shit like the middle east conflict, the UN, and every two bit country's beef with it, it'll never get anywhere and eventually collapse under its own weight. This would be really bad, because, underneath all the recent layers of outright crap that's been foisted upon it, the core concepts America was founded on are still the right way to go for a free society. I do not want to wake up one day and realize that I'm living the same sardine can lifestyle as people do in places like china, under the combinatory guise of safety, insecure emotional egoism, and the protection of too-big-to-fail corporations. There's just no way.
In graduate school, I noticed next-to-zero foreign students interacting with the american students.
They did not socialize with us, or even speak our language.
Having had an exercise to critique and evaluate a classmate's written paper, I was downright shocked at the complete lack of any kind of grasp of the English language: half of the paper was plagiarized straight from the textbook, and the other half was poorly constructed syntax intended to glue the pieces together than only a native English speaker would have any hope of discerning (even after a lot of effort).
Having read what you wrote, Sir, I can only conclude the following:
You are making this up
Speaking from my past experience as a foreign student studying in America - it's mostly the reverse
I tried to mix with the Americans -
- I mean, I was in AMERICA, and if I do not mix with Americans when I was in America, what the fuck I was doing in America in the first place? -
- but due to my lousy English -
- yes, my English was really really bad, what can I say but English was a FOREIGN LANGUAGE to me, at that time -
- I had a hard time making friends with Americans
I had to spend time mixing with other International Students, - those from Latin America, from Europe, from Asia, from Africa, - in order to find people to talk to, to practice my English
Only after some months doing that - and also watch a hell of a lot of TV news programs which were in English - I got my English pretty understandable, before Americans started to want to mix with me
It's not that the foreign students - not only those from China - do not want to mix with Americans, it's often the other way around
I even got beaten up in a stadium, by American boys, because I went there with an American friend, who happened to be a very sexy looking American female
Yep, I got beaten up because those American boys do not like the idea of "their babes" going out with a "foreigner"
As for the thesis in English - as I said, it took me quite a while to learn English, and there are times, even after using English for the past 3 decades, I still find myself writing really really lousy English
All you are doing is nothing more than negative stereotyping of the students from China
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
no they're not. they're making us learn their way. since we don't no longer have the testicular fortitude to stand up for our own culture out of some misguided attempt at 'multiculturalism,' we're setting the stage for a 'bloodless takeover.'
Instead of making english the official national language, we're teaching our kids spanish and mandarin in school. we're giving full blown scholarships to immigrants because of their immigrant status, while american citizens have to pay.
It is a fact of human nature that societies have to stand up for themselves and their identities, or else they ossify into someone else's.
Our country's downfall will be the great lengths we go through to avoid having to compete on merit. It is sestemic in our business culture, and in the general "entitled" attitudes in a large part of our workforce, as evidenced by your comment. We should be ENCOURAGING hard working and talented persons to immigrate to this country. If we do not, we will no longer be able to compete in a globalized economy.
Fanboy Status: Apache Flex, C#, Eclipse, KDE, Pirate Party, Ron Paul, Slackware, Windows 7
I agree we should compete on merit, but if we do this at the expense of our culture, less and less will differentiate us with the incoming cultures' values. it's a case of burning the village in order to save it. These incoming cultures don't care about our culture or our values.. they want the parts that'll benefit them and their homelands, not ours.
You speak of entitlement attitude, but that cuts both ways. There's just as much entitlement syndrome in today's corporations and governments who think lining citizens up like sardines in a can in order to cut costs is 'success.' I'm sorry, but I do not want to live like they do in china.
I am guessing that you have not worked with Chinese or gone to school with Chinese students. A number WANT democracy, but those are the ones from middle to lower class. Those that are slated to be new leaders are looking at us with contempt and many are simply spies. And yes, that certainly includes the daughter of Xi Jinping.
While there is something to what you say, this becomes less true as you age and the IQ test assumes that you've had specific education. Not being able to solve an equation because I didn't take the applicable class doesn't tell you how intelligent I am or am not.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Right now a poor China is stealing shit from the US.
Really? I don't see a lot of theft by Chinese over here. I do see them making unauthorized copies of stuff we're paying them to make anyway, though.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You are right. NORMALLY, it is NOT a zero-sum game. The problem becomes when one of the nations fix their money illegally, refuses to import products from the other nations, refuses to export resources after using illegal monopolies to destroy other producers, moves from 95 tariffs to over 400 tariffs with more coming, and subsidizes industries that export to those other nations. When you do this, it absolutely is NOT a zero-sum. It is a COLD WAR. Basically, Chinese gov. is trying to sink the west economically, and they are winning because of idiots that keep saying that this is China just building themselves up.
Your statement is kind of like Jews in Nov. 12, 1938 saying that the german troops were simply trying to improve their lots because we jews had too much, or USSR making a deal with Germany saying that they need help to get their feet on the ground.
yeah, yeah, Godwin. However, if it roars like a grizzley, walks like a grizz, roars like a griz, produces little griz cubs, and is heading straight for us, I think that it is more than fair to call it a griz, in spite of your claiming that it is a friendly dog that needs help.
Is a word best whole in china. i like and i impersonated in whole designed is great designed,And America is the good of social skills.
Mainly because america is the only culture that could come up with bacon wrapped chocolate dipped crack.
If I were an American I would be wiping away tears of pride right now...
On one hand, the Chinese aren't stupid - they want to get something for their Bernake bucks before their dollars turn to second hand toilet paper.
It will be interesting to see the generational culture clash, when their kids come home from very liberal arts colleges and universities in the US.
Basically, Chinese gov. is trying to sink the west economically, and they are winning because of idiots that keep saying that this is China just building themselves up.
The last time the US had a
positive balance of trade was in 1975, when Mao was still alive and ruling China as a totally isolated Communist economy.
Basically, the US committed economic suicide in 1973, when OPEC first raised oil prices. Instead of raising prices an letting the economy adjust to the new reality, the US federal government imposed price controls and rationing. The result is that the US never abandoned the pick-up truck as a personal transportation vehicle.
People in Europe drive subcompact cars with diesel engines that get 70 mpg, while in the US they drive to work in F-150s.
Blame not China if the US economy is fucked up.
And this is why i think it is great once I get passed my lizard-brain knee-jerk jingoism living in all our hearts. Give my pre-frontal cortex a chance to way into the discussion and I think this is great.
My one concern is the last line of the summery, "Both Duke and New York University are building campuses in the Shanghai area to offer full-time programs to students there" NOOOOO that defeats the point!!! The only way you get the benefits you describe is if they learn in the U.S., immersed in the culture. More jingoism perhaps, but if you want shared values to be shared then they have to learn the full spectrum, morning noon and night, surounded by people who grew up with those values. Not just an instructor and TA who may, or more likely may not, actually be born and bread Americans. And no I don't mean caucasions, I mean cultural Americans of all ethnic backgrounds.
I don't know if Chinese-American instructors would be good or bad in this case because there might be too much cultural constructive-inteference unless the Chinese-American instructor is like 2nd or 3rd generation. I'd say the same thing about X-American teaching X-ian students. The whole point here is to completely immerse the student in the "other" culture and not reenforce what they already know. Then again, if they are fully immersed in the "other" culture in all other aspects, then having an instructor who can relate a little closer to the students own native culture might be an important bridge.
As a final caveat, I say Americans because that is what the article is about. I would say the same thing really about any country/culture that shares the same basic values: individual freedoms, democracy, capitalism, self-determination etc.
If you can't be good, be good at it!
I agree with everything you said except the second sentence ("It is not a double edged sword").
Even if the positives of free-trade outweigh the negatives, there ARE downsides to free-trade, and trying to paint it as perfect is disingenuous.
When this country is producing a good and another (cheaper, developing) country learns to produce it, industries here are destroyed, workers are displaced, and it does create structural unemployment.
This is a negative by anyones standards.
We think the movement to other goods is positive for the US economy, so we accept that downside.
Let's not pretend it doesn't exist.. ignoring it does not make it go away.
The students we get in these programs cannot be pegged into one box. On one end, there are the new money brats, who will likely be gladhanded through the system all the way to the end of their BA degrees. Entire offices filled with Americans and Chinese alike work through the week to engineer the perfect applications, often using teachers' names without consent for recommendations, and inventing profiles on the fly to ensure their applications get through at some of the highest schools in the country. On the other hand, and definitely not to be downplayed, are the honest, hard-working, legitimately genius-level students who are entrenched in many decades of intellectual tradition, and simply wish to acquire the degree.
Once back in China, these degrees (if at a same-tier school) are generally more respected due to the adaptability they demonstrate. So a degree at BeiDa (Beijing U) versus a degree at MIT would lose when applying for job in Shanghai. Out of the students I've taught, I would say that during my honest moments with them, about half of them intended to take advantage of the emigration opportunity their study abroad presented, despite the fact that it would be likely that they would lose their citizenship. The stereotypes have some truth, and many Chinese view North America as the holy land of civilization. Whether this is by choice or by influence is unanswerable, but I can tell you from experience that the number of Anglos in the street advertising in the high-end shopping districts is almost always over-represented, and Chinese brands among the locals are practically the stigma of the lower class. In my experience, this attitude is completely undeserved. The things I have used and purchased here, from everyday items up to cars and motorcycles, are usually of quality far beyond what I had paid for them.
If you look at the visa requirements, you can see how this is not going to stop any time soon, and this is one point that cannot be ignored: merely to enter the country, you need to demonstrate the balance of about 4 years tuition, existing as readily available currency. That's right - you need to show a balance of about 100K before even setting foot in the US or Canada, or you simply cannot play. This is music to the ears of our governments if you think about it. Here is a 4 year tourist who will take nothing from you, guaranteed to spend their money supporting real estate, education, and anything else that might be in the city, at no cost to you whatsoever.
So the appeal, and the topic of discussion here, should not be restricted to the domain of the Universities and their affiliates. This goes a little deeper, in fact: to the countries themselves.
Have you not seen what passes for fast food in Japan?
Not all I am sure but many of the foreign student (esp the Chinese that I see) only hang around other people of their country. They only speak English when forced too. I have even seen them write their papers in Chinese. Then run a translator program to make it English then turn it in. When the professor grades the paper poor due to the translator program no being 100% perfect, they complain and show them the paper written in Chinese and say it is correct there. This happen at the end of every semester. Most of the time the more willing to fit in to the US foreign students take them in and set them straight. It is really odd to walk into a room here and only here Chinese, or Hindi, or Arabic, or Parsi.
That's a total generalization. For instance, I drive a RAM 1500 100 miles round trip each day. Not a F-150 at all. Some poor bastards out there even drive Silverados.
Indeed that is not good. And won't be solved having the schools "over there" either. Not sayign you suggested that, just coming back to one of my points. That said, then the problem is one of execution and setting expectations. And well, frankly, maybe a problem of numbers. But it is hard to say, "oh we'll limit the number to just 10 so they can't stay in their own little cultural group" ... but that is my kneejerk reaction to the picture you paint; which is one I too have seen if I'm honest :(
If you can't be good, be good at it!
Am perfectly okay with China exporting people over here to the US for college as long as they are either:
1. Royalty
2. Cute
3. Both - http://www.pic2fly.com/viewimage/XI%20Mingze/aHR0cDovL2dpc3dpbi5nZW8udHN1a3ViYS5hYy5qcC9zaXMvaW1hZ2VzL3N1bjEwLmpwZw
- Holy crap, I've got MOD points! Who thought that was a good idea.