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Foreign Students Have Begun To Shun the United States (axios.com)
In a potential threat to future U.S. innovation, new international enrollment at U.S. colleges is down for the first time in more than a decade, according to a new report. From the report: It is the first hard sign that the Trump administration's rhetoric may be frightening away some of the world's best and brightest who traditionally have been drawn to settle and work in the U.S. Why it matters: "The Chinese whiz kid, if he can find a way to America, he'll come here. If you're good, you can make a lot of money," Anthony Carnevale, director of Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce, tells Axios. "That whole set of incentives has always been tied to the immigrant stream, and we're severing that connection." By the numbers: The findings are from the Institute of International Education's annual Open Doors report and its smaller joint "snapshot" report on international enrollment. It found that new international student enrollment dropped by 3.3% for the 2016-2017 academic year, and by a far higher 6.9% in the Fall 2017 semester.
To us over here, going to the US now is like going to Germany in 1937 or something.
- I don't want to end up in a concentration camp ("black site") when flying over.
- Nor do I want to be anally fisted at touchdown. (The 9/11 terrorists did not land, now did they?)
- Or live among hyperselfish pschopaths. (I am basing this statement on research.)
- Or risk dying because I do not have $500,000 for a pill or simple operation.
- Or pay $500,000 to get an education that is free in my country.
Yes those are hyperboles. ... Sometimes. :P
I don't think there is any political system in the world that allows the 'best and the brightest' to rise to the top and run things in a way that benefits from their superior way of viewing the world. They are ultimately doomed to failure, too many corrupt toes to step on.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
And as we close the door ever tighter against the rest of the world, they'll discover that they don't really need us, anyhow. They'll walk right past us and wonder how it ever was that people used to risk their lives to come here.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
The alternative to globalism is protectionism. Protectionism has been tried many times, and it doesn't work. If anything, it's even less likely to work these days, now that we have the internet and global supply routes.
The way to deal with globalisation isn't to close our borders, it's to deal with the specific issues.
Education is too expensive, but would be even more expensive if it wasn't for foreign students. The fix is not to turn away that source of revenue that is subsidising local students, it's to deal with the high cost directly. In a lot of European countries university is free for citizens, and costs the government a fraction as much while still being world class institutions.
Jobs are going overseas. That's unfortunate, but if they didn't they would only be automated away anyhow. If not today, then tomorrow. We should help people adapt, to get new high end manufacturing jobs or move into services. Again, Germany has done that, Japan has done that.
The real solutions are hard, and blaming immigrants and globalisation is easy. That's the problem.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Since Trump's election I intentionally avoid al business (or holiday) travel to the US. At least we Europeans got to vote with our wallet. No need to support corrupt politicians, and their hateful followers. Many other pretty places in the world to visit and make friends.
Beyond Trump, maybe it's the general mood of Trump-haters and angry activists of all kinds versus Trump supporters and angry defenders of all kinds.
Why come to a country where everyone is angry all the time?
Why come to a country where no one can ever be happy?
Why come to a country where all the stories are about catastrophic environmental destruction?
Who wants to come here to be told they're a victim every day based on something that happened before they were born in their own country?
Why come to a country where succeeding financially is considered evil?
Why would a young person join a group that only talks about historic grievances and never about future opportunities?
Why come to a country where the leaders and entertainers and celebrities all seem to be among the worst examples of humanity?
Why not go to a country with good people and a good social atmosphere instead?
This view is deeply flawed.
Take Google as an example. You take it for granted that the Google HQ is in the USA, and hires Americans, but what if Sergey Brin was never welcome into the US or Standford, and instead he ended up going to a university in Russia or China or the UK or whatever, and creating his company there? What if Larry Page came to that same university in Russia (or whatever) because it was known as one of the best and most foreigner-friendly university in the world? Had that happened, the Google HQ would have now been in Russia, not California.
This may look absurd to you, but it can easily happen in a generation or two: the best students in the world are not welcome in Stanford, so they start choosing an almost-as good university in some other country, which gets better as more of the world's best students choose it. These students start to create companies in that country (if it welcomes them as immigrants), and suddenly it's no longer a "default" that every successful company needs to be in America. The American employees, which until now had an easy life when the world's best companies all flocked to America to employ them, will now need to start looking for jobs in other countries where these new companies are located.
Much of America's success in the last 100 years is due to its lax immigration policies, which meant that the best scientists in the world came to work in it and create new companies in it. I live in Israel and remember this happening in the 1980s: All the best scientists I knew were studying in the US, working in the US, or just visiting there. All their knowledge funneled into American universities and companies, and created jobs in America, not in Israel. I don't see how in any sense of the word, America suffered from this situation.
Can anyone say "false dichotomy"? I knew you could.
Put up walls, block out the rest of the world. It means you're limiting your society's access to knowledge and resources to those that are available inside those walls. This means you tend to develop socially and technologically at a slower pace than larger populations, and you tend to grow xenophobic which makes future interactions with the rest of the world more likely to be unfavorable.
Obviously the US isn't disconnected from the world entirely, but you guys certainly seem determined to blow up as many bridges as you can.
"I could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and shoot someone, and people would still vote for me."
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the kind of man the people of the United States freely, willingly and knowingly chose as their President. That actually says a lot more about the people of the United States than about Trump himself.
Can you blame anyone in the rest of the civilized world for being freaked out by the fact that half the people of the country he's supposed to go live in for a few years clearly show signs of serious mental health issues ?
If our education system ran off of immigrant dollars, that was never sustainable or good, and we should celebrate its departure.
I suspect that any celebration of the departure of your education system will ultimately turn out to be a very short-lived one once the consequences of not having one start to hit home.
Many of these people will be on a grant. So, yes, it has nothing to do with education cost. It is not all Trump's fault though, Bush did some preparation too and Obama did not do enough to counteract.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
We tried globalism. It meant that everyone else was more important than we were
This is the most delusional description of US foreign policy that I've ever read in my life.
I find it sad that, after half an hour, no one has challenged this:
If all these people are so smart, the "best and brightest", then why are their home countries a gigantic cesspool of filth, poverty, illiteracy, crime, violence and general misery?
Neither the article nor the intro says anything about which countries are not sending so many students to the USA. Which forces me to conclude that the AC believes that the entire world beyond the USA is "a gigantic cesspool of filth, poverty, illiteracy, crime, violence and general misery".
Unfortunately, all too many US citizens seem to agree. But it really isn't true. I live in England, which - while of course far inferior to Scotland - is a pretty decent country apart from its politicians. (And even they aren't nearly as bad as their American equivalents). Most of Europe is quite pleasant to live in (again, of course, were it not for the politicians and the ever-spreading blight of US corporations).
If you would take the trouble to read up on modern China, or Japan, or Singapore, or Russia, or Iran, or Brazil, or Mexico, or many other places, you would find that standards of living are soaring and people have a far more optimistic view of life than most in the USA.
By and large, the only countries that could accurately be described as "gigantic cesspools of filth, poverty, illiteracy, crime, violence and general misery" are those that the USA has attacked and completely, or partially, destroyed.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Actually, we got to where we are by importing the best and brightest worldwide. Einstein ring a bell? How about Fermi? Oppenheimer? Tesla?
Here's the funny part - these gents all came in legally under the immigration laws of their respective times, which is actually perfectly cool.
The problem lies in the fact that the pro-illegal crowd intentionally conflates legal and illegal immigration when trying to paint their opponents as xenophobic, which in turn creates this stupid atmosphere of 'OAMG the administration hatez the dreamers!!!111!!one!!'
If both side of the issue were intellectually honest, this wouldn't even be an issue.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
First of all, this article has a very biased viewpoint.
Foreign students have begun to shun the United States
That is stating that foreign students are making the choice to not attend schools in the United States. The data says no such thing. It is likely the same number of students desire to be educated in the United States as before, but there there are other factors that stand in their way (like having to enter the country through the legal processes).
Further, the article states "worth noting" (IE if they didn't state it they would be too blatantly guilty of expressing their bias without proper facts) that the big schools are affected "much less" than smaller schools that do not have Ph.D. programs. So considering the "best and brightest" are usually those seeking Ph. D. programs at the bigger schools, well, this isn't affecting the "best and brightest" at all.
The effect was much more pronounced in the Midwest and Texas, she said, especially at schools without Ph.D. programs, and at community colleges.
Ahh, now we get to the truth of it. This is about illegal immigrants from Mexico, which were attending smaller schools like community colleges. Isn't this to be expected? If it is harder to illegally enter the United States, and immigrants actually have to follow the policies that have been in place for decades, then less immigrants will be coming in, and thus we would see a drop in foreign enrollment at these kinds of smaller colleges in that specific region of the country.
Better known as 318230.
As a science student in a large, public, US university, I see very little "SJW stupidity" as you put it. Most of the students and profs are pretty apolitical on a day-to-day basis.
You're researching schools because you want to study well and succeed.
Are you put off by:
A). What Trump said about illegal immigrants from Mexico and about Muslims?
or
B). Viral, million view videos of activists storming libraries, disrupting campus, screaming at professors, screaming at fellow students?
Now imagine yourself as a parent who will be footing the bill. Are you put off by the former or the latter?
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Often these kids will be on a big set of grants. Either from the college to get the best and brightest. Or from their parents government to give these kids a top education so they come back as the best and brightest. Now say 80% return to their home it is a benefit for the home country and the 20% that stays in the US is a benefit to us.
And those who returned to the home country they returned with a better understanding on what America is and see us beyond what the nation will have us portrayed as, for good or for bad.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I'm sure it has nothing to do with the exploding cost of education, it must be all Trump's fault.
Whataboutism! I work for a UK University and we're seeing a rise in international students + our education costs are also skyrocketing. I don't know anyone who wants to travel to the states at the moment precisely because you elected a bigoted troll who's making a luaghing stock of your country.
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
That is wrong and you are stupid to think that.
These countries who bring there students to the US are often their best and brightest. Then a percentage of them will stay here so we have more of the best and brightest paying taxes and contributing to our society.
The bulk that goes back to their home country will know about American values and have a better understanding of us and would be less likely to blindly hate us, and being the best and brightest they may get into a position of power and their experience with the US for the most part would affect our relationship with them.
Foreign students are a net positive. We are not diverse enough as we keep on doing things the same way because it didn’t fail yet.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Alarmism...
I'm all for US criminals escaping arrest to a foreign country. Means we don't have to pay to lock them up -- we already have a disgracefully high (and expensive) prison population.
Sex trafficking would largely go away if we legalized prostitution between consenting adults -- it would be regulated and anyone forced into it could openly go to the police and seek help.
We can buy better weapons, legally, than are available in Mexico, so how does that affect us. If Mexico has a problem with US weapons entering it, strengthening its border security is THEIR problem, not ours.
Citizens do not have the hunger of immigrants. These are a self selected group of risk takers who have given up everything they know to try something new in a new country where they have no support structure. Few American born have the drive to do the same and that includes the American born children of immigrants. Intelligence AND drive both are required to succeed and keeping an open border means a fresh supply of drive coming in with every generation.
**Life is too short to be serious**
I'm steering well clear of partisan bias here (I voted 3rd-party if that tells you anything.)
Insisting both sides are equal, when that is clearly not the case, serves a partisan agenda.
In an ideal world, violent criminals and thieves would go to jail. Not that I mind a few escaping if I don't have to pay taxes to lock them up.
But it's also a fact that we make too many "criminals." We jail people for drug offenses that harm only themselves, for consensual sex between adults, even for unpaid parking tickets in some cases. Our sentences are Draconian. A journalist who filmed protests that damaged property in DC is essentially facing a life sentence (60+ years) -- he expressed support, but never participated in any property damage.
If he made bail, cut, and ran abroad across a porous border, I wouldn't blame him one bit -- in fact, I'd applaud and cheer for him. No sense risking a life sentence in front of a biased court.
I'd rather have a few violent criminals escape "justice" than have a tight border that can potentially be used to keep political criminals from escaping.
I think his point is that the UK, which is second only to the US in terms of its higher education system, also faces the same increase in costs, while not experiencing a downturn in foreign students. In other words, they are a counterexample to the argument that it's all about cost.
And none of this dual citizen shit. If you become a US citizen, you have to renounce any existing citizenships.
Some countries do not permit you to do so, for example Morocco. And then there are the countries who penalize their (former) Citizens by charging them "expatriation" tax on everything they own if they wish to renounce their citizenship. Well, there is only one that does so. Oh shoot! It's the U.S.!
I'm not a complete idiot... Some parts are missing.
Wernher von Braun... John von Neumann... Edward Teller...
Those are just the kind of names known to the general populace; it doesn't even begin to list the kind of people who are pre-eminent in their field but not known to the general public.
We're a big country, but still only 4% of the world's population lives here. US preeminence in science and technology, along with the military and economic benefits that brings, is unnatural and temporary. It was jump-started by the Nazis -- when I was at MIT in the 1970s many of the most prominent professors were scholar-refugees from WW2 -- but for the rest of the 20th century the influx of brilliant minds became a self-perpetuating process, to the immense benefit of native-born scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs.
Few of us are old enough to remember a time when American wasn't the unchallenged world leader in science, technology, and business; Many of us regard this as a kind of American birthright. But it's not. Yes, there may be cultural reasons for American innovation punching above our very considerable population weight, but we can't overcome sheer numbers.
Current economic projections see the US overtaking China as the world's largest manufacturing nation in several years, based on US technological leadership. But that's something we can't take for granted, not without a steady influx of the best young minds in the world.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Trump proposed an immigration system that let people in based on merit. Democrats called him racist.
To be fair, Trump's idea of merit included "what country you were born in" and "what religion you believe in". The Democrats are right, Trump is racist, but Trump's immigration plan seemed more unconstitutional and xenophobic than racist.
Fanatically anti-fanatical