And another thing more generally about foreign students. My son is in a graduate program w/substantial numbers of foreign students, mostly Chinese. His program went out of their way to also recruit American students too. However, large % of foreigners whether in academic programs or the workplace (think tech) have displacement effects that push smart American students away. The fact that they pay "full fare" tuition may have some benefits, but also inculcates in them a 'tude, which we also see WRT immigration. Like w/immigration generally, we need less of this.
"Who is allowed to study in [y]our country ... is inherently a matter of public policy. Yes, but of what is the decision to go to your country to study inherently a matter?
I have no strong views, but I thank you for insight into something I've not especially dwelt on. I recently read a review in The Nation, a major Kenyan newspaper, which criticises the "consultancy research" of foreign-based scholars whose colonialist viewpoints get repeated parrot-fashion in Africa "based on books authored elsewhere with little relevance to local realities ... Consultancy research is generally pre-determined. It cannot pretend to change local circumstances because, if it resolves the problem, it will erase the reason for its existence."
What Wavinya Makai is saying there about scholarship in Kenya is that Africa suffers under a colonial programme that did not cease upon the grant of independence. The solutions to Africa's problems are regurgitated from the colonial playbook.
I just wondered whether this might have a bearing on why America is keen to host Chinese scholars.
Here in Canada the source of the problem was circa 2010 when Conservative PM Harper basically took the Romney approach of easily granting permanent residence to graduates of Canadian colleges and universities. This created a gold rush of mostly Indian students who would sign up for pretty much any program anywhere, including the Canadian equivalent of junior colleges in the middle of nowhere. Some rural colleges even set up satellite campuses in the big city run by private contractors.
The results were countless bogus foreign students who barely put up the pretence of studying and mostly focused on driving Ubers and so on. They flooded the unskilled job market and crammed into rental housing, driving up rent. A total disaster. One is currently going on trial for murdering a couple in a home invasion after less than a month in Canada. Now they are closing the barn door by taking away the promise of permanent residence after graduating. We are getting protests from these fake students, collapse in enrollment and lots of bogus refugee claims.
Lessons for the US: 1. Don’t trust colleges to uphold standards when money is involved. 2. There are a limited number of high quality students who can pay. After that point you just get immigration rackets and some real dregs, mostly from India and Pakistan. I don’t think this promise of vast numbers of Chinese students is realistic.
First of all the best Chinese students go to school in China where the best universities are. Our best Universities are second choice for the children of affluent Chinese parents, third choice is a nice State school somewhere that has decent academics.
English ability is measured with a TOEFL test before students are accepted to a university. After coming to the US most can read and listen to lectures at university level or they wouldn't have been accepted. When I taught in China students needed a 1500 word English vocabulary to be accepted to high school. Yes, high school. Many, perhaps most, Chinese students are fluent in 2 completely different Chinese languages, Mandarin, and either the local language in Shanghai, Hong Kong, or elsewhere, English is often their third language and many go on to learn a fourth or fifth.
Chinese make great American citizens, we should hope they stay. Chinese Americans have an extremely low rate of criminality, they have high earnings, are great at business, and best of all they adapt to becoming American easily. Chinese are ideal immigrants. One started the richest company in the world, Nvidia.
We do not need low wage uneducated laborers using social services. We would be well served to accept a million Chinese students and to do everything we can to get them to stay here.
A very valid point - which I would underline as someone who attended university in Germany: the host language you need to be able to understand the verbal tuition and to read the research materials is passive. Passive knowledge is quickly obtained. It is acquiring active language ability that is slower in coming.
You cannot just talk about "language ability" without specifying whether that is writing, reading, speaking or listening. Easiest is reading, then listening, then writing, then speaking. In my experience.
Actively speaking is near impossible it seems, except by immersion. Coming here and being forced to speak. With a very large vocabulary and years of grammar it seems to come quickly, accent is often horrid forever, but altogether plenty to take active participation in group projects. Not great as TAs or Assistant profs as no one can understand them, often the case for Indians too. The Euros, especially Germans and northern Euros, for whatever reason are often much easier to understand. I think a lot of English is some sort of German. Norman Conquest for which I'm still awaiting reparations.
After the STEM degree a lot of the work is in very small groups, collaborating over short text or verbally and writing isn't as important. Before AI even very bright Asian students had a hard time writing things and would struggle for hours on things a US undergrad could crank out in a couple hours. If it's vitally important to publish they often have collaborators to clean it up without distorting meaning.
Why are so many of the pieces on this Substack based upon anecdotal, first-person accounts? I was looking forward to a thorough exploration of the issue.
I think the author complicated the story of all foreign students with the question about Chinese students. It seems like the answer is no but not really proven other than “China is enemy”
Here are a few questions that seem more timely. Why did the administration-Don, JD, and Noem, immediately lie about, and demonize, the woman their staff had just murdered, prior to any investigation? Speaking of investigations, why are we not conducting one in the Minnesota shooting, counter to longstanding protocol in normal law enforcement agencies? Do we really need Greenland? Do Don's taco tariffs, including the latest threats over Greenland, have anything more than Don's daily gas pains behind them? Should we be using the DOJ to target the head of our central bank? Can someone, anyone, explain what the plan is in Venezuela? Do we really need ICE, with the largest budget of any law enforcement agency in US history and poorly trained thugs in tactical gear, terrorizing only the half of America the mad king dislikes? Why is Don so paranoid about the Epstein files?
"It’s especially peculiar that Trump would suggest this at the same time that other countries are limiting international enrollment owing to public backlash, suggesting that in this case he’s simply a businessman sniffing an opportunity."
There's no opportunity, it was more like a blackmail response. When he suggested that HBCUs would go out of business if not for Chinese students, it was so laughably stupid and unbelievable that I knew that it was a "cock and bull" story. It happened you'll recall right around the time his big tariffs and China's new rare earth minerals export policy were being discussed. I believe this was a concession to the Chinese to keep the rare earths coming. Once we have some independent capabilities on rare earths, this policy will stop.
And another thing more generally about foreign students. My son is in a graduate program w/substantial numbers of foreign students, mostly Chinese. His program went out of their way to also recruit American students too. However, large % of foreigners whether in academic programs or the workplace (think tech) have displacement effects that push smart American students away. The fact that they pay "full fare" tuition may have some benefits, but also inculcates in them a 'tude, which we also see WRT immigration. Like w/immigration generally, we need less of this.
"Who is allowed to study in [y]our country ... is inherently a matter of public policy. Yes, but of what is the decision to go to your country to study inherently a matter?
I have no strong views, but I thank you for insight into something I've not especially dwelt on. I recently read a review in The Nation, a major Kenyan newspaper, which criticises the "consultancy research" of foreign-based scholars whose colonialist viewpoints get repeated parrot-fashion in Africa "based on books authored elsewhere with little relevance to local realities ... Consultancy research is generally pre-determined. It cannot pretend to change local circumstances because, if it resolves the problem, it will erase the reason for its existence."
What Wavinya Makai is saying there about scholarship in Kenya is that Africa suffers under a colonial programme that did not cease upon the grant of independence. The solutions to Africa's problems are regurgitated from the colonial playbook.
I just wondered whether this might have a bearing on why America is keen to host Chinese scholars.
Here in Canada the source of the problem was circa 2010 when Conservative PM Harper basically took the Romney approach of easily granting permanent residence to graduates of Canadian colleges and universities. This created a gold rush of mostly Indian students who would sign up for pretty much any program anywhere, including the Canadian equivalent of junior colleges in the middle of nowhere. Some rural colleges even set up satellite campuses in the big city run by private contractors.
The results were countless bogus foreign students who barely put up the pretence of studying and mostly focused on driving Ubers and so on. They flooded the unskilled job market and crammed into rental housing, driving up rent. A total disaster. One is currently going on trial for murdering a couple in a home invasion after less than a month in Canada. Now they are closing the barn door by taking away the promise of permanent residence after graduating. We are getting protests from these fake students, collapse in enrollment and lots of bogus refugee claims.
Lessons for the US: 1. Don’t trust colleges to uphold standards when money is involved. 2. There are a limited number of high quality students who can pay. After that point you just get immigration rackets and some real dregs, mostly from India and Pakistan. I don’t think this promise of vast numbers of Chinese students is realistic.
First of all the best Chinese students go to school in China where the best universities are. Our best Universities are second choice for the children of affluent Chinese parents, third choice is a nice State school somewhere that has decent academics.
English ability is measured with a TOEFL test before students are accepted to a university. After coming to the US most can read and listen to lectures at university level or they wouldn't have been accepted. When I taught in China students needed a 1500 word English vocabulary to be accepted to high school. Yes, high school. Many, perhaps most, Chinese students are fluent in 2 completely different Chinese languages, Mandarin, and either the local language in Shanghai, Hong Kong, or elsewhere, English is often their third language and many go on to learn a fourth or fifth.
Chinese make great American citizens, we should hope they stay. Chinese Americans have an extremely low rate of criminality, they have high earnings, are great at business, and best of all they adapt to becoming American easily. Chinese are ideal immigrants. One started the richest company in the world, Nvidia.
We do not need low wage uneducated laborers using social services. We would be well served to accept a million Chinese students and to do everything we can to get them to stay here.
A very valid point - which I would underline as someone who attended university in Germany: the host language you need to be able to understand the verbal tuition and to read the research materials is passive. Passive knowledge is quickly obtained. It is acquiring active language ability that is slower in coming.
You cannot just talk about "language ability" without specifying whether that is writing, reading, speaking or listening. Easiest is reading, then listening, then writing, then speaking. In my experience.
Actively speaking is near impossible it seems, except by immersion. Coming here and being forced to speak. With a very large vocabulary and years of grammar it seems to come quickly, accent is often horrid forever, but altogether plenty to take active participation in group projects. Not great as TAs or Assistant profs as no one can understand them, often the case for Indians too. The Euros, especially Germans and northern Euros, for whatever reason are often much easier to understand. I think a lot of English is some sort of German. Norman Conquest for which I'm still awaiting reparations.
After the STEM degree a lot of the work is in very small groups, collaborating over short text or verbally and writing isn't as important. Before AI even very bright Asian students had a hard time writing things and would struggle for hours on things a US undergrad could crank out in a couple hours. If it's vitally important to publish they often have collaborators to clean it up without distorting meaning.
Why are so many of the pieces on this Substack based upon anecdotal, first-person accounts? I was looking forward to a thorough exploration of the issue.
Blogs just happen to be anecdotal, first-person accounts of issues, unfortunately. Or fortunately, as the case may be. I like them.
Not true. Commonplace bills itself as a magazine, which to my thinking means journalism with a certain level of depth and exploration.
Well, according to you, this one is.
I think the author complicated the story of all foreign students with the question about Chinese students. It seems like the answer is no but not really proven other than “China is enemy”
What an excellent article on such an important matter.
Here are a few questions that seem more timely. Why did the administration-Don, JD, and Noem, immediately lie about, and demonize, the woman their staff had just murdered, prior to any investigation? Speaking of investigations, why are we not conducting one in the Minnesota shooting, counter to longstanding protocol in normal law enforcement agencies? Do we really need Greenland? Do Don's taco tariffs, including the latest threats over Greenland, have anything more than Don's daily gas pains behind them? Should we be using the DOJ to target the head of our central bank? Can someone, anyone, explain what the plan is in Venezuela? Do we really need ICE, with the largest budget of any law enforcement agency in US history and poorly trained thugs in tactical gear, terrorizing only the half of America the mad king dislikes? Why is Don so paranoid about the Epstein files?
Imagine him at 82...
Good luck America.
"It’s especially peculiar that Trump would suggest this at the same time that other countries are limiting international enrollment owing to public backlash, suggesting that in this case he’s simply a businessman sniffing an opportunity."
There's no opportunity, it was more like a blackmail response. When he suggested that HBCUs would go out of business if not for Chinese students, it was so laughably stupid and unbelievable that I knew that it was a "cock and bull" story. It happened you'll recall right around the time his big tariffs and China's new rare earth minerals export policy were being discussed. I believe this was a concession to the Chinese to keep the rare earths coming. Once we have some independent capabilities on rare earths, this policy will stop.