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Schools should be able to educate anybody they want, anybody who could afford it, and anybody who would be a qualified student. National boundaries are a rather silly and arbitrary reason to cut people off from receiving a quality education (excepting some clear national security issue like an Iranian kid wanting to study nuclear physics). For this we would usually mean college. Our lower education systems are generally regarded with scorn outside of maybe some suburban and private schools. I cannot imagine someone coming from the Ukraine to get their primary education here merely to go back to Ukraine, but I could certainly see someone coming to get an engineering degree.

The primary reason not to worry about any brain drain from foreign students returning to their homelands is that without these students competing for our spots our colleges have less incentives to be world class institutions. If all they have to do is attract the best American students, and we have a fairly good idea what our education system produces in that regard, then a university doesn't have to work very hard to stay at the top. International surveys still regard over half of the top 100 colleges around the world to be here in the states, with the actual amount probably being about 70% of that list once you factor in the national biases of other nations. I'd rather this be the "problem" than worrying about a few Chinese and Indian kids "taking away" a slot from Americans. If our kids can't make it into Harvard so what?

Yea but permanent American citizens are going to work in the United States and help the economy in whatever it is that they want to pursue. These temporary citizens come and get their education, then go back to their own country. We shouldn't educate those who aren't going to benefit our society.

Global competition does benefit our society. It means that there is now an educated population in India that might be able to afford our goods or services and have some acquired taste for our culture from exposure.

Realistically this problem is fixed by making American students more attractive candidates for higher education in the first place. Not by denying the ability of Chinese or Malaysian migrants, or whoever, from getting into a school if that school wants them and will take them.

Don't get me started with India. We can't do that, because then we are taking jobs away from Americans. This is what outsourcing is all about.

Taking away jobs that Americans don't do as well and because of which Indian citizens now have more money which they can use to spend on our stuff at some point (provided we don't use tariffs and trade barriers like I'm guessing you'd want to do also). I don't have a problem with Americans losing jobs that they do not have an economic advantage to do and which are generally crappy jobs to begin with. I'd rather more people here can do creative human capital work than basic service jobs for example. Anybody can answer a phone to take orders or enter a table of numbers into a database.

That's insane. Jobs "that Americans don't do well" – way to generalize. Who is one to say what is a crappy job and what isn't? Listen, if people need to put food on the table and take care of a family, they will do any job, crappy as it may be. And it is unfair if it is taken away and given to someone who will do it for cheeper, or "better" as you claim.

Yea. It's not that Americans do crappy jobs, it's that the corporation want to pay less for the employees. If everyone has your attitude, everyone would be out of work.

I understand your viewpoint. However, many qualified American students are often pushed aside in favor of culturally diversifying an institution. I believe there was a debate about this already…Regardless, it becomes a problem when institutions in America (especially graduate institutions) will favor those from other countries, while those very "other" countries dare not favor admitting Americans in a similar manner.

They will do it better. Ask the corporations who hire Indians to do outsourcing of menial tasks. Ask any small business owner who employs Mexicans around you to do construction work for example. They're more involved and take the jobs more seriously and thus are more productive in addition to being cheaper to employ (because of regulatory and wage disparities). This is a fact. What Americans instead produce more effectively are higher value jobs. Instead of inputting a bunch of numbers into a database, we have people who are better at analyzing them or making decisions based on them.

No. Just the people who lack employable and productive skills.

If they are "favoring" some other country's students that's a different issue. I figure they should take the best candidates available, particularly for graduate school. But they shouldn't put a thumb on the scale to get more Asians in for example. There isn't any reason to do that once you're at that level of education.

That doesn't make sense at all. The jobs that are outsourced American people do better at. We see this crap all the time, with customer service in India when you don't understand a word that they are saying.

It's a money thing and corporations who outsource deserve to file for bankruptcy.

They don't take it more seriously. They are paid pennies in American dollars, that's why. They don't want to pay Americans and want to save a few thousand by hiring Indians.

Not everyone in America is capable of performing a "higher value job", per se. Saying that foreigners are more serious is far from a fact…Where's the data on that? Unless you (or a researcher…) personally interviewed every worker and his replacement asking them about how seriously they take their job, I don't believe a word.

Exactly…Because some foreigners may be better than some Americans at certain things, it's unfair to generalize and state that. Are they more productive? Um no. My lawn looks like crap, for example.

So far as the former point, this is true. It is all the more reason to focus significantly on education on lower primary levels so that more Americans are qualified to attend and complete higher education. People do not get careers anymore, they simply acquire productive skills which can rise or fall over time in their value to the general economy. Education generally provides the best backing to attain these skills quickly and resume productive work in the event your profession falls out of favor or even ceases to exist. This is understood by the economies we are competing against quite well. The companies themselves in China or India invest constantly in their employees education and training as a result. And social and government policies on primary and universal education border on a national mania, certainly in comparison to our approaches.

So far as the second, it is a fact in certain industries. Americans are not automatically endowed with a natural and superior diligence at a profession. Part of the reason we might see a productivity gain is the quality of workers hired in some foreign country to do what might be seen here as a menial task is naturally higher. Being a customer service worker answering phones in India is a decent job by their standards, so the types of people getting such jobs have better educations than their American counterparts might have. This is true in Europe just as it is in Asia. Their labour markets force out inefficient labor inputs by workers, such that they then must receive either government welfare (Europe's solution) or training and education (Asia's). Ours does neither. As a result it is unproductive to defend jobs being "lost" to outsourcing.

I was just commenting that maybe there isn't necessarily something to fix. Yes, there are plenty of lackadaisical students, but there also exists a multitude of high caliber American candidates. And unfortunately, there are many institutions that do look to "favor others" at levels of higher education.

You are right in that second sense. GM and Chrysler did just file for bankruptcy and they outsource like crazy.

Then you could consider finding someone else to do the landscaping. It's called a free market for a reason. The free part also includes the division and specialisation of labor. Nobody should be seen as endowed with an entitlement to a job because of their national origin. That includes illegal immigrants and outsourced labor.

Alright Sun Tzu, let's map this out and we will cover both debates right here. Let's say you were born and raised in Arizona to a lower middle class family. You go through school and in your senior year of high school, you get rejected by every college you apply to because some temporary resident wanted to get an American education. Now, not being able to go to college, you decide to take a job that requires a minimum amount of skills, for example, customer service. Things are going great for you Sun Tzu and you found the woman/man of your dreams (depending on your gender). Then, one day, Mr. Boss tells you that they are outsourcing and now your job is stripped away by someone who can hardly speak English.

Now, not having an education and a job that has been outsourced, you wander the streets, wondering what you did to deserve this. This happens to thousands of Americans each year, and because of your thoughts, this will continue until a white knight comes across your path and tells you that he would save you, but illegal immigrants are already cutting lawns.

How does that sound to you?

That brought tears to my eyes. Beautiful.

t suggests the problem is exactly as i stated it. Fix the education system such that more Americans are better educated and have competitive skills for productive jobs.

I also don't think this part of the story makes any sense. There is no way you would be rejected by every college you apply to unless you are not a qualified applicant to begin with (or you are only applying to Ivy League schools for some reason) because we have a glut of undergraduate programs available and publicly subsidized by taxpayers. In other words, your story would be fine if it actually happens that way. That's not how it actually works though.

How do you know that this story doesn't actually work? This happens every single day. The problem is increasing in frequency. Permanent American citizens should be competing against each other, not against temporary citizens. I have no problem with two permanent American citizens battling it out, grade wise and everything, but when Muhammad comes from India to rob an American-born citizen out of his education, then there is a problem Sun Tzu.

Back your country Sun Tzu.

I got rejected from every school I applied to, and I was definitely not at the bottom of my class. That is how things can go, Sun Tzu. I haven't found the woman of my dreams, though.

My job was also outsourced. I used to sell clap-ons. Now I work as a bounty hunter, and the days are so long and hard. I can't use my clap-on without thinking of those damn foreigners who took my damn job.

I had no trouble getting anywhere I applied. And I was in the middle of my class (so far as GPA, not so far as test scores). I don't find this to be a common problem for people who are actually qualified to get into colleges that they cannot get in anywhere they apply. Maybe people are just too selective about their school choices and only picking highly selective schools.

More over, we've been doing the same thing that is being complained here about for decades by sending out students to England or parts of Europe for their education. And because of the high standard ability of American higher education, other countries are copying our techniques and trying to provide better schools themselves. An American citizen could just easily apply to a good college in Canada, China, or India now and get a fully useful college diploma and some intimation that they should be able to do a job productively as a result.

Why?

Because that's what being an American is all about, and if everyone had your attitude towards the country and towards issues like these, then there would be more Americans out on the street, more cries, instead of laughs.

Well, looks like your dream might come true one day Sun Tzu. All the American children will be robbed of their education, and then all those foreigners you back, will be more intelligent and more powerful because of it.

Schools want to cover their a$$ and pick foreigners, making it unfair for the American citizens. If the children of America don't reach for the best, then they aren't the best.

I will back individuals instead. Thanks. I prefer not discriminating based on a country of origin, skin colour, religious preferences, gender and will support governments that protect and promote such toleration. I will not support a government that protects its people (other than for national defense) simply because had the curious accident of being born there. It ends up being counterproductive for economics and for most individuals in terms of the policies such a system promotes. If a few people cannot get jobs or have no employable skills for the job market, that's what the social safety nets and the education systems are for. You don't go around trying to game the entire job market to protect a few northern Ohio factory workers, people answering phones, or people making simple doodads anywhere in the country.

Well I am glad there aren't people in office who have opinions like you have.

Simply because I am not pro-protectionist does not make me pro-foreigner. I've said on here "fix the primary education system". That's really the only thing holding Americans back here. We already clearly have good colleges if other nations have their students coming here instead of their own colleges.

I am annoyed there are so many people who have nationalist opinions like yours.

I'm glad we understand each other.

Well it's opinions like mine that actually make America the best country in the world.

Nice positive affirmative bias.

For future reference, I would advise you never to talk to an economist or take an economics course, particularly anything dealing with international trade policies. It appears it will upset you rather than inform you of anything you are in fact in error about.

Yea, well I go to one of the best business schools in the world and I assure you that my opinions match theirs.

Business school is not about studying economics. It is about studying business.

I can assure you that economists are more or less on the opposite end of the spectrum on this one and have been for at least 70-80 years (Irving Fisher and his ilk were a vigorous and public detractor of the Smoot-Hawley tariff).

I disagree, but I respect your opinion and I'm glad we have pushed ourselves to the limit to debate this issue this far.

The part about economists isn't an opinion. When Milton Friedman and Paul Krugman both agreed on anything, that's got to be a mainstream economics position. For the free movement of goods, labor, and capital. Including the provision of educational services and the outsourcing of jobs. That position isn't up for debate. It just is the factual interpretation of economic theory and almost every economic model over the last 70 years (more if you go back to Adam Smith).

So like I said, I'd advise you to avoid looking too closely at international trade policies in the future. It obviously offends your nationalist sentiments.

Assuming there are colleges that accept some other countries' candidates for colleges and graduate school in preference to equally qualified Americans, then I would agree that is wrong. I think my position would be best stated that they should accept the best qualified students, regardless of their national origin (excepting some severe and rare national security considerations). My contention would be simply that we have not generally produced as many or as good of candidates, particularly in math, science or engineering as other countries have been. If we are in fact rejecting the best qualified American students in deference to equally or lesser qualified Chinese kids, for example, that's a problem.

I expect somebody would have some data by now to support that theory however. There is data to support the problems in our primary education for math and science in particular. And there's absolutely no reason someone like me who isn't a mathematical wizard by any stretch should have been considered in the top percentile of math scores (of people who actually take those tests to begin with, much less the many who never get even that far). I should probably consider that most of that 99% an embarrassment to their nation under the logic of "supporting my country."

The only data I've seen to suggest they are "favoring" immigrants or foreigners is because they can afford the price tag without assistance. This however still leaves financial aid programs and scholarships open to American students, who then still use almost all of that and can still get into good schools (when they are qualified to do so). If there is some rigorous academic study to suggest that foreigners are getting in at the explicit expense of qualified American students, thus displacing them from the college pool without cause, I haven't seen one.

Only in the publicly funded school system. Private schools are a private business and should be able to admit whoever they want to.

That is my not-so-humble opinion.

Yea, I think they should. If you aren't going to stay in America and contribute to it's development, then you don't deserve to be in the country at all.

"We must Americanize in every way, in speech, in political ideas and principles, and in their way of looking at relations between church and state. We welcome the German and the Irishman who becomes an American. We have no use for the German or Irishman who remains such… He must revere only our flag, not only must it come first, but no other flag should even come second." – Theodore Roosevelt

That says nothing about only providing an education to Americans.

Besides, who has any use for these old dusty quotations?

I was reading his Wikipedia page and I came across that quote. Teddy would've supported my view on how temporary citizens should be put second. He says it right here in the quote.

My point was to be that a historical quote that supports your arguments is good. But one that explicitly rejects it must be false or somehow irrelevant. I'm curious to understand how you arrived at this psychology.

And I don't see in that statement that he suggests that people who are temporary citizens should be put second. Citizenship is only the recognition of the state of someone's "American-ness". An individual who comes here to study within our culture will leave with some level of American acculturation. In some cases a great deal, even if they return to India or China or wherever to conduct their business.

It clearly states that we should respect the German and the Italian who becomes an American, which pretty much supports my statement that we should support those that become permanent American citizens, not one that just goes back home after robbing us of our resources back to Germany and/or Italy.

You don't become an American just by living here and staying here to conduct business. American is more about a mindset and a dedication to American ideals. This is no less true now than it was 100 years ago when Teddy said it.

Being an American is not coming here, getting an education because your family tells you to, then going back to your country. Being an American is coming here, and settling.

So what of American businessmen and resource gatherers deployed around the globe in legions? Are they no longer "American"? Or concurrently, what of some Japanese businessmen who come here and stay in order to manage their company assets here and who profit by our system?

That logic offers no explanation for either.

American businessmen are okay.

Japanese businessmen are not.

That violates your previous logic defining what "being an American" is.

Good luck with that.

If you call America home, then you are an American.

There are lots of ways to call America home. One of them is to admit immigrants more liberally than we presently do.

There's another reason a lot of Indian and Chinese kids come here, get an education, and then go back home. It's because we don't let them stay. It often takes decades to get legal status to live here (without worrying that you could lose your job, the patronage system, at any moment and get sent home). This is even considering that these are high value and high demand industries like engineering or medicine that they come here to study.

By contrast it takes very little time and effort to come here to study. Certainly relative to the benefits of doing so. Making living working, and ultimately staying in America more appealing means there will be more Americans by your definition.

I understand and I'm not talking about the ones who can't stay. I go to college in Manhattan, and I go to the most diversified college in the world. It's been the most diversified for many years now. They all come here, but when I talk to them, they say that America isn't their home and that they have to go back to work for their country.

I still haven't seen any evidence from that this that they are denying opportunities to American students as a result. But by and large the reason they "have to" go back to work for their country is that their country has better companies and opportunities in it without the legal hassles involved in keeping someone here to work. In many cases, they are even the same, American-based, companies that they could work for here instead.

As an Lebanese American I have to say I dissagree with your stance. First off I dont believe I should be kept from school just because Im arab american even if i want to study nuclear physics or any other "suspicious" event, it seems now a days racism is only tolerable towards arabs. Second off I live in california and many of our educational institutions are suffering do to a need to increase the classes for an ethnic race that doesnt wish to take up american nationalism and lower the teaching standards for many people. so why should students any where not just natural born citezens suffer because people born out of the country are getting priorities?

beautifully spoken, and it reminds me of something I read that most European countries will not even let an immigrant fly their home flag in their new country, a sense of nationalism we dont hold so strongly here in the states.

I said an Iranian kid, not an Arabian one. I could have expected a Lebanese-American to notice, perhaps even insist on, the difference. And it would have to be a clear national security issue. My example for that, I would agree, is probably insufficient since merely studying nuclear particle physics isn't really a way to come up with a blueprint for an atomic weapon, much less a means to assemble one. It is however an example of a justification someone will try to use as an exception to rules that otherwise state and require fairness, particularly true given the nationalistic/ethnic/religious conflict of rhetoric between Iran and America over the past 30 years. As I said, I am not sure I would agree that this example is acceptable either. But it will undoubtedly exist.

If your argument was "students anywhere" should not suffer, then fine. That's what I said above: colleges should take the best students available, without preference to borders or ethnicity. We're not in disagreement over that I suspect. If you were making some other argument, then I'm not sure what you're wanting to argue over.

My bad I must have jumped to a conclusion, as there are arabs in Iran and with the situations for arabs right now your comment seemed more of a racial bias, as for my argument, Im saying any student deserves an education, but based on their merits, not their race, age, sex, or where theyre from. Many colleges have minority acceptance quotas, and its seems implorable that someone is admitted to a college based on his background, I dont mind so much people coming here, studying, then leaving home (although it hurts our economy) but I do despise minorities making a niche in our laws to benefit themselves when it is undeserved. Simply put Im not a fan of people whining to get what they want, including a majority of immigrants.

I agree with you Sandman. You're cool though because you are a permanent citizen. I have a problem with those who just come here just to rob us of our education system then leave all the American students like us with nothing.

ya i know what you mean, im not so much against them coming here and learning, im just worried about so many coming here, making money here in the states, and sending it home. if one guy sends home a thousand dollars a year to his family in europe, then thousand or hundreds of thousands of people start doing that, then our nation loses that money. And as it is, the money our nation has in its own hands is already being spent out of home, ignoring so many problems here that this money could help with.

But given the general xenophobia demonstrated here or elsewhere, I'm not sure this is a legitimate problem, ie, that qualified American kids cannot get into colleges because say, Indian or Chinese kids are instead getting in. I think the underlying problem is that they're more qualified on average (particularly in the subjects involved: sciences and mathematics) and not that they're getting in because of preferential treatment. American kids and college graduates who are actually good at math and science will still get in.

The Arabic population ethnically within Iran is around 3%. It's about 6 times higher than the Arabic ratio in the US, but I'd hardly have thought to describe Iran as an Arabic country as a result. As for the racial animus, stating the existence of racial or ethnic biases doesn't strike me as particularly racist. But I admit my original statement was not phrased particularly clearly as to the source of that "justification". I think it ultimately might be more fair to say that just about anybody wishing to study nuclear physics and atomic energy (in particular techniques involving weaponized material) is a possible national security matter.

That's exactly what happens. They are very nice people, all these immigrants, but I don't like what they're up to.

oh no i agree whole heartedly that so many other nations these days are offering better students, and said students are coming to our schools, what I dont like about all of this is that these students create a spot for themselves in our economy, and instead of keeping the money they make in our circulation they send it home, effectively taking so so amounts out of our already hurting economy. when you have thousands of students coming here, getting educations and jobs, then leaving home with what they made here, it hurts us.

haha ya neither do I but I dont necessarily think they know theyre doing anything wrong. Its the same as a small child that tosses a toy in a store on the ground. to them all they are doing is not putting it back correctly, but to the store that toy could get damaged on t he ground, and if it does they dont make profit on that toy they payed for, leading the store to crank up prices to compensate for the loss. The child doesnt know how his actions affect the economy any more than immigrants do. I believe there should be mandatory college courses in economy haha

Yeah that argument is common to make, but I don't follow the protectionist logic. It just doesn't work out in economics to make any sense to attempt to protect your citizens from competitive choices in the marketplace. The long run goal should be to have American companies and citizens who are competitive in a massive global marketplace. Not to protect and shelter an American marketplace that is shrinking in global importance.

Start by fixing the primary education system and use it to invest in human capital and then I wouldn't worry about who uses the tertiary education systems and how.

haha you create a full proof way to fix american education, student productivity, teacher vigilance, and parental responsibilty ( all factors leading to the american educational decline) and ill be the first behind you

Get rid of the distinction between public and private school funding, turn it over to the market by allowing parents and students to choose their schools and allowing school institutions to come up with their own methods of incentive pay in conjunction with teacher peer evaluations (to keep the unions from going berserk when you get rid of the tenure pay structure), use subsidies to adjust for poverty or poorer school districts, and lengthen the school year.

This is not that complicated. Pretty much everybody in Europe has a much more market based primary school system than we do. They copied it off our college education system, which still is pretty good.

I think permanent citizens should be given priority over temporary residents in educational matters.

If the foreign student wants to foot their college bill themselves, by all means, finish your education, learn how great our country really is and then go to your country and tell them.

However, if you are coming to our country strictly for education and plan on leaving our country after we have educated you, I do not approve of you receiving ANY educational assistance. No grants. No scholarships. No tuition fee waivers. Nothing. If you don't plan on staying, pay for it yourself.