The US needs foreign students
And not just because they pay full price
This is tricky, especially when combined with the overall unwelcoming new vibe when it comes to student visas.
U.S. Will ‘Aggressively’ Revoke Visas of Chinese Students, Rubio Says - The New York Times
On one hand, it's right to be very careful about Chinese students and professors because of China's demonstrated history as using them as spies (whether they were inserted initially as spies or whether they were convinced or extorted later).
INVESTIGATION: Uncovering Chinese Academic Espionage at Stanford
University Scientists Arrested in Chinese Research Bribery Scheme | Science | AAAS
On the other hand, there's a reason that so much of the time when I'm looking for a guest to talk about some fascinating new scientific research, the brilliant scientists or engineers responsible for the development are so often Chinese and/or Indian, and among the rest there’s a large percentage of immigrants from other parts of the world. Those countries just do a much better job than we do at educating kids starting young to go into STEM fields. America has become fat and complacent and lazy, and we’ve allowed FAR too much influence of teachers unions and FAR too much bureaucratic bloat in education (in both public primary/secondary education and in colleges) to weaken standards while raising costs.
Administrative Growth in Colorado’s Public School System
We’ve even allowed graduate students who function as teaching assistants to unionize, typically pushing them even further to the left. Have you seen the United Auto Workers signs at Columbia’s anti-Israel, anti-Semitic, and anti-American protests? Those are unionized Columbia grad students, perhaps reinforced by union thugs. There was some good news recently on that front: Columbia expels Student Workers of Columbia-United Auto Workers President, union says
I wonder how many Chinese and Indian and Italian and Korean and Chilean kids are boneheaded enough to get involved with such protests rather than staying focused on becoming the best they can be at whatever they’re trying to become.
It's absolutely critical that we not just allow, but encourage, the smartest kids and young adults from around the world to come to the US, study and learn here, and stay here rather than returning to their home countries to compete against us, especially when that country is an adversary/enemy, like China. It is also absolutely critical that we make far more home-grown geniuses…like we used to.
If we don’t do both, we’ll get more stories like this: China's biotech boom leaves U.S. playing catch-up