Foreign Students and Staff at American Universities

So the reason that there should be fewer limits on foreign students is, first, there are already no limits on the numerical or the amount or the number of students enrolled at US colleges from abroad.

So let's start with that status quo.

That status quo has led to approximately only 3% of the American undergraduate population being a foreign student.

That is not what you are told usually on the news when we're talking about the crisis of foreign students in American colleges.

At the graduate level, it's much more substantial, around 10% of students.

And depending on certain universities, some of them are what we would call degree mills.

Those are like universities catered to foreign students.

And there are certainly costs associated with this, but there are also a lot of benefits that we don't discuss.

Number one, Because most enrollees are at public universities, public universities charge out-of-state tuition to foreign students, bringing in billions to American universities from abroad.

It is one of the largest exports of the United States' international education.

So Americans benefit by the fact that money is flowing in from abroad to pay and employ hundreds of thousands of Americans, over 300,000 that work at these universities.

Number two, it's an issue of selection.

What kind of immigrant does America want? certainly immigrants that speak English, immigrants that are going to earn money and non-dependent welfare, immigrants that are not going to commit crimes.

And turns out that through the American university system, foreign students are the best way to select who gets to stay and who gets to go, because by coming to America and being exposed during their education, they can try to apply for jobs, employers are exposed to them, they pick the ones that want to sponsor to remain, and those who don't leave, which is the majority of them.

But by selecting from the university system, you get the advantage of testing them.

This is a group of the population that commits essentially no crime.

And while there are also risks, right, you will hear about spies, you will hear about stealing of intellectual property and things related to this.

The truth is that it's extremely minimal and present with all immigration categories.

If you think China is not paying American-born citizens, you're not looking at what's really happening.

And of course, everybody who is a conservative should support limits on spies and eliminating that.

We should try to stop anybody who is a CCP agent or CCP member.

That's not what you want to welcome into any Western country.

But it's also true that we don't want limits on anybody who is not a security threat.

As it works now, the system has benefited Americans tremendously.

The truth is, if we reduce the number of foreign students in American colleges, thousands of colleges could end up closing.