They continue to feed us the canard that an insufficient number of Americans are qualified for or interested in STEM jobs as reason to justify bringing in more students. Statistics however contradict their claim. Over 1.2 million students are in the US on student visas (including technical school), and a plurality of those are in STEM fields. We have students in this country who are prepared, who are motivated, who are qualified, but who are not going to advance the equal opportunity diversity garbledygook with which they beat us over the head. My experiences and the statistics show that the claims used to justify increased immigration are not true. We do not necessarily need them.
Rather than consider the potential work done by American students, they just assume that we're not qualified. TO hear them speak, American students aren't interested in STEM careers, but I can tell you from walking the halls of campus that our school has plenty of American citizens in STEM fields. TO hear them speak, Americans aren't qualified to be competitive in STEM careers, but I've taught enough foreign exchange students to know that even if they are smart they are not prepared for success. I don't honestly know why they bring foreigners in as exchane students. What I do notice is that a disporportionate number come from muslim countries. I attended graduate school with one of the princes of Syria. I remember because the administration didn't realize Emir was his title and not his forname when they awarded him his PhD. He was in a STEM field, and he's from a nation now that is a STEM threat because we are sending our technology and training to countries that hate us. Notice we're not importing Europeans. We have European students too, but most of the European students I have earned their citizenship; they aren't just here to take jobs; they came to join our nation. It's not equal opportunity or diversity. It's about bringing in specific immigrants, specifically those who are not white. Historically, however, many of our best imports were white people and Jews- Eisenberg, Oppenheimer, Einstein, but that's not what we do now. Now we import throwbacks.
Given the statistics, I wonder why we need to bring in so many students because we have a TON of foreign exchange students, considering how many other American citizens would like to go to college. Only 20% of Americans even go to college, or have a degree, yet, schools go out recruiting foreign students on purpose. THey don't do this because they care about the students. They do this so they can charge them more. Flush with citizens who are subsidized and frustrated by the new regulations restricting the amounts of money they compensate us, they go out looking for foreigners to whom they can charge confiscatory "out of state" and "foreign exchange" rates in order to pad the budget. Schools aren't about students; universities exist to exalt the faculty. Meanwhile our students rack up huge amounts of debt only to get poorly paying jobs if they can get one at all. Essentially we train these foreign students to compete with our own and then hobble our own students with loans only to deny them jobs in favor of "diversity". Many American students are WASPS, and far too many hiring committees, diversity committees, and human resource departments disproportionately endorse diversity in the process to comply with federal mandates, ignoring the best qualified candidate. I have been told "you are 1.5 persons deficient in Asians, 2 persons deficient in females, and 4 persons deficient in Africans, but hire the best qualified candidate". I am not fooled by their thinly-veiled bias; they don't want a WASP.
Despite the many advantages afforded these foreign exchange students, many of them are not prepared for success in school. Consequently, they sap resources from our students and ultimately get jobs because they are from privileged classes rather than due to superior skills. I taught two very nice students from Ethiopia several years ago whose first language was French. Although I can speak some French, I told them that I didn't know any "science French" and therefore couldn't help them. Far too many of our own students are barely literate in English, and Chemistry is tough enough for them without a language barrier. I taught a student from Ghana a few years back who accused me of giving him an F because of his race. When the administration read his illiterate emails, which looked copied and pasted from Google translate, they agreed he should have never passed General Chemistry I. Even some of my American citizen students aren't prepared for the math. I don't have time to teach them how to do algebra and solve for x; we assume they already now how, but they take offense when I tell them to go to a tutor since I can't slow down the entire class for them.
They say that education is an investment in our future, but nobody seems to be able to cite specific examples. I can cite myself; I stayed in Nevada because it gave me educational and vocational opportunities, but I am the exception. Most of our students are educated at our expense and then go on to benefit other communities because Nevada neither recognizes nor rewards academic achievement. Some of the students we educate never finish. Some of the students in the microbiology course I took over last term dropped out or changed their majors. I know a man who, when his visa expired because he graduated, stayed in America for at least 15 years since he finished college. The ones who do leave, like the Emir of Syria I knew, go back to their countries and enrich them at our expense and perhaps to our detriment. The ones who do seem to be good for us are the ones who come here and then GET SERIOUS ABOUT CITIZENSHIP. We do not need immigration unless it's coupled with assimilation. They will not benefit us unless they are inclined and incentivized to do so because they become part of us and our society.
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