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Don’t Limit Foreign-Student Enrollment
James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | November 7, 2025 | Ed Gehringer

Posted on 11/07/2025 5:14:57 AM PST by karpov

For too long, merit has taken a back seat in American higher education. Under the banner of DEI, admissions policies at many institutions have prioritized demographic balancing over academic excellence. But the pendulum is swinging back. A growing number of selective universities—including Princeton, Dartmouth, and Yale—have recently announced they will once again require standardized test scores for admission. These decisions reflect a broader reappraisal of merit-based criteria, driven not just by partisan pressure but by internal reviews of academic outcomes and fairness. The message is clear: Excellence matters, and the most promising students deserve a fair shot.

Increasingly, qualified students from around the world are seeking an American education. In my department at NC State, 86 percent of Ph.D. applicants in computer science for 2025 came from outside of the United States. That figure alone speaks volumes. These were not casual submissions—they were competitive applications to a selective program. The sheer volume of international interest reflects a global recognition of American graduate education as a proving ground for serious talent. When so many of the strongest candidates are arriving from abroad, it becomes increasingly fraught to impose arbitrary limits on how many can be admitted, as a recent Martin Center article recommends.

Our department is not unusual. Across the country, graduate programs in technical fields show similar patterns. According to the National Foundation for American Policy, international students make up the majority of full-time graduate enrollment in petroleum engineering (82 percent), electrical engineering (74 percent), computer and information sciences (72 percent), industrial engineering (71 percent), and statistics (70 percent). And those figures have been rising. Between 2017 and 2022, international graduate enrollment in science and engineering grew by 49.3 percent, while domestic enrollment grew by just 21.7 percent.

(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...


TOPICS: Education; Science
KEYWORDS: concerntroll; concerntrolling; f1; graduateschool; h1b; ibtz; nevertrumpingtroll; opt; rop; stem; tds; waronterror; zot
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1 posted on 11/07/2025 5:14:57 AM PST by karpov
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To: karpov

Historically, American students didn’t pursue PhDs in STEM because there were plenty of opportunities in industry with undergraduate and masters degrees.

That has been somewhat upended with the misuse of the H1-B program, but I would guess still applies.


2 posted on 11/07/2025 5:20:13 AM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: karpov

“We need the money”


3 posted on 11/07/2025 5:41:30 AM PST by alancarp (George Orwell was an optimist.)
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To: FreedomPoster

Why should we allow American Universities to become centers of destruction for American businesses and American dominance in the world?

What is in it for us?

Why should we allow foreign countries to essentially purchase American Universities?


If the American Universities were teaching the foreign students the value of Western civilization and Christianity along with the engineering and other Stem... Maybe.

That is not what is happening.

We should not be strengthening the other countries in the world who want to destroy us.


4 posted on 11/07/2025 5:45:30 AM PST by marktwain
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To: karpov

Someone tell Eddy that he doesn’t live in a vacuum and his little Ivory Tower in the Carolina woods exists because all them gap toothed hillbillies pay taxes to keep the towerplex operating.

If he wants to open his own damn school in Mumbai he’s free to split. Maybe we should facilitate that since he don’t seem to like us.

The university he teaches at is a Land Grant university under the Morril Act, and as such, is obligated to educate Americans. If they ain’t doin’ that, revoke the grant and take the dirt back: can be used for a goat pasture.

Eddy’s a real looker, too:

https://csc.ncsu.edu/people/efg/

Kinda reminds me of Gollum.

And as for excellence, anyone see any Eddy’s name on a well known software product? Maybe ask Jim Goodnight.


5 posted on 11/07/2025 6:04:25 AM PST by Regulator (It's fraud, Jim)
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To: karpov

“Don’t Limit Foreign-Student Enrollment

“According to the National Foundation for American Policy, international students make up the majority of full-time graduate enrollment in petroleum engineering (82 percent), electrical engineering (74 percent), computer and information sciences (72 percent), industrial engineering (71 percent), and statistics (70 percent).”

That’s quite an impressive case for limitation.


6 posted on 11/07/2025 6:06:38 AM PST by Brian Griffin (Trump needs to allow needy military people to get leave/discharges and paid civilian work)
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To: FreedomPoster

The whole PhD program has been corrupted.
Professors use PhD candidates as cheap labor, it takes just forever to get PhD degree.
And for what?
According to some analysis I have seen long time ago, the lifetime earning as a function of degree maximize at Master degree.
Average PhD lifetime earning is below average Master degree holders.
So Americans, unless some kind of research maniacs, do not in general pursue PhD degrees.
Only some person from poor country will get through this punishment, mostly so he can get the green card!

And, since there is willing supply of cheap foreigners, the Universities gladly increase the requirements and the length of the PhD studies, clearly because it is to the University benefits to do so. (Endless supply of cheap labor)
Catch 22.


7 posted on 11/07/2025 6:07:31 AM PST by AZJeep (sane )
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To: karpov

” international students make up the majority of full-time graduate enrollment in petroleum engineering (82 percent), electrical engineering (74 percent), computer and information sciences (72 percent), industrial engineering (71 percent), and statistics (70 percent). And those figures have been rising.”

Those numbers should be less than 10% of those numbers. American youth and their parents are being screwed.


8 posted on 11/07/2025 6:08:05 AM PST by TheDon (Remember the J6 political prisoners! Remember Ashli Babbitt!)
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To: karpov

Everything this idiot thinks of says we need to do the OPPOSITE.


9 posted on 11/07/2025 6:12:21 AM PST by central_va ( I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...x)
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To: karpov

End h1b and student visas! Save the USA!


10 posted on 11/07/2025 6:13:03 AM PST by central_va ( I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...x)
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To: Brian Griffin

Americans are the most abused “free people” in the world. Everything is done to cut out the American middle class from all levers of power.


11 posted on 11/07/2025 6:15:51 AM PST by central_va ( I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...x)
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To: karpov
Largely baloney: this is not merit, it's money- foreign students pay full freight.

It's also grift: higher ed gets huge direct and indirect subsidies from the US taxpayer to educate Americans. Instead, the administrators give themselves enormously bloated salaries and benefits and replace Americans with foreigners so they can steal even more money.

The whole "foreign admissions" scam is just another part of the way the whole American managerial class is out of control.

12 posted on 11/07/2025 6:15:57 AM PST by pierrem15 ("Massacrez-les, car le seigneur connait les siens" )
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To: karpov

Perhaps the applications of American citizens should be processed first.

I want schools to be able to run programs, but not aliens to run the entire world.


13 posted on 11/07/2025 6:22:35 AM PST by Brian Griffin (Trump needs to allow needy military people to get leave/discharges and paid civilian work)
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To: karpov

I’ve seen them come here sane but get educated into Marxism, LGBT, or other features of modern America’s rotten culture.


14 posted on 11/07/2025 6:30:30 AM PST by Socon-Econ (adi)
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To: karpov

There is no need for foreigners in US universities whatsoever. None.


15 posted on 11/07/2025 6:30:56 AM PST by CodeToad
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To: Regulator

He can’t help how he looks. He’s retarded.


16 posted on 11/07/2025 6:33:45 AM PST by HYPOCRACY (Wake up, smell the cat food in your bank account. )
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To: GOPJ; poconopundit; Jane Long; Diana in Wisconsin; Grampa Dave; Godzilla; Vaduz; null and void; ...

marktwain posted: “ We should not be strengthening other countries
who want to destroy us via our heavily financed higher ed apparat.”

<><>Why should we allow foreign countries to essentially purchase American Universities?
<><>Why should we allow American Universities to become centers of destruction?
<><> higher ed’s avowed goal seems to be belittling American businesses
<><>and downgrading American dominance in the world

What’s in it for us?

If the American Universities were teaching these foreign students the value of Western civilization and Christianity along with the engineering and other Stem... Maybe. But that is not what is happening.


17 posted on 11/07/2025 6:48:28 AM PST by Liz (To make a conservative mad, lie to him. To make a leftist mad, tell him the truth.)
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To: Liz

There are plenty of left wing universities in the world to attend. They don’t need us and we definitely don’t need them................


18 posted on 11/07/2025 6:50:48 AM PST by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: Liz

As I’ve said on other threads on this topic, foreign students end up getting the majority of GRA/GTA positions. At least from my experience working at a university. That means they’re getting free tuition, or rather, tuition at taxpayer expense. This is just nonsense & should not be tolerated. If they want to come, let them pay for their tuition, housing & food while here. No jobs. They have to bring their money with them.

Why are we so stupid?


19 posted on 11/07/2025 6:56:49 AM PST by Twotone ( What's the difference between a politician & a flying pig? The letter "F.")
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To: Regulator
Someone tell Eddy that he doesn’t live in a vacuum and his little Ivory Tower in the Carolina woods exists because all them gap toothed hillbillies pay taxes to keep the towerplex operating.

Now that's cutting to the chase!

There is some value to Americans working with foreigners in college, as one often finds one-self working abroad as part of a career. There is some benefit to foreigners learning about the basic decency of America. But American interests don't support the numbers of foreign students the author cites. It should be no more than 10%.

The real weapon that has deprived this country of its native talent is of course our teachers' unions. THAT must be fixed, no matter what, or our high standing in the world is done for, as intended since at least 1933 when the Institute for Social Research (aka the Frankfurt School) was implanted (infected) at Teachers College at Columbia University.

Trump is correct in starting with accreditation, but we haven't seen anything on that front yet.

20 posted on 11/07/2025 7:00:40 AM PST by Carry_Okie (The tree of liberty needs a rope.)
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