California, which has about 10% of the U.S. population ranks last in high school education testing. LAST. The state is peppered with hi tech outfits, yet it often goes abroad to hire. Although it has such self-inflated universities as Cal-Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA, the education system can’t produce the technicians the state economy needs. Do you know why? Everyone on this site knows why.
Would be interested in your take on the reason.
I haven’t been a student in CA universities, except to have taken some classes on my own for personal interests.
As a current resident in the state, I would be tempted to attribute what you are describing to illegal immigration, though I am not sure I agree that CA universities are not capable of proving adequate technical training. The UC system is perhaps one of California’s remaining bits of former competence.
My best guess would be that many foreign students simply take their UC educations back to their home countries to compete against America.