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>go back home for a job Haha. Not really. American salaries, standards of living are among the highest/best in the planet. Plus an abundance of economic opport

>go back home for a job Haha. Not really. American salaries, standards of living are among the highest/best in the planet. Plus an abundance of economic opportunities and relatively low discrimination compared to what one may face in other developed countries. These are the only factors which decide whether a family sends their kid to the US for higher ed or not. The degrees themselves aren't worth much at all. Unless on course you are talking about the very elite, who have well established businesses and properties in their home countries, who then want Ivy League degrees for their kids. They won't give a fk about the average mid western universities that the article is actually talking about.

mc32 9y ago
If the degrees didn't matter, then they would not send their kids here in the first place. Most of the folks I ran into liked America but loved their countries of origin and looked forward to getting a job and doing well. I was not talking elite students (which is different from students at elite unis who can be a mixed bag)
- fellellor 9y ago
  Obviously you don't stop loving your home country just because you chose to immigrate. Unless your home country is some hellish warzone which China isn't. That still doesn't mean you wouldn't rather settle in the US when you went through all the trouble to get educated there, in most cases. There is absolutely no shortage of excellent universities in China.
- closeparen 9y ago
  The degrees open doors to high-skilled visa programs. Same reason many of my international coworkers have Masters degrees in CS - it massively increases the success rate at getting official permission to work in the US, even if employers themselves are indifferent to them.
janekm 9y ago
You underestimate the value of an “overseas” degree in “developing” countries like China. A student who comes back to China with a US/UK degree will get preferential access to first-tier city resident permits, direct financial “housing” benefits from the city, a good job and faster career advancement and more besides. Some of those benefits are starting to get scaled back but it’s still a big advantage.
- fellellor 9y ago
  Sounds like in the current environment those are no longer advantages, considering China is home to some very good universities herself. Also these degrees don't offer any substantial advantage in any of the other countries you mentioned.
  - mc32 9y ago
    Those good universities have caps and very tough entry exams. People who go to Midwestern schools are not typically your elite students --but rather students whose parents thought it would be a good investment in career to send their kids to study a couple years in the US.
    - fellellor 9y ago
      Ok, you seem to be missing this factor in all of your arguments. The currencies of all the countries you mentioned trade very unfavorably (maybe not the right word) with respect to the USD. So even if the cost of a higher ed degree seems like a lot to US locals, that cost is a few orders of magnitude higher from the perspective of a family considering this investment for their ward. The only way this degree is worth the money, even after the substantial scholarship/assistance that US schools used to offer, is if you got a job that pays you is US Dollars. If at the end you don't get such a job, then the degree isn't worth the paper it's printed on. A masters degree used to cost about 20-30 thousand dollars in total if you got the aforementioned scholarships/assistance. Then once you landed a tech job you'd have made up your original investment within a year if you lived frugally, which most international students tend to anyway. After that you could save up your money, which would be a substantial amount once exchanged for the local currency and return. This is unlikely. Because most would choose to stay and climb higher on their career ladder and provide a more luxurious standard of living for their families. This is the whole point of going through the university system, not the degree.
quickben 9y ago
My old country gave to whoever returns home with a foreign degree up to 95% salary match from what they would have made if they stayed. You can rack $100k USD, in a country where average yearly salary is $2k and living expenses are nil. When you talk about 'standard of living', imagine what standard of living you'd have in USA at 50x average salary. If I'm not mistaken that would be around 1-2 million a year. Add to that free unlimited healthcare, free prescriptions glasses. No land ownership fees, no condo fees, some money to buy your way anywhere, etc.
- fellellor 9y ago
  Your country sounds highly unusual. Are these government jobs? Talking about naivety, this certainly doesn't seem like it's true generally. Also note that I said US offers a lot of economic opportunities not that other countries didn't. And I was talking from the perspective of a person from a developing country looking to travel to a developed country. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
  - quickben 9y ago
    I've met enough international students to know different countries have different strategies to bring the knowledge home. Some have 2x time retainer for whatever length one studied on their expense. Others have guaranteed government jobs. Mine had any general engineering/it jobs in the private sector. Where are you drawing the conclusion from that this is the exception? I fully get that a STEM graduate has an easy life in USA, we have that anywhere. But you have to look at regular people, with average jobs. What you refer to as "developing country" most of the time offers better free healthcare that the top notch USA option that's simply out of financial reach. Not to derail the discussion but just to illustrate. Canada just brought a law for maternity leave to be up to 18 months, paid.
- anxrn 9y ago
  Certainly not true for India (second largest contributor of international students, behind China [1]). By my (extremely unscientific) estimate, less than 5% of Indian students arriving in the US for higher education go back to work in India. [1] https://www.iie.org/Why-IIE/Announcements/2017-11-13-Open-Doors-2017-Executive-Summary https://www.iie.org/Why-IIE/Announcements/2017-11-13-Open-Do...
netsharc 9y ago
> Haha. Not really. American salaries, standards of living are among the highest/best in the planet. Plus an abundance of economic opportunities and relatively low discrimination compared to what one may face in other developed countries. "Let me fix all of these points for you!" - Donald Trump
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

mc32 9y ago

If the degrees didn't matter, then they would not send their kids here in the first place. Most of the folks I ran into liked America but loved their countries of origin and looked forward to getting a job and doing well. I was not talking elite students (which is different from students at elite unis who can be a mixed bag)

fellellor 9y ago
Obviously you don't stop loving your home country just because you chose to immigrate. Unless your home country is some hellish warzone which China isn't. That still doesn't mean you wouldn't rather settle in the US when you went through all the trouble to get educated there, in most cases. There is absolutely no shortage of excellent universities in China.
closeparen 9y ago
The degrees open doors to high-skilled visa programs. Same reason many of my international coworkers have Masters degrees in CS - it massively increases the success rate at getting official permission to work in the US, even if employers themselves are indifferent to them.

janekm 9y ago

You underestimate the value of an “overseas” degree in “developing” countries like China. A student who comes back to China with a US/UK degree will get preferential access to first-tier city resident permits, direct financial “housing” benefits from the city, a good job and faster career advancement and more besides. Some of those benefits are starting to get scaled back but it’s still a big advantage.

fellellor 9y ago
Sounds like in the current environment those are no longer advantages, considering China is home to some very good universities herself. Also these degrees don't offer any substantial advantage in any of the other countries you mentioned.
- mc32 9y ago
  Those good universities have caps and very tough entry exams. People who go to Midwestern schools are not typically your elite students --but rather students whose parents thought it would be a good investment in career to send their kids to study a couple years in the US.
  - fellellor 9y ago
    Ok, you seem to be missing this factor in all of your arguments. The currencies of all the countries you mentioned trade very unfavorably (maybe not the right word) with respect to the USD. So even if the cost of a higher ed degree seems like a lot to US locals, that cost is a few orders of magnitude higher from the perspective of a family considering this investment for their ward. The only way this degree is worth the money, even after the substantial scholarship/assistance that US schools used to offer, is if you got a job that pays you is US Dollars. If at the end you don't get such a job, then the degree isn't worth the paper it's printed on. A masters degree used to cost about 20-30 thousand dollars in total if you got the aforementioned scholarships/assistance. Then once you landed a tech job you'd have made up your original investment within a year if you lived frugally, which most international students tend to anyway. After that you could save up your money, which would be a substantial amount once exchanged for the local currency and return. This is unlikely. Because most would choose to stay and climb higher on their career ladder and provide a more luxurious standard of living for their families. This is the whole point of going through the university system, not the degree.

quickben 9y ago

My old country gave to whoever returns home with a foreign degree up to 95% salary match from what they would have made if they stayed. You can rack $100k USD, in a country where average yearly salary is $2k and living expenses are nil. When you talk about 'standard of living', imagine what standard of living you'd have in USA at 50x average salary. If I'm not mistaken that would be around 1-2 million a year. Add to that free unlimited healthcare, free prescriptions glasses. No land ownership fees, no condo fees, some money to buy your way anywhere, etc.

fellellor 9y ago
Your country sounds highly unusual. Are these government jobs? Talking about naivety, this certainly doesn't seem like it's true generally. Also note that I said US offers a lot of economic opportunities not that other countries didn't. And I was talking from the perspective of a person from a developing country looking to travel to a developed country. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
- quickben 9y ago
  I've met enough international students to know different countries have different strategies to bring the knowledge home. Some have 2x time retainer for whatever length one studied on their expense. Others have guaranteed government jobs. Mine had any general engineering/it jobs in the private sector. Where are you drawing the conclusion from that this is the exception? I fully get that a STEM graduate has an easy life in USA, we have that anywhere. But you have to look at regular people, with average jobs. What you refer to as "developing country" most of the time offers better free healthcare that the top notch USA option that's simply out of financial reach. Not to derail the discussion but just to illustrate. Canada just brought a law for maternity leave to be up to 18 months, paid.
anxrn 9y ago
Certainly not true for India (second largest contributor of international students, behind China [1]). By my (extremely unscientific) estimate, less than 5% of Indian students arriving in the US for higher education go back to work in India. [1] https://www.iie.org/Why-IIE/Announcements/2017-11-13-Open-Doors-2017-Executive-Summary https://www.iie.org/Why-IIE/Announcements/2017-11-13-Open-Do...

netsharc 9y ago

> Haha. Not really. American salaries, standards of living are among the highest/best in the planet. Plus an abundance of economic opportunities and relatively low discrimination compared to what one may face in other developed countries. "Let me fix all of these points for you!" - Donald Trump

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]