3 ms·

At the university I studied at it was well known that their policy was opening up campuses in Africa and China so to entice international students to the campus

by c12 8y ago

At the university I studied at it was well known that their policy was opening up campuses in Africa and China so to entice international students to the campus in England. This was for the sole reason of increasing cash flow and I know several of the Chinese students that I did my Masters with were paying more than ten times what I was for the same course which both myself and our lecturers were ashamed of. It may not be all Universities but even ten years ago it felt that they had become less about excellence in teaching and more about printing money.

smt88 8y ago
This is rampant in the US as well. Many of the students cheated to get in, sometimes with the umiversity's knowledge, and weren't fluent enough in English to participate in class. There are lots of companies writing essays and otherwise facilitating the admissions cheating, and several major universities were caught a few years ago (I believe Duke was one).
- mistermann 8y ago
  I've read many anecdotal stories like this of students complaining that the quality of their education is suffering due to a large portion of the class being utterly not qualified to be there, dragging everyone else down. I think it also has interesting potential long term implications for relative national competitiveness if you think about it regardless of whether that is a goal or not.
  - smt88 8y ago
    > complaining that the quality of their education is suffering due to a large portion of the class being utterly not qualified to be there, dragging everyone else down I'm not sure why those students are complaining... The wealthy foreign students aren't participating in class much, which effectively makes the class size smaller. They're also subsidizing the degrees of all the Americans. And a lot of them end up going back home after graduating, so they're not even competing in the same labor pool.
    - mistermann 8y ago
      The quality of instruction suffers when half the class can barely speak English, and don't contribute to group projects. Getting a degree for half the cost but with half the learning doesn't seem like a good deal to me.

by c12 8y ago

smt88 8y ago

This is rampant in the US as well. Many of the students cheated to get in, sometimes with the umiversity's knowledge, and weren't fluent enough in English to participate in class. There are lots of companies writing essays and otherwise facilitating the admissions cheating, and several major universities were caught a few years ago (I believe Duke was one).

mistermann 8y ago
I've read many anecdotal stories like this of students complaining that the quality of their education is suffering due to a large portion of the class being utterly not qualified to be there, dragging everyone else down. I think it also has interesting potential long term implications for relative national competitiveness if you think about it regardless of whether that is a goal or not.
- smt88 8y ago
  > complaining that the quality of their education is suffering due to a large portion of the class being utterly not qualified to be there, dragging everyone else down I'm not sure why those students are complaining... The wealthy foreign students aren't participating in class much, which effectively makes the class size smaller. They're also subsidizing the degrees of all the Americans. And a lot of them end up going back home after graduating, so they're not even competing in the same labor pool.
  - mistermann 8y ago
    The quality of instruction suffers when half the class can barely speak English, and don't contribute to group projects. Getting a degree for half the cost but with half the learning doesn't seem like a good deal to me.