Diploma mill tourism is one of those phenomenons I really want to see all the externalities accounted for. My only significant issue is disrupting local housing

Diploma mill tourism is one of those phenomenons I really want to see all the externalities accounted for. My only significant issue is disrupting local housing-prices but student VISAs is one vehicle among many. Otherwise I don't really see the difference of gambling on a Chinese fuerdai vs trust fund legacy vs athletic scholarship. They're just different avenues of to building non-academic institutional prestige - the kind that's... important. Tuition aside, a bunch of rich kids that spends big into the economy is also a perk. They're perennial tourists that also occasionally shell out for an exotic car or three. I've known a few of these types, and they're kind of a mix bag. Some are just here to coast. Some are middling. Some are very intelligent, the kind of assets western educational institutions are designed to brain drain. The latter point gets overlooked, enticing/stealing and retaining talent is a huge western soft power advantage. After separating the wheat from chaff higher up the academic chain, there's a disproportionate of foreign students in PhD and labs [1]. Without going into specific criticism of western secondary school education, the broad point is most countries just don't produce enough talent to fill demand. Also credentialism and educational inflation means many masters programs bend over backwards not to fail anyone. At least among my cohort who spans many types of masters and professional degrees, you get proportionally more unqualified locals getting pushed out of the program with just passing grades as foreign students who bought their way through. There seems to be pervasive pressure to hold graduation metric up because most people recognize, outside of some fields, what you learn is rarely applicable to what you do. And even fields where theres overlap, you have too much unqualified people getting the pass. Regardless, my point is, if we need to acquire talent, hedging against rich international students isn't the worst bet. The odds are overwhelmingly in the house favour. They pay you. Some of them are slackers, but many also received the best education from their home countries but can't make it to the top 1% cut off to enter extremely competitive and prestigious local institutions. Foreign students wanting to pour guaranteed money and potential talent into our society is something to be optimized for. [1] https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/81-599-x/2016011/c-g/c-g02-eng.gif https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/81-599-x/2016011/c-g/c-g...