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We have never seen a presidential administration misunderstand soft power so badly. US universities were an incredible blessing to the “brand” of the USA. Fore

by dangus 5mo ago

We have never seen a presidential administration misunderstand soft power so badly. US universities were an incredible blessing to the “brand” of the USA. Foreign students come to the US, pay an inflated full sticker price, subsidizing US students, and learn from top educators who generally have a lens of Western values. Many of these students pursue permanent citizenship and bring with them new ideas, businesses, and grow their families who all become new members of the American economy and social fabric. I personally know people from other countries that I met in school who came to the US and came out of that experience with a much more pro-Western mentality. Just look at the story of the CEO of Nvidia. But now the United States is going to be the opposite. Jensen Huang resolved to move to the United States to escape the social unrest of Taiwan, now we see the best and brightest young Americans with options preferring to move elsewhere to escape the ever-growing regression of this country.

epolanski 5mo ago
Jm2c, but I really don't believe the "top educators" argument. People keep mixing correlation with causation. The reason why ivy league universities have generally stronger students is related to input: acceptance rates are lower and the weaker candidates are pre filtered. Public universities around the world, obviously get a much wider variance in the student pool. But that's about it. There is strong evidence that ivy league students tend to be better on average. There is _no_ evidence that this is related to the quality of education. Hell, this is 2026 and that was true already decades ago. You're not learning calculus or chemistry better at MIT than in an unknown university in Greece or Italy. You simply don't. The overwhelming differentiator is the student, not the teacher. There's endless quality content and lectures online for the most diverse topics you can think of. And, again, students in ivy league colleges are pre filtered for the most competitive ones. And there's also another important factor: good scientists do not make necessarily good teachers. The two skills are unrelated. And the better the scientist, the more their job is running the lab (fundraising) while delegating teaching to graduates and post docs.
- dangus 5mo ago
  This isn’t just limited to ivy leagues, the same thing happens at state schools. Many of my professors were from other countries. I literally wouldn’t have an education without immigrants.
  - michaelcampbell 5mo ago
    > Many of my professors were from other countries. I literally wouldn’t have an education without immigrants. Curious take; do you think if there were a no-immigrant law on the books those professorial positions would have gone completely unfilled? You _GOT_ an education with the help of immigrants, but that does not imply you wouldn't have had they not been there.
    - dangus 5mo ago
      If we are talking about a no-immigrant law, the whole United States would be deeply impacted. The US would have a negative net population growth without immigration. That would mean institutions of all types are going to contract in size and start closing down and consolidating. Your local schools, libraries, police stations, road maintenance departments, etc. Universities can't just replace missing students with American citizens. University enrollment peaked in 2010. Universities are deeply impacted just like other immigrant and migrant worker-concentrated industries like farming, construction, and hospitality. I am obviously not saying that I would not have gotten any kind of education. But what could happen is that there could be less supply, higher pricing, decreased research output, and/or lower academic standards to make up for headcount shortfalls. Around 10% of Ohio State University students are international, but this number is higher for postgraduate at approximately 16%. Remember that research is a huge function of universities. Having no international students doing research would be devastating to the USA. International students attend US schools and the schools then keep intellectual property rights of those inventions. Yes, you heard me right, international students literally come to the United States, pay top tuition rates for their education with no state subsidy, and then their research IP is owned by those US institutions, with the researchers only receiving a tiny fraction of royalties from profitable innovations. This is an amazing deal for the United States.

by dangus 5mo ago

epolanski 5mo ago

Jm2c, but I really don't believe the "top educators" argument. People keep mixing correlation with causation. The reason why ivy league universities have generally stronger students is related to input: acceptance rates are lower and the weaker candidates are pre filtered. Public universities around the world, obviously get a much wider variance in the student pool. But that's about it. There is strong evidence that ivy league students tend to be better on average. There is _no_ evidence that this is related to the quality of education. Hell, this is 2026 and that was true already decades ago. You're not learning calculus or chemistry better at MIT than in an unknown university in Greece or Italy. You simply don't. The overwhelming differentiator is the student, not the teacher. There's endless quality content and lectures online for the most diverse topics you can think of. And, again, students in ivy league colleges are pre filtered for the most competitive ones. And there's also another important factor: good scientists do not make necessarily good teachers. The two skills are unrelated. And the better the scientist, the more their job is running the lab (fundraising) while delegating teaching to graduates and post docs.

dangus 5mo ago
This isn’t just limited to ivy leagues, the same thing happens at state schools. Many of my professors were from other countries. I literally wouldn’t have an education without immigrants.
- michaelcampbell 5mo ago
  > Many of my professors were from other countries. I literally wouldn’t have an education without immigrants. Curious take; do you think if there were a no-immigrant law on the books those professorial positions would have gone completely unfilled? You _GOT_ an education with the help of immigrants, but that does not imply you wouldn't have had they not been there.
  - dangus 5mo ago
    If we are talking about a no-immigrant law, the whole United States would be deeply impacted. The US would have a negative net population growth without immigration. That would mean institutions of all types are going to contract in size and start closing down and consolidating. Your local schools, libraries, police stations, road maintenance departments, etc. Universities can't just replace missing students with American citizens. University enrollment peaked in 2010. Universities are deeply impacted just like other immigrant and migrant worker-concentrated industries like farming, construction, and hospitality. I am obviously not saying that I would not have gotten any kind of education. But what could happen is that there could be less supply, higher pricing, decreased research output, and/or lower academic standards to make up for headcount shortfalls. Around 10% of Ohio State University students are international, but this number is higher for postgraduate at approximately 16%. Remember that research is a huge function of universities. Having no international students doing research would be devastating to the USA. International students attend US schools and the schools then keep intellectual property rights of those inventions. Yes, you heard me right, international students literally come to the United States, pay top tuition rates for their education with no state subsidy, and then their research IP is owned by those US institutions, with the researchers only receiving a tiny fraction of royalties from profitable innovations. This is an amazing deal for the United States.