Both China and India are working to develop their own university systems, modeled on American universities, in the hopes that they can eventually retain more of their brighter students with the promise of degrees nearly as prestigious as those issued in the U.S. While achieving that academic prowess will take some time, the less expensive option of local universities will undoubtedly sway some students. Over time, the overwhelming number of Asian students who come to the U.S. to study at universities like Georgia Tech and MIT will shrink, and the Master’s degree programs at these schools will start to feel it. This, I dare say, is an inevitability.
I wonder if the U.S. public education system can provide the number of highly qualified American students needed to fill those seats.
I wonder if these smart kids will be able to afford to go.
I wonder if the emphasis on bringing in Asian students from overseas to stock U.S. tech schools is akin to the college basketball and football scouts’ clamoring for more black boys to stock their teams. In either case one could argue that the numbers support an intuitive sense that the students’ motivation due to cultural and social factors primes them for success in their respective fields. Or you could just write it off as a self-fulfilling myth.
Eh. I suppose it will be a while before these questions ripen, and some may end up moot in the end. I just thought I’d ask.
