The new International University

By Julie Herman

From President Obama to Sarah Palin, decrying foreign imports and outsourcing is a favorite activity of United States politicians. Elected officials reverse previous positions and find reasons to be pro-American, pro-domestic, pro anything that will keep the electorate happy, especially when the economy suffers and jobs rhetoric becomes increasingly critical for winning support.

In times of recession, this is the optimal strategy, not just for the politicians' futures, but also for the economy. Drastically simplified, recessions occur when money stops flowing within an economy. If a firm in the U.S. employs a U.S. citizen rather than, say, an Indian citizen (or a U.S. citizen buys a U.S.-manufactured product), it ensures that a marginally greater amount of money circulates within the country rather than outside of it. Money flows through the hands of that one extra employed individual. Since that individual has the ability to spend money, he ensures flow to other individuals, allowing for more employment, and so forth.

Granted, this explanation lacks the fine detail of reality. However, it serves to prove that, on this point, our government officials might have the right idea. In order to beat back economic catastrophe, Americans need to have jobs, and in order for the scarce jobs available to be given to higher cost American laborers, those laborers need to be well educated.

This is all very good in theory, but the U.S. government has yet to convince most industries to cooperate. Perhaps the most disturbing refusal comes from the education system.

In 2008, as unemployment began to climb and the recession deepened, 671,616 international students began their classes at U.S. universities, an eight percent increase from the previous year The Chronicle of Higher Education reported. Community colleges, public and private universities (including Santa Clara), and even some primary and secondary schools, have experimented with or already established recruiting campaigns to attract even more international students into the U.S. system.

Offering an American education to those who desire it is admirable. Submitting the education system to the free market in an effort to attract the best and brightest students fulfills such a system's highest purpose.

However, a darker truth lurks behind this honorable façade. Since most international students do not qualify for financial aid programs, universities can take in less academically promising students under the pretense of diversity-weighted point systems and charge full tuition to said students.

Even when universities do not make a sacrifice of quality, they threaten the integrity of the workforce. By artificially creating demand in foreign countries, universities make admission for the U.S. student, whether intellectually superior or inferior, that much more difficult.

Fewer U.S. university students correlate to a less educated workforce, with little to no chance of improving competitiveness and hastening economic recovery. As international students become a force in graduate and undergraudate education, and even in junior colleges, the problem expands.

While a capitalistic economy demands capitalistic actions from its components, a domestic economy facing instability must make certain concessions.

Although the lofty ideals of equal access to knowledge compel the compassionate intellectual to reach out, a prudent university system will recognize the need to concentrate resources at home and turn its efforts in that direction.

Julie Herman is an undeclared freshman.