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Notes -
What is the evidence that admitting foreign students is taking spots away from domestic students, rather than subsidizing them as Noah Smith claims? Why should we even be trying to increase the enrollment of (normie) white students when all making college education quasi-compulsory has done is inflate the minimum credentials needed to get a decent job and waste a bunch of people's time and money? It has never been easier to get an education in whatever subject you want on your own or start your own company, so to say that the weak (by world standards) form of discrimination that white students face in school is depriving them of opportunities they need to make something of themselves seems like a bit of a stretch to me. Their ancestors, the generation that produced all the marvelous inventions that underpin modern life, had it far harder. They couldn't study electrical or chemical engineering or computer science because they had to go out and invent those fields from scratch themselves, after spending their childhoods translating Latin in unventilated schoolhouses. The only thing students today want for is purpose, and that is not something that tinkering with college admissions is going to resolve.
As for the value of educating foreigners who do not intend to stay, it consists chiefly in the spread of liberal American values to the elite of neutral or enemy nations, destabilizing governments that are hostile to us and creating a naturally pro-American constituency and reserve of goodwill that can be drawn from in the event of a geopolitical crisis. We are also implicitly holding the children of high officials in China, South Korea, India, etc. hostage should a conflict develop with their home countries. In medieval times, you usually had to beat sombody in a war to get that kind of deal, but today they come here willingly.
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