Time to Become Xenophobic About Higher Education

On many college campuses in the U.S., English has become a strained second language. American high school students are often denied entrance to the school of their choice because places are "reserved" for students from Asia and the Middle East. Yes, they are willing to pay- after all, their parents are either government-subsidized or are making profits from America's outsourced production. But, once they earn their degrees, off they go back to their homelands to use their American education to compete against the country who gave them that education.

What is worse, many of these students cheat. Literally,. The internet is now filled with companies offering "help" in essay writing, even in dissertations and other graduate work. Of course, these foreign students take these paid-for essays and hand them in under their own name and, plagiarism checking on-line to the contrary, most of them get graded on someone else's work. Very often, instructions to the writers who get paid a few bucks per page for their work, are reminded, "simple English" which is the clue to a "customer for whom English is a second or third language.

There are many ways in which American educators bend over backwards to give these foreign students the benefit of the doubt. After all, they somehow feel that American education is so good that is why they came. They came because they have it easier than in stricter school regimes in their native lands. They came because they have the money to get anonymous others to do their work.

The question is- why do we permit them to come here, take up space in our universities and colleges, and then take what they learned back home. It is time to become somewhat xenophobic and fill the classrooms with Americans, eager to learn and begin careers in an improving economy. President Obama continues to challenge young Americans to be prepared for a highly skilled technology-driven future. They cannot do that if their places are taken by foreigners who will become competitors rather than productive Americans.