[SCRAPPED] Students without Borders

[Frieden-und Freudenland]

[description]A recent survey done by the think-tank International Study Monitor has shown that @@NAME@@ has seen a 20% drop in the number of international freshmen enrolled in its universities this year. This news has fueled a debate about how higher education in @@NAME@@ can be made appealing to foreigners again.

[validity]tourists can enter the country, low inclusiveness

1. [option]"Well, it is clear why this is happening, isn't it?" mock-questions @@RANDOMNAME@@, a Bigtopian student majoring in Comparative Ethnic Studies and Basket Weaving at @@CAPITAL@@ University. "This country is not friendly to people who come to study here, and is therefore set to soon lose the benefits of a diverse student body and a diverse workforce. If you want to attract more international students, you need to invest in programs that promote inclusiveness, like giving tax reliefs to universities for admitting more international students or providing grants for scientific research that foreign graduate students want to conduct in @@NAME@@."

[effect]university dorms are like the Tower of Babel

2. [option]"Excuse me, but I don't understand why this is an issue at all," snaps Karen @@RANDOMLASTNAME@@, part-time knitting blogger and full-time soccer mom, staring at you with a permanently raised eyebrow. "My Jimmy is studying hard to get good grades and is captain of his school's soccer team and plays the bassoon in the school orchestra. But we are still worried that the colleges in this country will pass over his application to admit an undeserving Núi Và Sôngian student for the sake of so-called diversity! If anything, we should ban international students and reserve all university spots for our own students."

[effect]universities are not really universal at all

3. [option]"Ah, so, I find it obviously unfair that foreigners should come here to benefit from the top-class university education we provide," says Dr. @@RANDOMMALENAME@@, an elderly Professor of Economics from Maxford University who got his tenure fifty years ago. "But there can always be a tradeoff. I suggest we make it mandatory for international students to pay high tuition fees to study here, so at least we get something in return, too."

[option validity]college is tuition-free

[effect]universities develop an ardent preference for foreign students

4. [option]"Ah, so, I find it obviously unfair that foreigners should come here to benefit from the top-class university education we provide," says Dr. @@RANDOMMALENAME@@, an elderly Professor of Economics from Maxford University who got his tenure fifty years ago. "But there can always be a tradeoff. I suggest we make it mandatory for international students to pay much higher tuition fees than domestic students to study here, so at least we get something in return, too."

[option validity]college is not tuition-free

[effect]universities develop an ardent preference for foreign students

[The Atlae Isles]

[option]"Excuse me, but I don't understand why this is an issue at all," snaps Karen @@RANDOMLASTNAME@@

There needs to be a line about talking to the dean or something!

Only other suggestion I have would be to add 'free' to 'top-class university education' in Option 3, which would better establish why it would be unfair that foreigners come here, etc.

[Cretox State]

I like it. My only critique is that the opening could do a better job of establishing why declining international enrollment rates are problematic, and that option 2 seems to assume that @@NAME@@ already has some form of affirmative action in place.

[Terrabod]

Yo FuF, I have but one comment to make.

Dr. @@RANDOMMALENAME@@, an elderly Professor of Economics from Maxford University who got his tenure fifty years ago.

Why is this guy a guy? And is the tenure thing a joke that I'm not getting?

[Frieden-und Freudenland]

Yo FuF, I have but one comment to make.

Dr. @@RANDOMMALENAME@@, an elderly Professor of Economics from Maxford University who got his tenure fifty years ago.

Why is this guy a guy? And is the tenure thing a joke that I'm not getting?

Academia has long been very male-dominated, regardless of area of study; though the problem is more prominent in some areas. Considering that this guy has been a tenured professor for 50 years, the gender imbalance would have been much more palpable at the time he entered academia, and that imbalance would have been in favor of men. It is just more historically accurate right now to cast an old professor as a male than a female, and frankly your typical privileged and inequality-blind ivory tower academic will be a white old man, not a black young woman; or not even a black old man, a white young man, or even a white old woman. Somehow, you need the combination of those 3 big qualities to create the epitome of a Western highbrow academic.

The tenure thing is a longer story. Suffice it to say that many young academics have no job security until they get tenure at a university, and getting a tenure usually requires them to churn out highly-cited papers at a breakneck speed, and for that reason, quality is often sacrificed for the sake of quantity. Despite that, they might not get tenure, and it is even harder to get tenure for women than men, due to structural inequalities. BUT the most important thing to note here is that it was much, much easier to get tenure in the 90s and prior to that. Arguably, today's average young PhD graduate will have written more papers at the time of graduation than a professor would have had at the time s/he became employed as a professor back in the 70s. Because the competition got fierce in the mean time. This is something that old professors struggle to understand. They also got their tenures at relatively young ages, say, right after defending their dissertation. This might have been in their late 20s, or maybe early 30s. Today it is not uncommon for researchers to languish in meager-paying post-doctoral research positions until they get tenure in their 40s or so.

In short, Number #3 is your typical male dinosaur boomer who had a very easy ride in life and now pontificates about the value of education and wants to put a price on it so it can become more exclusive.

[Cretox State]

In short, Number #3 is your typical male dinosaur boomer who had a very easy ride in life and now pontificates about the value of education and wants to put a price on it so it can become more exclusive.

Excellent description

[Electrum]

Description nitpicks: Survey implies interviewing people, but this is more of a statistic saying that there has been a drop in enrolments. Perhaps a study instead? Think tank is unhyphenated. It's also unclear from the description whether the problem is universities not accepting more foreign students, or foreign students are snubbing @@NAME@@ for other places.

Option 1 - "This country is not friendly to people who come to study here" - It has to be asked, why did @@RANDOMNAME@@ choose to study there in the first place? For "like giving tax reliefs to universities for admitting more international students", this doesn't address the fact that (presumably) freshmen don't want to study there in the first place. It just helps the universities but doesn't explicitly encourage more freshmen students to enrol there. Suggestion for graduate students is good.

Option 3/4 - Again, this really doesn't solve the problem of low student diversity in universities (if you were going for this, then ignore the rest). If anything, it's likely to exaggerate it, given that the issue assumes that international students are currently paying the same price as local students and enrolments are currently dropping.

[Baggieland]

Quite similar to issue 942.

[Frieden-und Freudenland]

Quite similar to issue 942.

Ahhh, shoot. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.