Trump's Next Trade War Target: Chinese Students at Elite Schools • Hacker News Board

Re: Trump's Next Trade War Target: Chinese Students at Elite Schools

#251

Post by scottlocklin » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 4:15 PM UTC

tntn wrote: post #242

scottlocklin wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The schools might have to let natives in; the horror. We might have to return to the dark ages of the 1950s when the STEM graduates were majority Americans and we actually were making technological progress in something other than lithography. "Science" is addicted to cheap foreign labor, which has ruined the market for natives.

Certainly increased acceptance rates for domestic students would impact which schools they go to. But do you have any data indicating that a) there are a significant number of domestic students who apply to STEM programs and get rejected from all of them and relatedly b) the demand for grad school positions is sufficiently elastic to match an 80% increase in supply? I'm not sure what your point was with the casual di…

Compared to the previous 70 years, the last 70 years of scientific and technological research has been complete and utter shit, except for lithography. Pretty simple, really. The presence of all that cheap labor in the last 70 years has objectively not made things better. Mind you, in raw numbers we have at least 10x the number of active workers in the sciences in the last 70 years as in the previous 70 years; and less is getting done. Imagine that!

Your first point is a red herring: the presence of cheap labor in the sciences and the lack of decent jobs makes it unattractive to any sane person who was born in a first world country.

Re: Trump's Next Trade War Target: Chinese Students at Elite Schools

#252

Post by NotPaidToPost » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 4:44 PM UTC

ekianjo wrote: post #245

NotPaidToPost wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> primary and secondary education costs virtually nothing compared to college. Except that this isn't true at all.

I said compared to college. Not in absolute terms.

Yes that was understood.

Re: Trump's Next Trade War Target: Chinese Students at Elite Schools

#253

Post by kuzehanka » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 4:59 PM UTC

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #249

kuzehanka wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about societies being different. It's about Chinese international students engaging in blatant plagiarism, refusing to participate in classes, completely refusing to integrate, engaging in pro-chinese anti-local political activism, and basically expanding the CCPs political reach into foreign universities. This is something that all tertiary educators are painful aware of, as is the reluctance of faculty to…

> It's about Chinese international students engaging in blatant plagiarism, refusing to participate in classes This is not only blatantly untrue, but insanely racist.

https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/ucla-cheating/

https://www.smh.com.au/national/melbourne-uni-probes-inside-...

https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/04/international-stude...

https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/exclusive-buying...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_dishonesty#Demographi...

Re: Trump's Next Trade War Target: Chinese Students at Elite Schools

#254

Post by DiogenesKynikos » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

kuzehanka wrote: post #253

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's about Chinese international students engaging in blatant plagiarism, refusing to participate in classes This is not only blatantly untrue, but insanely racist.

https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/ucla-cheating/ https://www.smh.com.au/national/melbourne-uni-probes-inside-... https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/04/international-stude... https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/exclusive-buying... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_dishonesty#Demographi...

Hundreds of thousands of Chinese students go abroad to study every year. Some of them cheat. Some of them get caught cheating. Some of those cheating scandals make the news. Guess who also cheats? People of every ethnicity and country.

It is true that test prep is a big deal in China. If there's a test to get into a top university, students are going to study like mad to pass that test. You're portraying that as a bad thing. Maybe it is bad to study to the test, but they're just playing by the rules as they exist - the test determines your chances, so you study as hard as possible for that test. If you want to change that behavior, make the test less important, or make it more creative.

One of the most disgusting smears against Chinese people is that they think cheating is okay. Just like in the West, cheating is looked down upon in China and cheaters are despised. Education is highly prized in China (Confucian ideals and all that), and normal parents and teachers certainly do not accept cheating.

What is also true is that in general, science/math education in Chinese primary/secondary schools is far more rigorous and difficult than it is in American schools. Kids generally learn advanced math at a much younger age in China, and that probably has something to do with the high number of extremely highly qualified engineers and scientists that the Chinese educational system produces.

Re: Trump's Next Trade War Target: Chinese Students at Elite Schools

#255

Post by rchaud » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 6:25 PM UTC

the_svd_doctor wrote: post #72

nneonneo wrote: post #9

Students from China (and many other countries) are required to renew their visas annually, a process which is already quite nerve-wracking for many. PhDs in particular can take anywhere from 4 to 8 years to complete, meaning 4-8 chances for your studies to be interrupted with the only option to return home while the visa renewal stalls. This article explicitly calls out the fact that renewals seem to have been gettin…

Your first point is incorrect. First a student asks for an F-1 (sometimes J-1) visa. This can be delivered for a single entry (typical for Iranian students for instance), or for 1 or like 5 years (the common case for international students). The visa lets you _enter_ the country. Once admitted in the US, a student can remain indefinitely while maintaining its student status (including school transfers). This applies…

Is the F-1 5 years these days? In my day (~10 years ago) it was 4 years plus a 12 months work permit. If you had a paid summer internship inside of the 4 years, those months worked got deducted from your post-graduation work permit. I had 2 summer internships and a little less than 6 months on my work permit when I graduated.

Re: Trump's Next Trade War Target: Chinese Students at Elite Schools

#256

Post by yogenpro » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 6:29 PM UTC

raverbashing wrote: post #150

nneonneo wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This also bars people from leaving the country to attend conferences (an essential part of many grad students’ training), visit family or just travel - all things that many students need to do regularly. Having an expired visa is very much not a situation you want to be in.

I wonder if the "one entry doesn't count if you're going to Canada" wildcard works for those kind of visas

Automatic Revalidation? Yes it works for F visas.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-inf...

Re: Trump's Next Trade War Target: Chinese Students at Elite Schools

#257

Post by rchaud » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 6:36 PM UTC

orhmeh09 wrote: post #187

C1sc0cat wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If its like the UK International students are a source of income as they pay more and subsidise the locals.

How did universities ever manage to operate whilst charging much lower/no tuition back when there was not a group like this?

There were a lot fewer university students back when you could attend a polytechnical institute and make a living wage in a factory. With globalization and deindustrialization, Britain is now a "knowledge economy" so you have hundreds of thousands more in universities.

Re: Trump's Next Trade War Target: Chinese Students at Elite Schools

#258

Post by rchaud » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 6:39 PM UTC

ashelmire wrote: post #178

tntn wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

60-80% of graduate students in STEM fields in the U.S. are international students. It seems like having 60-80% fewer graduates would accelerate the decline of American science.

Don’t most of them return to their home countries? Seems like freeing up those spots for American students that will stay would be a boon for American science.

"Freeing up those spots" implies that US students are barred from competing for grad school places or that international students have some advantage that domestic students do not.

Re: Trump's Next Trade War Target: Chinese Students at Elite Schools

#259

Post by ashelmire » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 7:54 PM UTC

rchaud wrote: post #258

ashelmire wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t most of them return to their home countries? Seems like freeing up those spots for American students that will stay would be a boon for American science.

"Freeing up those spots" implies that US students are barred from competing for grad school places or that international students have some advantage that domestic students do not.

> international students have some advantage that domestic students do not.

They often do have more money. And rampant cheating. But regardless, Chinese students can attend any university in China or the US, while an American cannot realistically attend school in China. Obviously that means China is going to have a brighter educational future, as they use our system to advance their own.

Re: Trump's Next Trade War Target: Chinese Students at Elite Schools

#260

Post by throwaway6969 » Tue, Jun 04, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

ashelmire wrote: post #259

rchaud wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Freeing up those spots" implies that US students are barred from competing for grad school places or that international students have some advantage that domestic students do not.

> international students have some advantage that domestic students do not. They often do have more money. And rampant cheating. But regardless, Chinese students can attend any university in China or the US, while an American cannot realistically attend school in China. Obviously that means China is going to have a brighter educational future, as they use our system to advance their own.

If they're cheating then they won't hang on to those research spots for long.