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Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?

nytimes.com

41–50 of 112 posts

Re: Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?

#42
post #8
post #5

I don't understand the protests. I would expect educating Saudi youth in exceptionally liberal institutions like universities in the Northeast to have a net liberalizing effect on the Saudi government and culture long term. Is this not a better use of Saudi funds then e.g. buying more weapons?

Kim Jong Un was educated in Switzerland, which has a very strong democratic environment, yet it didn’t change about how he ran North Korea.

Well, North Korea actually became much, much, much more free (in the inside world) than when e.g. Kim Jung Il or Kim Il Sung ran the country. At least, Kim Jung Eun looks like he is trying to. (He has a pretty open mind.)

It's more of the military (of North Korea) that's keep stopping from e.g. negotiating with the U.S or concentrating on the economy.

Re: Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a double edged sword. For a few reasons. Firstly it maintains an elite who are much better educated, and skilled, than those at home. Secondly, when there's lots of foreign students from the same place, they just clique up. In my university there were a lot of Chinese students that hung around almost exclusively with other Chinese students. One year I represented the student common room, a sort of social club/su…

As an Asian-American, I have to say that I envied the Chinese who could stay amongst themselves. Just saying.

Can you expand and explain what you mean?

Re: Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a double edged sword. For a few reasons. Firstly it maintains an elite who are much better educated, and skilled, than those at home. Secondly, when there's lots of foreign students from the same place, they just clique up. In my university there were a lot of Chinese students that hung around almost exclusively with other Chinese students. One year I represented the student common room, a sort of social club/su…

I think a lot of foreign students come to the US wanting to make friends with Americans and more-or-less “assimilate” but then quickly realize their English language skills aren’t as strong as they thought and that the cultural differences are larger than they thought and truthfully, that Americans aren’t as welcoming and tolerant of those differences as they thought. So they fallback to a much more comfortable situa…

France is a very special case, so is Quebec. Your French was probably more than intelligible to natives, they scoffed you out of nationalistic pride, how dare you try speaking the holy language of culture and fine art.

Re: Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This should help: "If you're using Chrome 74+, you can set a flag that prevents sites from detecting that you're using Incognito mode. Go to chrome://flags and enable "Filesystem API in Incognito". That's it! Sites won't know you're in Incognito anymore (until they find a new sneaky way)." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20375023

Thanks for the trick HeWhoLurksLate, it worked!

You're welcome! I wish I was clever enough to come up with it, the GP has where I found it.

Re: Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?

#46
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of foreign students come to the US wanting to make friends with Americans and more-or-less “assimilate” but then quickly realize their English language skills aren’t as strong as they thought and that the cultural differences are larger than they thought and truthfully, that Americans aren’t as welcoming and tolerant of those differences as they thought. So they fallback to a much more comfortable situa…

France is a very special case, so is Quebec. Your French was probably more than intelligible to natives, they scoffed you out of nationalistic pride, how dare you try speaking the holy language of culture and fine art.

You seem to think you know better than the parent commenter what their experience was, despite the fact that they were there and you were not. Interestingly, what you imply is a more negative view of the experience rather than a more positive, which may make one think you hold a prejudiced view of the French specifically for some unstated reason.

Re: Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?

#47
post #8
post #5

I don't understand the protests. I would expect educating Saudi youth in exceptionally liberal institutions like universities in the Northeast to have a net liberalizing effect on the Saudi government and culture long term. Is this not a better use of Saudi funds then e.g. buying more weapons?

Kim Jong Un was educated in Switzerland, which has a very strong democratic environment, yet it didn’t change about how he ran North Korea.

I don't wish to defend the regime in any way. However, do consider that while he has power, he's also the figurehead. There may be real constraints upon how much change he can meaningfully effect without the system falling apart entirely, or resulting in his removal if he treads on other powerful people's toes. He wouldn't be the first dictator which had to walk along a knife edge to maintain their power base and security.

Re: Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a double edged sword. For a few reasons. Firstly it maintains an elite who are much better educated, and skilled, than those at home. Secondly, when there's lots of foreign students from the same place, they just clique up. In my university there were a lot of Chinese students that hung around almost exclusively with other Chinese students. One year I represented the student common room, a sort of social club/su…

I think a lot of foreign students come to the US wanting to make friends with Americans and more-or-less “assimilate” but then quickly realize their English language skills aren’t as strong as they thought and that the cultural differences are larger than they thought and truthfully, that Americans aren’t as welcoming and tolerant of those differences as they thought. So they fallback to a much more comfortable situa…

In Finland the Erasmus/foreign exchange students of universities also tend to hang out among themselves and the native Finns don't really care about them.

One thing I've heard is that the Finns consider many of the exchange students to be a bit juvenile since in their home countries people often live with parents until their 30s. Whereas most Finnish students move out and become fully independent by age 20.

Re: Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?

#49
post #5

I don't understand the protests. I would expect educating Saudi youth in exceptionally liberal institutions like universities in the Northeast to have a net liberalizing effect on the Saudi government and culture long term. Is this not a better use of Saudi funds then e.g. buying more weapons?

When reputable institutions refuse money, they make a strong statement about the virtues of the donor. This can turn the donor into an international pariah and make it harder to gloss over abuses/crimes back home. Of course, whether this effect outweighs the benefits of accepting money is debatable.

Re: Why Is There So Much Saudi Money in American Universities?

#50
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

France is a very special case, so is Quebec. Your French was probably more than intelligible to natives, they scoffed you out of nationalistic pride, how dare you try speaking the holy language of culture and fine art.

You seem to think you know better than the parent commenter what their experience was, despite the fact that they were there and you were not. Interestingly, what you imply is a more negative view of the experience rather than a more positive, which may make one think you hold a prejudiced view of the French specifically for some unstated reason.

Have you been abroad? and compared your experiences to France? Speaking broken Czech in Prague gets smiles, encouragement and comments about Slavic language similarities. Doing the same in France results in evil eye and being treated as an asshole.
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