An industry that helps Chinese cheat their way into and through US colleges

This comment displays a misunderstanding of common logic that so commonly leads people to racist views.

There's a logical difference between saying "a lot of chinese students are cheaters" and "chinese student is most likely a cheater". While statistically speaking these propositions seem to be equal, notice that we are not 100% sure here — we're talking in probabilities.

But talking in probabilities has two important implications. First, human brains are not wired up to work with probabilities probably: so, when you hear a statement "chinese student is likely to be a cheater", next time you see a chinese student, you will see a cheater. Not a 80% probability cheater, just a cheater.

And second thing is that modern morality is based on assumption of best in people — presumption of innocence in law is just one example of that. And this norm have worked really well, in general. When we know that someone is 'bad' only with 80% certainty, we prefer to act as if he's good — for a variety of reasons too complicated to discuss here. Let's just say that in general, it's good for everyone.

So, in the end, answering your point: it's not "unfair to call it out". It's just bad to make all chinese students look bad and create pre-conceptions about them.

I went to grad school with a lot of Chinese visa students. It was pretty clear about a week in who was the real deal (absolutely brilliant students) and who had worked the system to get into the school. The ones that had cheated their way in generally were generally just average folks who had taken what they viewed as their best option in a very high pressure and high stakes situation. I'm guessing most of my US raised classmates would have made the same decisions in same situations and certainly fair bit of them cheated although usually in less dramatic fashion.

The part that is surprising to me is that schools aren't doing much to prevent this. Studies show us when humans are likely to cheat and probability of getting caught is at the top of the list [1]. How universities and colleges can raise tuition an average of 8% a year and get away without doing a minimum of due diligence around cheating is beyond me. Simple things like some certified system for transcripts, letters of recommendation and teachers who ID/recognize their students would be a huge step to resolving these issues. At my grad school the only change was to make foreign students take the TOEFL[3] upon arrival which solved their big problem of english skills as graduate students are supposed to be teaching assistants in undergrad classes.

[1] http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/inside-the-cheaters-m... [2] http://www.finaid.org/savings/tuition-inflation.phtml [3] https://www.ets.org/toefl

> How universities and colleges can raise tuition an average of 8% a year and get away without doing a minimum of due diligence around cheating is beyond me.

Why would they? The students and their parents aren't paying for hard (which includes catching cheaters). They're paying for the degree. If college was harder the perceived ROI* would be less.

As far as I can tell colleges are happy if the students keep showing up paying real live money-dollars, regardless of if they learn or cheat or even have to do work.

* Individuals might feel like they are getting a good deal, but in the aggregate, most college degrees are essentially worthless now, I suspect because college is way too easy so a degree is a signal for almost nothing.

It's extremely unfair to characterize them as "dumb". They have the same credentials as the tenured faculty did when they start, but they don't have tenure.

> There are a billion Chinese, so I wouldn't blame them for not learning English while living in China. It's just not worth the effort.

I don't blame them. For the ones who get accepted to US institutions, it's definitely worth it.

> Also the fact that Chinese is almost as far as you can get from any western European language makes it really hard to learn English (or for us to learn Chinese for that matter.)

Well I definitely disagree there. I'm studying Chinese. The characters are hard and that's it. Chinese grammar is super simple. There are no tenses or subject verb agreement so verb conjugation is not a concern. After you learn the basic grammar, Chinese is just about memorizing lots of vocab.

> I can't imagine the Chinese government encouraging its citizens to lean English for political reasons either.

They can do what they want but I believe most countries these days appreciate that globalization is inevitable and that learning other languages helps assuage the burden of embracing that. China doesn't want to go back to its cultural revolution experiment and the world needs China.

China has some really interesting geography that most westerners will never see. That could change in the future with more people from each culture learning other languages. Chinese are already touring the world. When will China itself begin to become easier for the world to tour it?