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Comment by hiram112 | Hacker News Reader

> Guess who benefits then? Not the US.

If demand at US universities goes down, they might just have to reduce prices.

Yeah that would certainly suck for the millions of recent college grads working gig jobs, indebted with tens of thousands of dollars.

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Actually the opposite at many public universities. "Out of state" and international students subsidize in state students because they pay far greater tuition.

I have trouble believing students are paying less tuition because there is a greater demand from international students. If anything, the tuition would be higher. That international students are more profitable doesn't change the value of the degree or what everyone else is willing to pay for it.

> If anything, the tuition would be higher.

It is higher, but for out-of-state and international students. That's how public universities have been able to offset low in-state tuition and raise more financial aid.

They still need someone to keep the reputation up. The revenue stream has to pass regardless of capability.

Foreign students pay full tuition, domestic students rarely do. Simple as that. This applies to public and private schools. Universities deliberately recruit international students for this reason.

I think parent is right, no international students likely means higher tuition for everyone else. If you're in doubt, ask someone who works in admissions, I expect they'll tell you the same thing.

My point is that international students may "subsidize" the university, but in practice this should have very little to do with what the university would charge its students (they are not "subsidizing" the domestic students). Implicit in your assumption is that tuition uses cost-based pricing which I find hard to believe. Admittedly this is all conjecture on my part but I don't find that line of reasoning persuasive.

Students that pay full freight absolutely subsidize those who don't, and a lot of the people who can afford full tuition are foreign.

http://blogs.wgbh.org/on-campus/2014/6/17/international-enro...

The recruitment programs for foreign students are way better here (in the Netherlands) with some universities because they get about double from them vs regulars. Though the difference looks even bigger when you take into account that what students pay is not the same as what the University gets.

I think this is even worsened by the fact that foreign students pay directly towards the university and become a primary source of revenue and the 'regular' students money is tertiary (state) or secondary (scholarship) which has conditions and delays attached.

I guess it is probably the same all over the world.

At least in the topic of H-1B CS / programmers, a good chunk of them are not paying tuition, but rather working as GTAs and GRAs for stipends and tuition waivers. By and large, tuition does not fund CS departments, research does.

That is only for PhDs. Masters, who comprise a large part of foreign programmers, pay a lot and receive little to no stipends or waivers.

It's not only PhDs. I was a Masters student who worked as a GTA and GRA. The dept head of the CS program I work under now has repeatedly told faculty to focus on hiring more PhDs and fewer masters students.

More than students it would suck for universities, less funding, less infrastructure growth, it would cause a domino effect. If not US then somewhere else, students will figure it out, they are young but it will have a long lasting effect on US. If talented students don't have options out side their home country they will improve the conditions of their home country and cause less brain drain. Especially China and India considering their population.

I think students want to study in US (or are willing to pay to study in US) is because after completing education there, they are eligible to find work there. I dont think students want to spend great sums of money studying overseas, because they dont have options in their own country.

Presumptuous. A lot of students study in the US because their country really doesn't have that level or quality of education accessible. I was perfectly happy salary-wise in my own country, but the institutions of higher education here mainly believed a Bachelors in Mechanical Engineering can't be a good candidate for Masters in Computer Science. I thus had to apply to some good US Universities as they didn't have that problem. After studying there (and yes, I worked there for few years to expose myself to international work culture) I came back to my home country. I know many such people who went to US to study only because they didn't have such quality of education at their respective places. Also, when I worked in the US I don't think I was the 'cheap H-1B labor', I believe I contributed to the company and the US economy as well with my work.

There are a ton of Americans studying medicine in India. Simply because its cheaper. So it goes both ways.

I'm pretty sure these Americans plan on working in America after residency.

Really? I've never heard of people doing that, how many is "a ton" and how realistic is their hope to practice in the US?

The bars in Bangalore are filled with medical students. There are always a handful of Americans studying with them. I have a few friends who graduated recently and are now back in America doing their residency.

Go check the numbers on how many over seas medical students come back state side and actually end up as medical doctors. Passing the board exam and getting into residency programs is a lot harder these days, since most programs are aware that this is happening.

A literal metric ton of Americans is about 12 individuals. A short ton is about 11.

I presume that a figurative "ton of Americans" would be many more than that, because it seems like American enrollment in India's medical schools should be more than just 12.

The context was PhD students.

None of those, at good universities at least, pay for tuition (be it from research grants or TAships). So I would expect the effect on prices to be minimal.

There is a huge pool of international students who join these Universities to take a Masters course, and pay heavy tuition fees. And I have no reason to think they are technically any less than their American counterparts.

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