<story><title>Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-06/universities-forced-to-face-addiction-to-foreign-students-money</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>washadjeffmad</author><text>Something I&amp;#x27;ve noticed is that universities in the US no longer seem to advertise their primary mission as education, but as providing the &amp;quot;college experience&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Brochures are rife with amenities and activities like you&amp;#x27;re picking out a resort or extended summer camp where you can safely figure out who you are, make friends, and be protected until you&amp;#x27;re set free, job-pass in hand.&lt;p&gt;These advertisements are also primarily aimed at the parents.&lt;p&gt;My SO got a second degree several years ago, and all of her official and financial paperwork was addressed to &amp;quot;the parents of $SO&amp;quot;. It was a bit shocking that there&amp;#x27;s so little expectation by universities for a legal adult to take agency in the process.&lt;p&gt;I only wonder how much of this process was a result of student demands for more parental oversight and involvement, and if the end result is better outcomes or merely justification of more money spent.</text></item><item><author>neumann</author><text>I work at a University in Australia and have been on both sides of academic and professional. This unravelling was on the horizon for everybody, maybe not so soon, but definitely in the viewport. In an effort to drive up income streams there has been a slow erosion of Australian education (more at some universities than others) to cater for the international (Chinese and Indian predominantly) market. There are all sort of perverse incentives built in to erode educational benefits, hand hold students, make university &amp;#x27;fun&amp;#x27;, something that used to be part of the student body&amp;#x27;s remit, but having crushed that movement it is now where a lot of money is being spent at many universities. Not on academics, not on labs, but on comfort, edtech, busy work and asinine initiatives underpinned by endless erroneous reporting by consultants to make execs feel like they are &amp;#x27;doing good&amp;#x27;. I know - it is hard not to sound bitter, but it is a tragedy of short sightedness. The recruitment of students is predatory and eventually the saturation of subpar graduates from these university degrees would have eventually resulted in the fading of both cultural and brand name prestige of sending your kids to Australia for study. This is also tied to cheap international student labour, housing that pockets the inner cities that nobody who isn&amp;#x27;t a trapped rich international would live in and a segregation of the university student community that is unhelpful.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>save_ferris</author><text>&amp;gt; no longer seem to advertise their primary mission as education, but as providing the “college experience.”&lt;p&gt;This was already really noticeable when I enrolled in undergrad 12 years ago at a large public university.&lt;p&gt;I think part of it has been driven by student demand for more parental oversight, but I also think the marketing is what got so many students to take out debt in the first place. So many of my undergrad classmates (perhaps even a slim majority) believed that undergrad was going to be the best 4 years of their lives and they had to make the most of them, which I personally found completely insane.&lt;p&gt;I also think that the financial system around universities warped in such a way that it became easier to establish direct relationships with parents as university became less affordable to those trying to work while studying. Not to mention the absurd amount of money and effort that universities put into alumni communications to drive giving back to the school.</text></comment>
<story><title>Universities forced to face addiction to foreign students’ money</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-06/universities-forced-to-face-addiction-to-foreign-students-money</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>washadjeffmad</author><text>Something I&amp;#x27;ve noticed is that universities in the US no longer seem to advertise their primary mission as education, but as providing the &amp;quot;college experience&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Brochures are rife with amenities and activities like you&amp;#x27;re picking out a resort or extended summer camp where you can safely figure out who you are, make friends, and be protected until you&amp;#x27;re set free, job-pass in hand.&lt;p&gt;These advertisements are also primarily aimed at the parents.&lt;p&gt;My SO got a second degree several years ago, and all of her official and financial paperwork was addressed to &amp;quot;the parents of $SO&amp;quot;. It was a bit shocking that there&amp;#x27;s so little expectation by universities for a legal adult to take agency in the process.&lt;p&gt;I only wonder how much of this process was a result of student demands for more parental oversight and involvement, and if the end result is better outcomes or merely justification of more money spent.</text></item><item><author>neumann</author><text>I work at a University in Australia and have been on both sides of academic and professional. This unravelling was on the horizon for everybody, maybe not so soon, but definitely in the viewport. In an effort to drive up income streams there has been a slow erosion of Australian education (more at some universities than others) to cater for the international (Chinese and Indian predominantly) market. There are all sort of perverse incentives built in to erode educational benefits, hand hold students, make university &amp;#x27;fun&amp;#x27;, something that used to be part of the student body&amp;#x27;s remit, but having crushed that movement it is now where a lot of money is being spent at many universities. Not on academics, not on labs, but on comfort, edtech, busy work and asinine initiatives underpinned by endless erroneous reporting by consultants to make execs feel like they are &amp;#x27;doing good&amp;#x27;. I know - it is hard not to sound bitter, but it is a tragedy of short sightedness. The recruitment of students is predatory and eventually the saturation of subpar graduates from these university degrees would have eventually resulted in the fading of both cultural and brand name prestige of sending your kids to Australia for study. This is also tied to cheap international student labour, housing that pockets the inner cities that nobody who isn&amp;#x27;t a trapped rich international would live in and a segregation of the university student community that is unhelpful.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>non-entity</author><text>&amp;gt; My SO got a second degree several years ago, and all of her official and financial paperwork was addressed to &amp;quot;the parents of $SO&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Are there no legal issues that could come up with this? Working with financial documents addressed to someone other than yourself?&lt;p&gt;I briefly touched on this elsewhere in this thread, but as a working professional who happens to still be very young and wanting to get my degree, universities are pissing me off. They create their own definitions of residency and independence that differ from the legal versions that seem to have no purpose but to extract  more money from a potential student.</text></comment>