Why its time to make America think again as international students outperform Americans
The numbers tell a stark story.According to a new report by the Economic Innovation Group, foreign-born workers who arrived on student visas out-earn their American peers by nearly $30,000 annually.
They’re twice as likely to work in research and development.But this isn’t a zero-sum game where one group’s success diminishes another’s potential.Instead, it’s a mirror reflecting what America could achieve if it stopped settling for mediocrity and started demanding excellence from its own educational system.Walk across any American university campus today, and the contrast becomes painfully clear.
While international students pack engineering labs and computer science departments, too many American students have drifted toward paths of least resistance — degrees in Critical Race Studies, Queer Theory and Gender Analysis.One group is building the future; the other is deconstructing the past.
These fields offer little beyond debt and limited career prospects.Yet they proliferate while hard sciences struggle for enrollment. The real revelation isn’t that international students are outperforming Americans.
It’s that they’re succeeding within systems America built, but has allowed them to decay.They’re mastering curricula Americans designed, conducting research in labs Americans constructed, and launching careers from universities Americans funded.
The infrastructure for greatness already exists.America has simply forgotten how to use it.Consider the typical trajectory of today’s international STEM student.
They arrive focused, disciplined, and pragmatic.They pursue electrical engineering, computer science, and biotechnology.
Not because these fields are fashionable, but because they understand something fundamental: Education is a tool for building the future, not just exploring feelings about the present.They treat university as a launching pad, not a four-year therapy session.There’s an opportunity hidden within this crisis.
America does...