It’s official: U.S. higher ed is the best in the world

by David Safier

A poll has been taken in other countries, certainly in Asian countries, and the consensus is, the U.S. has the finest system of higher education in the world.

It's not a poll, exactly. It's students from Asian countries voting with their feet and their dollars, spending huge amounts of money to attend U.S. universities.

U of Washington is a case in point. Today, 18% of its students come from abroad, up from 2% in 2006. Most of the foreign students are from China. They're willing to pay full tuition — $28,059 per year — as well as airfare and living expenses. That doesn't count the cost of paying people to help them with their admission forms and essays.

U. of Washington is an example, not an exception.

By the reckoning of the Institute of International Education, foreign students in the United States contribute about $21 billion a year to the national economy, including $463 million here in Washington State.

To sum up: Our graduating high school seniors have access to the finest colleges and universities in the world. If they attend their in-state public institutions, they pay a third of what the foreigners (and out-of-state students) are charged. And apparently our K-12 education system is good enough, our students can hold their own in world-class universities. In fact, Asian students often have to learn how to master the art of thinking for themselves after attending the rote learning institutions which prepare them better for standardized tests than for ingenuity and self determination.

What we need to do is figure out a way to convince our best and brightest to go into courses of study which will further the country's intellectual and innovative competitiveness rather than signing up for the new finishing schools. "Finishing schools" used to be places for "young ladies" who wanted to learn how to catch a man. Today, they are MBA programs, which teach students the culture of the business world along with a smattering of real education so they can catch a corporation and join the one percent without benefiting anyone but themselves. The perverse incentives luring students into these program are counter to our national interest. We need fewer university-trained vultures and more genuinely educated adults. And every indication is, they can get their educations right here at home in one of the finest, if not the finest, higher education systems in the world.