Will short term economic gains have long term consequences?

Russ Steele

We have family in-laws living in Davis who have had a long term relationship with UC Davis, having been staff members for years. At our Easter Brunch they were explaining that fewer California’s would be attending UC Davis in the future, as the University plans to enroll more international students, because they bring in more money to the cash strapped school. The University will be giving these non-California students preference when applying to the school.  Why? Simple economics!

Here is one look at the economics of International Students by the University of California Berkeley Center for Studies of Higher Education. The annual revenue from International students is about $18 Billion with CA's top 20 schools enrolling International Students capturing over $1.7 Billion of that revenue stream.  Davis is currently 11th out of the top 20 in international enrollment. According to my contacts the University is planning to move up that ladder by enrolling more wealthy international students in future years. That will mean few slots for California students.

Much of California economic entrepreneurial power has  come from it’s extraordinary collection of top Universities. Many of those Universities were created and nurtured with California Taxpayers dollars. Now, rather than educate the children of those taxpayers, the University administration is going to focus on recruiting wealthy International students who will bring in more money.  While this may be good short term strategy, I wonder what the long term consequences will be, when those students return to their home counties with a high quality California education, while our native students, who were unable to attend the very best schools now have to compete with those International students that attended California’s finest.

Exit question:  Are we creating long term economic consequences for ourselves by sell our best educational products to wealthy International students, while denying our native borne students the best education?  Your thoughts are most welcome.