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20 September 2024

Educate Americans First

Jay P. Greene

As the number of foreign students at our selective universities exceeds a third of total enrollment, it is important to remember the maxim of the 16th-century physician Paracelsus: “Sola dosis facit venenum.” The dose makes the poison.

From the end of World War II to 1977, the percentage of U.S. university enrollment from abroad never exceeded 2%. With this modest level of foreign enrollment, international students offered significant benefits. They strengthened the education of American students by contributing talent, experiences, and ideas from around the world to the learning environment.

Foreign students also added financial resources to U.S. universities because they tended to pay full tuition and sometimes brought with them large donations from wealthy foreign governments or families. In the context of the Cold War struggle between the Soviet Union and the West, foreign students who learned about the American political system and its values could bring ideas about individual liberty and representative democracy back to their home countries.

After 1977, foreign enrollment at U.S. universities crept higher, slowly at first, before it dramatically skyrocketed over the last two decades. Nationwide, the percentage of international students on college campuses has now nearly tripled since 1977. At our leading universities, the percentage of students from abroad has reached critical mass, averaging about a third but sometimes approaching half of total enrollments.

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