The US is hosting 974,926 foreign graduate students. Roughly 50% of these students are pursuing education in mathematics, science, engineering, and technology subjects. Kalpesh Kapadiam, who serves as the CEO of SelfScore, believes that these are the students creating a solid source of talent for employment in the American technology industry.
A report published by the National Foundation for American Policy made a shocking finding that about 25% of the 87 billion-dollar American startup firms had one or more founders who first entered the country as a foreign student.
Foreign students: asset to the tech sector
However, people should not assume that foreign students are 100% beneficial to the American education system. They are an asset to the tech sector as well as the private and public learning institutions. However, an analysis article published by the Wall Street Journal reported that international students have the potential to disrupt academic integrity of the American schools by engaging in academic dishonesty.
The analysis conducted by the Wall Street Journal requested for information from 50 public American universities that have high enrolment of international students. The 14 institutions that provided complete records had cheating reports that were between 2-8 times more for the foreign students compared to the domestic students.
The universities refrain from punishing the international students for academic dishonesty because they need their money to subsidize the tuition costs for domestic learners. Beth Mitchneck is a professor at the University of Arizona and, hence, has insight into the issue. She told the Wall Street Journal that universities cannot afford to issue punitive measures on foreign students who cheat because the institutions may lose a lot of finances eventually.
