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Grad School Transformation

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Clarissa

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The situation at my university’s grad school is this. State funding has collapsed. Inflation has eaten into whatever is left. Nobody gets hired to substitute people who retire or leave. Equipment that breaks down isn’t fixed. We can no longer offer teaching assistantships. Classrooms are crammed full. Course offerings are pared down to the bare minimum.

As a result of all this, grad school applications from domestic students drop off a cliff. To make up admission numbers – and it’s all about numbers, of course – we start admitting foreign applicants whose English is at the level of my German and other qualifications are non-existent. The reason they apply is because they want to immigrate.

This is a convenient scam. Turn graduate programs in schools like mine into transportation hubs for humans and create yet another bypass for the immigration system.

20 responses to “Grad School Transformation”

  1. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    “yet another bypass for the immigration”

    I would like it soooo much if either party could come up with some plan that isn’t glorified and institutionalized human trafficking….

    I really would….

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply
    1. Avi Avatar
      Avi

      Nobody seems to mention that illegal immigration on this scale is only possible thanks to digital technology. That is why it is seeming unstoppable, unless higher interests intervene. I don’t see this happening, at least not in the foreseeable future.

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    2. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Right or left, they are always, invariably, identically pro-mass migration. This is one issue where you can’t achieve anything electorally.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
    3. Post Alley Crackpot Avatar
      Post Alley Crackpot

      There’s a nearly equivalent pipeline in Japan.

      But there are some people who are not going to like that bubble being burst.

      And it can go at least two ways: how that chibi cuteness anime vision is a monstrous lie that hides worker abuse as well as how a small group of “influencers” gets primarily Westerners to do the jobs that Japanese Boomer-era need to have done so they may enjoy their state socialist retirements.

      Those are not even the worst.

      So a third way: look into what “black company” means in Japan.

      It’s like what Cassetteboy made fun of David Cameron: they’ve got the bravery to bring back slavery.

      Hang around an izakaya late nights, get sauced, listen to the real stories of Tokyo, like how artists get utterly fucked by some of the crap here.

      Shōwa era Japan it is not.

      But don’t worry, it can get worse once “Nochu” has to fire sale its assets when the Japanmegabank whale can’t get either the US or Japan to bail it out.

      That’s what they want instead of a fire sale, which is why they announced their intentions in the first place.

      Otherwise, the Nikkei probably would have eaten it by Friday.

      Yes, this Friday.

      Current events are happening now.

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  2. Avatar
    Anonymous

    At least, unlike asylum seeking, this mandates that you actually graduate from the school. We want skill-based immigration, don’t we?

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      We graduate everybody who breathes. We’ve got no standards because standards mean discrimination. The new dogma is that the only reason why a non-white student fails a course is if the professor is racist. Would you want to be tarred as a racist at work? Or would you prefer just to give everybody passing grades and spare yourself the trouble?

      Liked by 2 people

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      1. Avatar
        Anonymous

        Hmm, strongly disagree. I could tell you my experience teaching undergrads/graduates but that will reveal too much about my identity, so we’ll leave that out. But it’s not true that professors are deemed racist *just because* a coloured student fails under them. This is a big lie, and you know it. Not in that school of yours. And certainly not in any American university I’ve worked in.

        But the point still remains that graduating from grad school is not that easy. First, it takes at least 18 months, which is enough time to see and understand some parts of American culture. Certainly longer than most asylum seekers at the porous border. Second, you can’t graduate without being able to speak and write English (which is a requirement most rightwingers ask for). And third, again, even when not perfect, it’s at least a skill-based path to immigration that can solve America’s low birth rate and struggling demographics. The fact that you imagine that ONLY non-white people able to benefit from this green card access tells more about you than you think.

        There are hundreds of students from Ukraine, Russia, Israel/Palestine, Egypt, Australia, South Africa, Ghana, Iceland, France, etc who can get access to the American labour market after two years of study. Again, if this bothers you, just because their first language isn’t English, what are you telling us about yourself?

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  3. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    “this mandates that you actually graduate from the school”

    Define ‘school’… the UK is full of on-internet-and-paper-only bogus colleges to help facilitate irregular immigration.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogus_colleges_in_the_United_Kingdom

    Why expanding this model makes sense is not very clear….

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    1. Avatar
      Anonymous

      Trump obviously means graduate school, with physical classes. Hence the need for green card. The US birth rate is declining, like most Western countries, and this policy, if it ever becomes law, seeks to use a skill-based system to increase the US population and economic base. Besides emotion, no one here has said why this is a bad thing.

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      1. cliff arroyo Avatar
        cliff arroyo

        “obviously means”

        Never trust what a policy proposal “obviously means”….

        “no one here has said why this is a bad thing”

        Besides the degradation of the educational process all large-scale immigration is about scamming the labor market and labor discipline.

        “US birth rate is declining, like most Western countries”

        The answer is for the US to turn people into human cuckoos in the countries that spent time and money and resources to raise and educate them only for the US to gain the benefits of their labor?

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      2. Clarissa Avatar
        Clarissa

        I explained in detail why it’s a bad thing. We accept people who are barely literate – not an exaggeration – because we need to drive “numbers.”

        Gosh, people don’t have the foggiest how bad things have gotten. Graduate schools at schools like mine (and we are the overwhelming majority) have been destroyed as schools. Eviscerated. Demolished. We are driven to accept people who can’t read a simple sentence aloud. People who never read a book. People who don’t know it’s “they are” and not “they is” in the only language they speak.

        You don’t know anything and deal with the world through empty talking points. Skill-based, Jesus. What is this, 1992? What skill?

        Liked by 2 people

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        1. Avatar
          Anonymous

          Not speaking English as a first language isn’t equal to being illiterate. I suppose you know that, but sometimes it’s good to check.

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          1. el Avatar
            el

            Clarissa specifically mentioned native English speakers:

            “People who don’t know it’s “they are” and not “they is” in the only language they speak.”

            Besides, if one applies to American university, one is supposed to know English sufficiently to “read a simple sentence aloud”. If not, how will those people function as university students?

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            1. Clarissa Avatar
              Clarissa

              Right now, this is a financial scam but we are about to turn it into an immigration scam. It’s a disaster in the making.

              Liked by 1 person

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              1. Avatar
                Anonymous

                A good thing Trump won’t win then?

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              2. Clarissa Avatar
                Clarissa

                Biden is just as much into open borders. They are similar in everything, so there’s no real choice.

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          2. Avatar
            Anonymous

            It is possible to be illiterate in two languages.

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      3. Avi Avatar
        Avi

        “Trump obviously means graduate school”

        I don’t know where you get that from.

        This is the news report:

        “What I want to do and what I will do is you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically as part of your diploma a green card to be able to stay in this country, and that includes junior colleges too”

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  4. TomW Avatar
    TomW

    I had very similar thoughts when I heard about this proposal. Cliff mentioned the situation in the UK, and I have heard stories about dodgy universities in Canada that bring in thousands and thousands of international students with low qualifications every year. Basically allowing those with money to bypass the regular immigration system.

    Clarissa, you are absolutely correct that low-prestige and financially struggling universities would wind up admitting everyone who applies and giving degrees to anyone who just shows up. And there is ENORMOUS demand for this. Grad programs at my university get all sorts of strange emails from students in poor countries who are desperate to come here, but don’t seem to understand the standard application process.

    Liked by 2 people

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    1. Clarissa Avatar
      Clarissa

      Yep. The moment I announced my GAship for a Spanish tutoring position, I started receiving large numbers of applications from people in Ghana and Kenya that my university admitted “to drive numbers” without ever explaining to these people how everything works. The cover letters addressed “Dear Hiring Manager of This Unit” and were very clearly written by AI.

      “To drive numbers” is the explanation we were given by the administration for this phenomenon. I don’t understand why people try to argue with me about this when I’m observing the phenomenon unfold.

      Also, this is a Trump proposal. I thought there would be a bit more openness to criticizing it given the source.

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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