Cover Letter

Sharp increase in number of foreign students in University of California (UC) system and educational institutions nationwide; Reasons, implications, and possible solutions

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Some of the videos might be blurry for some time in the beginning.

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Email: markd7606@gmail.com  


Subject: Systemic elimination of  American Students from STEM Majors

I am writing this letter to bring your attention to the increasing trend of foreign students being accepted over US citizens and lawful permanent residents in the University of California system in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) Majors and more and more (STEM) jobs being awarded to non- American citizens. It is a nationwide phenomenon, same problem in universities in other states also.  

I am a very active member volunteer at my son’s middle/high schools and became aware of this trend through fellow parents who had older kids going through the college admissions process. I have spent around 700 plus hours of my time in researching this subject, creating 29 blogposts and posting 36 videos on you tube.  

 I discovered through further research that it has become more difficult for US citizens and lawful permanent residents living in California to get admission in University of California system especially in the STEM majors. Possibility of getting higher paying jobs for legal US residents is going down due to this phenomenon. Percentage of foreigners at graduate level is much higher when compared to same percentage at undergraduate level due to other reasons but we primarily focused on undergraduate level in this study.

Major factors are:

1.     Foreign students are willing to pay the highest tuition costs in the beginning but eventually they are able to find work which reduces their costs.   

2.     Budget cuts and increase in administrative, pension, and healthcare costs forced UC’s to raise cash in other ways.

3.     Extension of OPT – optional practical training program (unlimited OPT Visa spots for STEM majors) for STEM majors to 3 years from one year and granting OPT after every degree such as AA, BS, MS, PhD, which resulted in foreign students coming here at much younger age and taking large percentage of STEM spots at undergraduate levels. Percentage of foreign students at graduate level in STEM majors is astronomically high. It is very easy to get a job on OPT due to lower wages being offered to OPT candidates, prevalence of gig economy and getting paid cash, lack of license requirement in many professions etc., Expansion of the list of majors or study programs such as business, accounting etc., which can qualify as STEM major thus making more students eligible for OPT. Imagine foreign student coming here at the age of 18 and receiving three years of OPT after every degree, it assures their stay for 15-20 years.

4.     Fraud in foreign credentials being submitted to universities and lack of proper screening methods for foreign education credentials at UC’s and other educational institutes

5.     Exponential growth of educational consultancy businesses and easy availability of higher education loans in Asian countries are resulting in massive fraud in college admissions process such as forging transcripts, credentials, references, resumes, applications, application essays etc., Indian educational consulting and tutoring is a 45 billion industry in relatively poor country such as India and it is much bigger industry in China.  Our universities have extremely limited source resources devoted to screening of applicants.  

6.     Number of engineering colleges in certain countries like India has grown 100 times over last 25 years resulting in abundance of students who are willing to get out of India with any possible way. Employability of Indian educated engineers is less than 7% in India.  Other countries are exploiting our weaknesses to send more students here. Cost of education also went up in India and other countries which led students to find all possible ways to get out of there. 

7.     Parents from Countries such as China, Korea and other countries are dropping their kids in CA with local guardians at much younger age and these kids are ultimately going to colleges here, many of these receive free K-12 education here.  

8.     Lack of guidance and even misguidance by high school and college counselors to high school students in CA. Double standards while screening domestic students versus foreign students for admission into UC system.

9.     School Districts do not check the residency status frequently enough which results in enormous additional burden for school districts as people abuse the free K-12 education system.

10.   Workers on H1-B, F-1, and OPT program and many other types of visa categories can bring their spouses along with them and give birth to US citizens which ultimately will be eligible for free education and many other benefits through our school system. Much older students have started coming to US for higher education due to OPT extensions and awarding multiple OPT terms basically after every degree, have children in US so children can sponsor their parents later. 

11.  Illegal immigrants through DACA program qualifying as California resident even though they are not US citizens nor lawful permanent residents. UC’s are publishing misleading statistics, percentage of US Citizens and lawful permanent residents is much lower, all students classified in CA residents category are not US Citizens and lawful permanent residents.

12.  Illegal immigrants, tourists, and people on many other visa categories intentionally arriving in the US for having their children born here to take advantage of US citizenship by birth privilege and get many other benefits such as free K-12 education.  

There are many more factors increasing the foreign students over Americans but this is being kept brief. Other factors responsible for much higher percentage of foreign students at graduate level are shorter waiting period to get permanent residency after PhD, professors using students as cheaper research workers, dissecting one research publication in to multiple, professors need to publish papers in order to get their tenure, ethnic preference of students etc.,
Students graduating from our CA high schools are much more academically ready for college; tuition fees for domestic students have gone up yet the odds of securing a spot in good majors such as STEM are decreasing every year.


As a concerned parent and US citizen, I am requesting following solutions;

1.     We need to institute proper screening checks prior to granting admissions to foreigners to cut back on fraud in college application process.

2.     Eliminate double standards in college admissions, and stop discrimination against domestic students.

3.     Institute proper counselling and guidance procedures at our educational institutes,

4.     Need to adjust seats in various disciplines as per the job market trends, we cannot provide subsidized education for majors which might only have hobby value.

5.     Strengthen our community college education system to provide opportunities for vocational education. Vocational education opportunities are very limited.  

6.     Provide opportunities of higher education to those who are legally eligible to work in this country.

7.     Many countries are benefitting with our extensive research budget, we are educating foreign students who might be selling out intellectual property to other nations. We need to spend money wisely.

8.     Need better screening methods before granting immigrant visas or any other types of visas.

9.     Get rid of birth citizenship as this is the biggest loophole which people on many visa categories exploit to get resources from this country.

10.  Encourage additional home schooling and self-learning opportunities for high school students who wish to graduate with STEM specializations.

11.  We need to check the residency requirements in our K-12 schools every year to ensure students receiving free education and other benefits do qualify by law for those benefits. 

Our laws should be amended for only allowing US citizenship to those children born to at least one parent who is already a US citizen, restricting foreign student admissions back to pre-2008 levels, and phasing out the DACA program.  These are my suggestions to place American citizens as first choice rather than second during University of California admissions as well as during job placement. 

I appreciate your response on this issue, or if you have any better methods for us to do outreach or solutions, I would appreciate knowing what they are.

Sincerely,
Mark