Research Blog #3: How Privatization Connects to My Topic

Privatization connects to my topic because the trend of enrolling more and more international students contributes substantially to the increase of college tuition in the US. This idea is discussed in many ways in the readings such as “Understanding privatization.” In this reading "The Chinese Mother;s American Dream", the author Karin Fischer argues "American colleges offer relatively little financial assistance to international undergraduates, which is where the real growth from China has been. Indeed, though many institutions are loath to admit it, overseas recruitment has been a budgetary bright spot during and after the recession. Chinese students’ ability to pay is part of their appeal" (Fischer 7). The observation reflects that there is a cause-and-effect relationship between China's booming economy and the growing admission rates of Chinese students into American colleges. International students are willing to contribute twice the tuition in order to have the opportunity to be educated in American colleges since Chinese parents believe that the Return on Investment is incalculable if their children can earn a bachelors degree in the US. Therefore, the trend tends to drive up the overall cost of attending colleges especially when state funding drops simultaneously. Not only do the cost of textbooks increases, but universities also privatize services (hiring part-time professors, outsourcing accounting and dining services, etc.), which add more miscellaneous fees to tuition. Consequently, both American students and international students undertake more financial pressure and concern more about graduation. The worries of being exploited the education privileges thus adversely affect their academic performance as well as psychological health. I would like to gather more information of how the growing tuition cost affect students' as individuals because I believe that students from affluent families must experience differently from those who take students loans to attend colleges. I would assume that admitting international students implicitly reinforces the prevalence of privatizing American's public higher education and will continuously explore the issue on a more sophisticated level.