On your first point, it's super simple: My point is
that any student who goes to a well known US college
or university is having most of their education paid
for by US citizens via gifts and/or taxes. So, when
a foreign student gets such a US education, it was
mostly paid for by US citizens. Simple.

Why is this important? Because US citizens are
hurting, and (1) the foreign students are taking
educations paid for by US citizens when the children
of those US citizens are struggling to pay their
part of such an education and (2) the foreign students
who stay in the US then are job market competition for
US citizens. Did I mention that US citizens are
hurting?

The people pushing for foreign students to come to the
US are powerful in the US economy and want the foreign
students as STEM graduates for cheap labor. A related
point is often another goal to create an identifiable
lower class for STEM fields where US citizens of
Western European descent are not welcome. I.e., one goal is to create STEM fields as a lower 'caste'. The people
pushing worked through the NSF and the H1B program and
various immigration rules. But these people pushing
were not the tax payers Joe and Mary or usually
the wealthy giving gifts. That is, the US has
a university system paid for by US citizens, and
some powerful people in the US have partly
hijacked that system to their own ends of flooding
the US labor market in STEM fields.

For some years, a major result was that good
US students looked at graduate study in STEM
fields, saw something wrong, turned, walked
out, and went to professional school instead --
law, medicine, business, maybe even agriculture.
That's partly how the US got so many lawyers
and MBAs. So, some of these guys got an
undergraduate major in a STEM field, looked
around, 'got wise', and jumped out for
law, medicine, etc.

Second, for a citation, get the annual reports of
several well known colleges and universities and
see where the money comes from. You will see that
my statement that a student pays for about 1/3rd of the
total is correct. In some cases, a student pays
nothing -- as I recall, Rice long had that policy.
At the wealthy schools, no one is turned away due
to inability to pay. That is, the school decides
whom to accept and then provides financial aid
as needed. For the four year liberal arts college
I went to, the students paid only about 1/3rd.

Go look it up.

Or I'll put it to you this way: Suppose you want
to start a college or university. So, you have
no gifts, endowment, or tax money. "Tax money"?
Sure, all the state colleges and universities
are heavily supported by state taxes, e.g., in
NY, CA, MD, the Big Ten, Arizona, Florida, Tennessee,
Kentucky, Texas, Arkansas, Washington state,
Georgia, e.g., for Georgia Tech, Alabama,
Mississippi, MA, etc. So, you are going to fund your
institution with just tuition.

But you still have to hire professors,
erect buildings, set up a library,
have fountains, athletic facilities,
a student union, a concert hall,
a string quartet series, a student
health center, computing, administration,
etc. And you have to compete for good
students. So, Harvard has maybe $18
billion in endowment and lots of gifts
and the buildings already in place.
Ohio State has a campus in place and is
heavily supported by tax money from
citizens of Ohio and still has gifts.
E.g., they have the Fisher School of
Business. Why? No doubt some guy
Fisher made a big gift. So how will you
compete? Answer: You won't. So,
you don't. So, there are no such
US institutions. Clear enough?

I can believe that most foreign students
in US colleges and universities had to
struggle financially to get through and
guessed that they were paying for all their
education and maybe also leaving a profit
for the school. But the truth is, they
were not paying for all their education;
a larger part was being paid for by US
citizens.

So, why have US institutions long welcomed
foreign students? Well, the institutions
want to see themselves as helping the
world, civilization. They don't see
themselves as just creating proprietary,
protected 'intellectual property' for
the US. But did I mention, US citizens
are hurting. China, South Korea,
Singapore, etc. are booming. Some
parts of India are getting going,
e.g., in steel, autos, electric power,
and more. Pakistan is doing well
exporting textiles, very similar to
what used to be made in the Carolinas
in the US. A lot of this foreign
growth has been seriously helped by
the US opening its markets and
making its educations available to
the world. So, now the real unemployment
rate in the US is about 20%, and
US citizens in STEM fields are hurting.

I'll end with a personal story: I'm
starting a business. Why? One
reason is, I am absolutely, positively,
permanently unemployable at anything
above minimum wage. And I have been
since I was about 45. And I have
an excellent background in STEM
fields: Math SAT over 750 twice.
Math GRE 800. BS with Honors in
Mathematics. Also nearly a second
major, in physics. Master's in
Mathematical Sciences. Ph.D. in
Engineering, really some applied
math. Career in applied math
and computing for business and
US national security. The applied
math and computing saved FedEx
twice, saved it from going out
of business, literally. I've
published in high quality
journals in applied math,
computer science, and artificial
intelligence. I've been a professor
in one of the better MBA programs.
I've taught computer science
at two well known universities.
Still, since age 45 or so, I've
been totally unemployable. I'm
healthy, never been arrested or
charged with any violation of law
beyond minor traffic violations,
etc. Totally unemployable.
Why? A major reason is that
too many of the STEM jobs went to
people in an identifiable,
exploited lower class via
the actions of the NSF and the
H1B program. But, I still have
a good background in pure and
applied math, a lot in science,
engineering, computing, technology,
(right, all four STEM fields), and
business. Did I mention I'm
100% unemployable?

When I got to 45, it was finally
about time to buy a house.
Couldn't afford it. So, never
bought a house. My wife died
after a long illness, and I wanted
to get married again; couldn't
afford it; didn't do it. I'll
spare you the rest of the details.

And I know fantastically talented,
beautifully trained Ph.D. pure and
applied mathematician US citizens with great
backgrounds in computing and business
who are in the same situation.

So, when I hear that the US has
a shortage of expert STEM labor,
I know that I'm hearing a flim-flam,
fraud scam.

Uh, for a comparison, early in my
career, the company I was working
for messed up, and I went looking
for a job. In two weeks I sent
some resume copies, went on seven
interviews, and got five offers,
all at more than I had been making.
My wife was pursuing her Ph.D.,
and we were saving money rapidly.
Really, it was such career successes
that started the H1B program and
the NSF interventions. Again,
once STEM labor is about ready to
buy a house, the powers that be
get scared and act to destroy the
careers of US citizens in STEM
fields.

For me this fight is just ancient
history: If my business works, then
I will do well.

But I would not recommend that anyone
try to have a career as an employee
in a STEM field in the US because that
field has a 'managed' labor supply,
managed in a clumsy way that too easily
can destroy careers.

Some immigrants to the US have figured
this out: I know two guys from Turkey.
One is terrific at hardware computer
architecture, e.g., VLIW. The other
started a plant nursery. The guy with
the nursery is doing better. Why?
The plant nursery business is not
of interest to the H1B or NSF
manipulations.

My business makes heavy use of computing,
and there is some crucial core 'secret
sauce' that makes crucial use of my
Ph.D. and research abilities. But
that is rare, so rare the US
information technology venture capital
community has no idea how to
take it. Okay by me. It appears
I can bootstrap my business, and
venture capital will be slow to
fund competitors. And nearly
no one with my math background
wants to do an information technology
startup.

Still, if go into a STEM field,
f'get about a career as a non-academic
salaried employee.

Government actions tend to be clumsy,
and often destroy what they seek to
help. Well, the H1B and NSF efforts
have essentially destroyed STEM
careers in the US. Instead, start
a lawn mowing service, a plant nursery,
a red sauce Italian restaurant, etc.