By Steve Levy
Fifteen years ago, I wrote about the dangerous trend of our universities admitting an enormous number of foreigners to take spots in our institutions of higher learning. I especially warned about how our state universities were reserving over 20% of their coveted spots to those who lived outside the U.S.
The reason was obvious: universities loved the higher tuition they were garnering from these non-citizens. But it was hard to justify at state schools since we are being taxed to support these public colleges to create affordable, high-quality educational opportunities for our New York residents.
Only recently did the media pick up on this dangerous trend, especially as we saw so many foreign students coming here who hated America and engaged in protests criticizing our nation.
But now, former tennis star Patrick McEnroe is raising the alarm on another university scandal involving foreigners — and that’s in the athletic programs.
Administrations and coaches are aggressively recruiting mature adults to come to our universities and play college sports. They’re basically recruiting adult professionals to take spots on our college teams, thereby crowding out our American-born students. It is so bad in tennis that, of the approximately 25 tennis players McEnroe saw at a recent college match, only three were Americans.
College sports has become a big-money venture. Coaches are pressured to win, while colleges want the branding that goes along with high-caliber sports teams. So, they’re willing to crowd out the average student-athlete who will never be a professional, but just wants to experience the joys of college athletics, or possibly garner a scholarship
It’s time for our elected leaders to place a cap on these foreign athletes bumping out our local students.