# US Colleges expel 8,000 Chinese students

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-colleges-expel-8-000-chinese-students/721322>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [June 1, 2015, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-colleges-expel-8-000-chinese-students/721322 "2015-06-01T09:29:31Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 8\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\
**Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-colleges-expel-8-000-chinese-students/721322/21 "2015-06-02T04:21:11Z")

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> [@Sir\_T-Cups](#):
>
> That article is interesting to me because my college was just GIVING degrees to Chinese students. They couldn’t speak any English, much less write and present in it, had no idea what was going on, never went to meetings, and walked out with a Master’s degree.

That’s what my Scottish university did (2011) and what some Spanish universities are doing (the Catalans recently announced that foreign students will not be required to pass the University Entrance Exam), but not only to Chinese - to anybody who is willing to pay the “foreign” rates.

It’s a problem for the serious students, who find that the level of the classes is brought down sharply by that fraction of the class who can’t follow any explanations.

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**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\
**Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-colleges-expel-8-000-chinese-students/721322/22 "2015-06-02T04:50:11Z")

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> [@CraterLayer](#):
>
> Back in 1980 I worked in an office in a titanium factory, and there was a young Chinese metallurgist who also worked there. One day, on breaktime, one of the foreman mentioned how the Chinese in America are excelling in everything, and asked David why the Chinese are so smart. David’s simple answer: “only the smart ones are able to get out and come here”.

According to the articles I’m reading is the difference now is that as Chinese families get more money, they send their kids to an American college whether they are prepared to learn or not.

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**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\
**Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-colleges-expel-8-000-chinese-students/721322/23 "2015-06-02T04:51:50Z")

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> [@trupa](#):
>
> Oh? Didn’t know.
> 
> Any article you can point me to where I can learn more? What are the points of friction?

It was in a discussion about this topic on another site so not really an article.

Interesting. I find better information often in the articles discussion than the actual article.

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**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\
**Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-colleges-expel-8-000-chinese-students/721322/24 "2015-06-02T04:54:39Z")

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While I’ve had other students cheat or not do the work, and while I’ve had plenty of fine Chinese students, I had a cluster of problems recently.

I had to physically take a phone away from a Chinese student. She refused to pay attention in class. When she wouldn’t do the role playing activities that are required by the state for this class, and returned to her phone when I returned it, I sent her out of the room and told her to withdraw or fail.

In the same class, 3 Chinese students cheated on a test (very evident by comparing strange language choices). They all denied it. Two eventually copped to it (and one of those revealed that this was a second conduct offense for the same problem at that point). They weren’t expelled, but they will be if they keep it up.

I and the director of the program in which the class was offered also wrote a letter of concern to administration about the school’s failure to adequately orient and support international students.

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**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\
**Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-colleges-expel-8-000-chinese-students/721322/25 "2015-06-02T04:54:46Z")

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> [@simple\_homer](#):
>
> I have been teaching at a university in China for the past 6 years.  
> .

How bad is bribery there?

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**Author:** ![simple\_homer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@simple\_homer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simple_homer)\
**Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-colleges-expel-8-000-chinese-students/721322/26 "2015-06-02T05:36:52Z")

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> [@Urbanredneck](#):
>
> How bad is bribery there?

Many of the Chinese teachers buy their jobs or their promotions.

Most Chinese students have very few choices in their college or their major.  
It is typically decided for them based upon their entrance examinations.  
So, either you know the right people, or you pay a bribe, to be able to choose your college or your major.

Foreign teachers typically do not need to bribe anyone, and typically do not get offered any bribes.

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**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\
**Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-colleges-expel-8-000-chinese-students/721322/27 "2015-06-02T10:01:32Z")

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> [@simple\_homer](#):
>
> Many of the Chinese teachers buy their jobs or their promotions.
> 
> Most Chinese students have very few choices in their college or their major.  
> It is typically decided for them based upon their entrance examinations.  
> So, either you know the right people, or you pay a bribe, to be able to choose your college or your major.
> 
> Foreign teachers typically do not need to bribe anyone, and typically do not get offered any bribes.

Now that is a messed up system.

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**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\
**Post date:** [June 2, 2015, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-colleges-expel-8-000-chinese-students/721322/28 "2015-06-02T13:46:16Z")

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> [@trupa](#):
>
> When there wasn’t, the text they handed in was most always some patchwork quilt of parts of textbooks pasted together, with no quotes or references. Try as we might, we could not ge them to see why this was not acceptable.
> 
> 4 out of 5 times, their level of function in English was not adequate for a universtiy degree. We could not understand how they got in.

I’d forgotten about the blatant plagiarism, as I typically just ignored what they wrote for their sections of the group projects, and rewrote it myself. But they did exactly what you said- they’d find a set of textbook sections that described the thing, and cobble them together into a semi-coherent whole, without ANY semblance of citations or anything even remotely resembling them.

That’s why I rewrote it all; I didn’t want to have any truck with the idea of academic dishonesty, and it was ultimately easier and better to just shitcan their work and do it myself than to try to explain why they were wrong, have them do it over, and hope to God that it was actually decent. I know it was fairly condescending, but considering that I was paying for the class, I didn’t care in the least bit.

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