Latest news with #Brandeis
Qatar Tribune
3 days ago
- Business
- Qatar Tribune
US universities still a valuable investment for Chinese families
Agencies Jason Lin of Xiamen surprised his mother this year by applying to 10 undergraduate schools in the United States and receiving a US$15,000 annual scholarship from Brandeis University near Boston. There, he intends to earn a master's degree in economics over the next five years. But to his mother, it's like he's venturing into the wild, compounding the anxiety parents often feel when their adult children leave the nest. She's afraid of 'instability' in the US. And Lin, 19, has concerns that even a traffic ticket could get him deported. But he weighed the pros and cons, laid it all on the table for his mother, and decided on Brandeis in time for the coming fall semester. Despite a sharp increase in US-China tensions this year, Chinese students such as Lin are still pursuing American higher education much as they have in the past, but they are being more selective than before, according to applicants and university officials. 'Basically, the thought of going to the States came to me when I was in ninth grade,' Lin explained. He expects more academic freedom in the US than in other countries and recalls the 'vibe' in New York when he visited as a tourist. Well-known schools, highly ranked programmes associated with the majors of students' choices, and flexible financial aid packages have become bigger if the university campus is located in a relatively safe American city, it gets bonus points in the selection process among Chinese applicants. 'The US does have the pre-eminent global research universities, for now at least,' said Rory Truex, an assistant professor with Princeton University's Department of Politics. 'And many students are willing to take the risks to get access to that opportunity.' Some public and private universities across the US are expecting the number of students from China during the 2025-2026 term to be comparable to enrolment figures over the past five years. The University of New Mexico, a public school specialising in STEM and health-related disciplines, has 89 Chinese students on campus and expects 20 more this autumn, putting the total higher than at the same time last year or in 2023, according to campus communications director Steven Carr. The university welcomed 21 new Chinese students last autumn, and 16 at the start of the 2023 academic nationals appreciate that the school has affordable tuition; offers scholarships for undergraduates and graduate students; and features hands-on learning opportunities in graduate programmes, Carr said. He said the campus can sometimes offer 'resources tailored to international students'. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in May that the United States would start 'aggressively' revoking visas issued to Chinese students and would 'enhance scrutiny' of new applications. The administration of US President Donald Trump was on track after its first 100 days to deport about half a million people this year, according to the Migration Policy Institute think tank. Singapore has been tipped to attract more Chinese students due to perceived instability in the US. In June, Trump announced that the US would indeed allow Chinese students into American universities, as part of a wider deal with China. However, many students and their parents were already on high alert over reports of students being denied visas, being detained at immigration checkpoints, or being shown hostility in America amid bilateral spats over trade and competing geopolitical ambitions. A pivotal moment came in May, when the Department of Homeland Security took steps to restrict the entry of new international students and considered revoking existing visas for current Harvard students, citing national security. But a federal judge blocked the government's move to bar foreign students and scholars from entering the US to study or work at Harvard, and the Ivy League school made that clear on its website. The University of California, San Francisco, admitted eight students from abroad for the upcoming academic year to its nationally ranked pharmacy graduate school, and five were Chinese nationals. One more was admitted from China but could not get a US visa. Last year, just four out of the School of Pharmacy's 127 students were from other countries. Applications from China, a perennial chief source of applicants, have shown no sign of slowing, said the school's admissions director, Joel Gonzalez. 'For the most part … when you look at the number of international students, probably the majority of them are going to be from China,' Gonzales said at his office in a tower of classrooms and university-run medical wards up the hill from San Francisco's Golden Gate Park and a city bus ride from Chinatown. Reasons for their applications 'could be the diversity of San Francisco versus somewhere in the [US] Midwest that might not be as inviting to a student in China', he said. 'And we're the top-ranked programme in California, so I can't help but think that those variables come into play.'It was another well-ranked programme, Human Computer Interaction, that drew Zhou Yubo to the University of Michigan for his graduate studies in August. Now he is just waiting to see whether he gets the necessary student visa, having already waited more than six weeks. The 22-year-old, with a tech-related undergraduate degree and two previous stays in the US, said he believed the campus in Ann Arbor would be 'a good place to study hard', due to what he sees as a lack of entertainment options compared with other university towns. Personal careers are now more important to US-bound Chinese students than visa issues or geopolitical pressures, said Perry Link, a comparative literature-Chinese professor at the University of California, Riverside. 'The graduate students, who are mostly in STEM fields, are interested in joining the international quest to advance scientific learning in universities or companies in the US,' Link said. 'Undergraduates are usually full-tuition-paying students from wealthy or fairly wealthy backgrounds in China,' he said. 'A lot of them study business or accounting and are looking for careers in the US or in family-affiliated firms back in China. They like to position themselves to do well in both systems – Chinese and American.' Another Ivy League school, Cornell University, has similarly found little change this year from last, despite some Chinese students having a little trouble getting visas, said Wendy Wolford, vice-provost for international affairs. Cornell lets students without visas start their studies at one of Cornell's three 'top' partner schools in other countries, she said. The California State University campus in the inland college town of Chico counts Chinese nationals as 3.5 per cent of the international student body, public relations director Andrew Staples said. The relatively small, crime-free city of 101,000 people is a selling point, he added. Students from second- and third-tier Chinese cities may go for the state school's relatively low tuition and living costs, compared with schools in bigger American urban areas, Staples said. 'Chico's setting as a university town offers an accessible and immersive American college experience that appeals to students and families alike,' he said.
The Hill
16-07-2025
- Politics
- The Hill
Can Ketanji Brown Jackson save the Supreme Court from itself?
The supremely partisan Supreme Court is deeply divided. The justices pretend that their divisions are intellectual, not personal, but we know that their deep ideological divisions can often disguise personal animus. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Louis D. Brandeis to the Supreme Court, making him the first Jewish justice. Brandeis had no prior judicial experience but was known as the 'people's lawyer' for his championing of individual liberties — a right to privacy, free speech and social justice. The Economist once called him 'a Robin Hood of the law.' Leading lawyers and elected officials opposed the Brandeis nomination. The American Bar Association and such luminaries as former President William Howard Taft, Elihu Root and Henry Cabot Lodge lined up against him. Brandeis ascended to the conservative Supreme Court after a four-month Senate confirmation hearing — the first time such a hearing was held. After he took the bench, his colleague, Justice James McReynolds of Tennessee, a hardened antisemite, would turn his back and refuse to speak with Brandeis as he entered the conference room. Brandeis needed time to find his place. 'So extraordinary an intellect as Brandeis said it took him four or five years to feel that he understood the jurisprudential problems of the court,' Justice Felix Frankfurter later wrote of him. Brandeis often crafted trenchant dissenting opinions, some of which later became the basis for landmark judgments of the court's majority. In many of his famous dissents, he was joined by the iconic Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. His opinions were some of the greatest legal defenses of free speech and the right to privacy ever written. Unlike Brandeis, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, appointed by Biden in 2022, has not waited 'four or five years' to become 'a Robin Hood of the law.' But the parallels with Brandeis are striking. Jackson is the first Black woman to serve on the court and, like Brandeis, she has become the great dissenter, sometimes siding with Justices Sonia Sotomayor or Elena Kagan and sometimes standing alone. Jackson has erupted volcanically, writing eloquently to speak her heart and mind in advocacy for human rights or against the steady accretion of executive power. And she has not been shy about accusing her right-wing colleagues of enabling President Trump as he slip-slides the country towards a dangerous autocracy. Also, like Brandeis, she has been the target of personal attacks coming from conservatives on and off the bench. On the Supreme Court's 'shadow docket,' where Trump this term won 19 of the 21 cases the court considered, Jackson dissented. In strong language, she criticized the majority opinion in the birthright citizenship case, which sharply limited the power of district court judges to block presidential orders nationwide, even if they are flagrantly unconstitutional. She called it 'an existential threat to the rule of law' that created 'a zone of lawlessness within which the executive has the prerogative to take or leave the law as it wishes.' Her slashing critiques have provoked her colleagues' rancor, culminating in gratuitous rebuke from Justice Amy Coney Barrett, which did not lack dismissiveness or condescension. Barrett scolded Jackson as though she were an eight-year-old schoolgirl in a classroom for abandoning her 'oath to follow the law.' 'Justice Jackson would do well to heed her own admonition,' she chided. ''Everyone from the president on down is bound by law.' That goes for judges too.' Justice Barrett added: 'Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.' And: 'We will not dwell on Justice Jackson's argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries' worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself.' In the staid world of the federal judiciary, it doesn't get any closer or more personal than this. Trump's supporters were delighted by Barrett's criticism of Jackson. 'Sometimes feeling the heat helps people see the light,' Mike Davis, a right-wing legal activist allied with the Trump administration, told NBC News. Duke law professor Marin K. Levy said Jackson 'is trying to raise the alarm. Whether she is writing for the public or a future court, she is making a larger point about what she sees as not just the errors of the majority's position but the dangers of it as well.' Perhaps one day Jackson's views, like those of Brandeis, will become the law. Jackson has also been critical of the Supreme Court's use of the shadow docket — an increasingly expedient procedural device for the justices to deliver bargain-basement endorsements of Trump's agenda without explanation or legal rhyme or reason. 'This fly-by-night approach to the work of the Supreme Court is not only misguided,' Jackson wrote. 'It is also dangerous.' Last week, the court handed down a significant (if temporary) decision allowing Trump to move forward with firing thousands of federal workers. Jackson registered a solo dissent, writing, 'In my view, this decision is not only truly unfortunate but also hubristic and senseless.' What Jackson criticizes has consequences in the real world. The court's repeated interventions in favor of Trump enable obvious illegality by the executive branch for a while, or possibly forever, as Trump continues to game the system. That it is only temporary is no answer. Over one million individuals may be losing their previous immigration status; countless migrants are being removed to third countries; federal employees are being fired wholesale, without congressional approval; statutorily created agencies are being downsized into insignificance; grants for scientific research have been throttled. And just wait for what will happen to law firms and universities. Jackson may not be 'so extraordinary an intellect as Brandeis,' but she is surely as principled. And like Brandeis, she is reviled on the right as Cassius was reviled by Julius Caesar: 'He thinks too much; such men are dangerous.' Conversations with Jim Zirin.
Boston Globe
04-05-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
The class of 2025 faces a difficult job search amid federal hiring shutdowns, funding cuts
'One day, everything seemed very clear,' Maynard said. 'It feels like I blinked, and then I opened my eyes again, and that was all gone.' Advertisement Maynard is unsure what comes next. The 26-year-old Brighton resident said she planned to move to Washington DC, but now she might stay in the Boston area. She may work at Brandeis over the summer, or at a local store after her wedding in June. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up A worker at the Ronald Reagan building in downtown Washington waited for a bus at the end of the work day in front of the blocked and shuttered entrance to the US Agency for International Development (USAID) office in the building on March 18. ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images It's not just students with their eye on federal employment whose plans are being disrupted. Tariffs and anticipation of higher costs are causing some companies to slow hiring. Meanwhile, research funding cuts and crackdowns on higher education are changing the calculus on whether to pursue graduate school. Hiring overall has been more selective this year, said Corey Adams, regional president at Robert Half, a staffing firm that matches employers with prospective employees. 'It's safe to say that employers are taking what we're calling a 'wait and see' approach amid all this economic and policy uncertainty,' Adams said. Advertisement Many companies are holding off on hiring new entry level employees, he said. Some have paused projects or laid off workers. In general, he said, employers are hoping to retain top talent but also closely evaluating how costs are changing. As some companies slow hiring to accommodate higher costs, the job market is becoming more challenging for people like Laura Davis, who is graduating in May with a master's in business administration from Boston College. Davis had hoped to work in marketing at a large consumer goods company after graduation, but she suspects tariffs have made these companies 'hiring shy.' She has expanded her search from companies that sell goods directly to consumers to include business-to-business companies and those selling digital goods, which will be less impacted by tariffs. Davis, 29, has worked in communications at Boston College throughout her three-year, part-time MBA program and will continue to work there if she does not find a new job after graduation. She said she spends about five hours a week — an hour a day after her classes and job — on applications. For each one, she said she sends LinkedIn messages and seeks out Boston College alumni working at the company. Davis said she has applied to 99 jobs — and heard back from seven. 'It's not like I'm just applying into the void and crossing my fingers, I feel like I really am putting in the work and doing everything that people say is how you find a job in this day and age,' she said. 'After like a month or two of doing that, I started to realize, 'Okay, is it me or is it the market?'' Advertisement Thousands of federal employees who have lost their jobs and are now seeking new employment means the applicant pool is highly competitive across many sectors, Davis said. Some college career offices are noticing a decrease in opportunities and looking for ways to adapt. Federal agencies and some organizations that have federal contracts did not attend a recent career fair for students at local colleges including Wentworth Institute of Technology, said Robbin Beauchamp, assistant provost of cooperative education and career development at Wentworth. A view of Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston in 2020. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff There's not yet much data on the job market for this year's college graduates, but signs are so far not encouraging. A report from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows the On Symplicity, the job search platform Wentworth uses, Beauchamp said there were 13 percent fewer full-time jobs posted through March 20 this year compared to the same period in 2024. Internships and co-ops are affected, too, she said. Construction management and civil engineering students seem to have the most opportunities, while computer science students are having a harder time finding co-ops, she said. Beauchamp said her office is looking into a greater focus on seeking out co-op experiences in other countries, where there might be more opportunities if the US economy stumbles. Overall, Beauchamp said she thinks it will be 'a hard four years' for new college graduates. Advertisement 'Every hour, things change,' she said. 'It's too fluid, I think, for anybody to really understand what's going to happen.' Stella Tannenbaum can be reached at
