Marginal Colleges Damage our Immigration System

WASHINGTON, Sept. 11, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies finds that 55 institutions, the very dregs of higher education in this country, offer extremely poor quality education, yet still have the power to admit foreign students.

Approximately 40,000 alien students are enrolled in these "compromised colleges", all of which have lost their accreditation from the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS), whose standards were so low that it lost its Department of Education recognition and power to accredit.

The compromised colleges, 42 of which are for-profit schools, are found in 17 states and in one territory, but are mostly concentrated in three states: California (17 institutions), Florida (11 institutions), and Virginia (8 institutions). Unlike governmental or genuine non-profit entities, the presidents of these institutions are often the owners or part-owners and the student body contains a very high percentage of foreign students, some more than 95 percent.

David North, a Center fellow and co-author of the report, wrote that many of the foreign students attending compromised colleges "sought out low-quality schools in the United States quite deliberately, as they were seeking paychecks, not valuable diplomas. They are not to be confused with anyone's idea of the 'best and the brightest.' "

View the full report at: https://cis.org/Report/Dregs-Higher-Education-Damage-Our-Immigration-System

Foreign students searching for a true education have often been misled by the institutions, which rake in money while supplying nominal educational services, and often charging substantial, even outrageous, fees.

Reform is possible. The report informs policymakers that, unlike many immigration issues, "No huge sums of money are needed, no massive political forces need to be challenged, and no mixed families of legal and illegal residents need to be separated, yet tens of thousands of new illegal aliens can be prevented from entering the country." The report points out that foreign students are twice as likely to remain after their visas expire as nonimmigrant visa holders generally.

The report provides multiple recommendations for Congress and the White House, as well as for the two entities that manage the foreign student admissions process: DHS (the Student and Exchange Visitor Program is a part of ICE) and the U.S. State Department. One solution is to stop granting these compromised colleges the privilege of issuing visas to their prospective students and of granting H-1B status to their potential employees.

Contact: Marguerite Telford 
202-466-8185, [email protected]

SOURCE Center for Immigration Studies