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A university president makes a case against cowardice

(www.newyorker.com)
450 points pseudolus | 2 comments | 03 Apr 25 12:29 UTC | HN request time: 0.488s | source
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low_tech_love ◴[04 Apr 25 12:55 UTC] No.43581600[source]▶
Some personal highlights:

"They’re excellent schools, and they have excellent scientists, and if one of Vice-President Vance’s kids is sick, he’s going to want the doctor to have gone to one of these schools; he’s not going to want them to have gone to Viktor Orbán’s university."

"People have said to me, “Well, you take all that money from the government, why don’t you listen to them?” The answer is, because the money doesn’t come with a loyalty oath."

"I don’t have to agree with the mayor to get the fire department to come put out a fire. And that’s what they’re saying to these international students: “Well, you came to this country. What makes you think you can write an op-ed in the newspaper?” Well, what makes you think that is, this is a free country. "

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jgalt212 ◴[04 Apr 25 17:07 UTC] No.43585190[source]▶
> The answer is, because the money doesn’t come with a loyalty oath

But it does come with some reasonable level of consideration and appreciation.

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croes ◴[04 Apr 25 17:41 UTC] No.43585592[source]▶
The government pays to get good universities which attract smart foreign who come to the US to study on these universities.

Maybe the government should appreciate them not the other way around.

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1. jgalt212 ◴[04 Apr 25 18:57 UTC] No.43586409[source]▶
Yeah, I agree. The government appreciates, or should appreciate, the good uses its taxpayers' money is put towards. As to the other intractables above, appreciation and loyalty are very far from the same thing.
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2. mlinhares ◴[04 Apr 25 21:10 UTC] No.43587633[source]▶
I don't think it ever crosses these people's minds that some other country PAID FOR these people's education and they are now USING that education elsewhere for the profit of a foreign nation.

All my high school and college education was at free schools/colleges in my home country, paid for by taxpayer money. All incredibly competitive places, with very high maintenance costs compared to the other colleges around, not a single US dollar was invested in me and here I am paying taxes and improving this place.

The bargain the US gets from this is one of the biggest reasons it can do what it does, the investments it makes are compounded by the work of the people that it never put a dime for.