> The most lucrative tuition source for the university is foreign students (as in, they bring in far more tuition dollars for each foreign student than they do native).
Those probably aren't STEM PhD students, whose tuition (especially at Ivies!) is normally paid for out of research grants or teaching funds.
In 2007 I was an Italian citizen studying at a university in Texas.
For a final project, we built a cool autopilot, and demoed it on several vehicles, including a precision dropper airplane, and a sailboat.
The airplane happened to be slightly better than what the USAF admitted to having at the time.
There were 5 of us working on that project, including 1 US citizen.
The citizen got a NASA internship out of it. The rest of us were put on a list and I for one had a very tough time getting a green card later on even with a NIW.
I shudder to think what this maladministration is doing to foreign STEM students now!
Those probably aren't STEM PhD students, whose tuition (especially at Ivies!) is normally paid for out of research grants or teaching funds.