Who are America’s public universities supposed to serve?
That question is gaining urgency as more families begin to notice a troubling pattern: highly qualified American students, many with near-perfect scores, are being rejected from taxpayer-funded universities while foreign enrollments continue to surge.
Steve Cortes tackles the issue head-on in his new documentary, “The Foreign Student Crisis Destroying American College Admissions.” One of his central examples is the University of Illinois — a publicly funded, land-grant institution — where more than 6,000 Chinese nationals are currently enrolled.
Cortes is careful to frame his argument clearly. He insists his concern is not about race, but about citizenship and priorities.
One case highlighted in the documentary is that of Stanley Zhong, an Asian American student with exceptional credentials. “He had near-perfect SAT scores, 1,590 out of 1,600, and a 3.97 GPA at a highly prestigious Palo Alto High School,” Cortes said. Despite those numbers, Zhong was rejected by UCLA, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Illinois. He later went on to be hired as a Google engineer.
For critics of the current admissions system, that raises an uncomfortable question. As Cortes puts it: “What level of untapped talent exists in this country that a combination of DEI and immigration have basically cut out of the loop?”
Beyond fairness in admissions, Cortes argues there is a national security dimension. He describes the influx of Chinese students as “organized infiltration backed by a hostile regime masked as education.” He points to reported incidents, including three students at the University of Michigan caught smuggling agricultural bioweapons and a Chinese engineering student at Illinois Tech convicted of espionage after being recruited by China’s Ministry of State Security.
For some Illinois families, the issue is personal and financial.
Marsha McClary, an Illinois native and mother of five, expressed frustration as both a taxpayer and a parent. “A lot of our students cannot get into U of I … and then they have to go out of state and pay higher tuition,” she said.
She added, “We’re paying a lot of taxes into the university system in the state, and we should be able to take advantage of that as a priority for our students.”
The concern is not limited to Illinois. Stephen Kleinschmit, a professor at Northwestern University, described what he sees as troubling admissions patterns. He said many foreign applicants arrive with questionable credentials and limited English proficiency. According to Kleinschmit, some applications are careless, with students leaving the wrong university name on cover letters or demonstrating a lack of understanding about the programs they are applying to.
He also warned of “institutionalized corruption” involving bribing test proctors and even the government itself.
For families who have spent years preparing their children for competitive admissions, these claims reinforce the perception that the system is not operating with American students as its first priority.
Cortes concludes his documentary with a policy proposal. “The total number of foreign students must be capped. One or 2% of total enrollment seems perfectly sensible. The total number of Chinese nationals should be zero, none. Not welcome here. United States schools for United States citizens.”
Whether or not lawmakers adopt such measures, the broader debate is unlikely to fade. At its core is a simple but powerful question: Should publicly funded American universities prioritize American citizens?
For many families watching their children get rejected while foreign enrollment climbs, the answer seems obvious.
