Chinese Companies Are Buying Up Cash-Strapped U.S. Colleges

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-20/cash-strapped-u-s-colleges-become-targets-for-chinese-companies

by samspenc • 8 years ago

253 202 8 years ago

nwatson• 8 years ago

Japanese companies bought into US real estate, infrastructure, corporations etc. in the 90s then had to relinquish much of it at cut rate prices. Same will happen here I imagine.

HumanDrivenDev2• 8 years ago

China faces even more serious problems that Japan did at the time. Much of the country still lives in poverty and there's no social safety net.

qaq• 8 years ago

Fortunately US has a very developed social safety net.

hangonhn2• 8 years ago

"The pending purchase rankles some Westminster faculty and alumni, who question what a longtime maker of steel spans knows about running an elite school whose choirs sang with maestros Leonard Bernstein, Arturo Toscanini and Seiji Ozawa."

I think that sentence provides some insight into the deal. As China becomes wealthier, their aspirations will be elevated as well. There's a lucrative opportunity here where the prestige of an American institution can be used to attract family who have the means and aspirations for their children to be acquainted with cultures and arts other than the ones they are born into.

It's kind of funny to hear people complain about a former steel company taking an interest in music education given the prestige that Carnegie Hall holds in American culture.

erikb• 8 years ago

Even without these institutions arts universities of all kinds are overflowing with children from Chinese rich families. It's already a huge, wealthy market. It's just not as funny as a Chinese math genius, so fewer people outside these schools talk about it.

GuiA• 8 years ago

Yes, this is important to realize. I work in a fairly reputable design studio, and we take in interns every year. This year, all of our applicants were Asian students from overseas (mostly PRC) attending art/design schools in the US. In many cases, they do seem to come from wealthy backgrounds (eg went to private high schools abroad, etc). That was definitely not the case 5 years ago.

The only ones who can attend art school anymore are kids coming from very wealthy backgrounds.

smilekzs• 8 years ago

Xu Guangyu, chairman of Beijing Kaiwen and a choral singer in college...
Westminster’s odd couple may not be such a mismatch, given Xu’s background as a choral singer at Peking University. In the early 1980s, his high-school music teacher in Beijing took students to performances of operas “Carmen” and “Madama Butterfly,” and the ballet “Swan Lake,” he said.

At the very least the buyer does appreciate the art involved.

Johnny555• 8 years ago

Or, at least he claims to have that appreciation to get the sale done.

donw• 8 years ago

At the very least the buyer does appreciate the art involved.

Reminds me a little bit of when Jim Beam, and all of its associated brands, was purchased by Suntory, from a long line of face- and soul-less international holding conglomerates.

Suntory is a family-owned company that has the distinction of being the first distiller of whiskey in Japan over a hundred years ago.

A few people whined and moaned, but I suspect that most bourbon drinkers are happy to see a major distillery back in the hands of people that care about whiskey.

coldtea2• 8 years ago

"The pending purchase rankles some Westminster faculty and alumni, who question what a longtime maker of steel spans knows about running an elite school whose choirs sang with maestros Leonard Bernstein, Arturo Toscanini and Seiji Ozawa."

First, that's quite racist.

Have they ever questioned what do the US analogous of "longtime makers of steel spans" and ex-robber barons that have been their patrons, and which have dedicated buildings and schools and auditoriums named after them, know about elite schools?

Vanderbilt, for one, was a poorly educated steamboat and railroad tycoon.

sillysaurus3• 8 years ago

Could you shoot me an email or a keybase message? Or do you have one I can reach you at? I wanted your perspective on something.

gaadd33• 8 years ago

given the prestige that Carnegie Hall holds in American culture.

Carnegie Hall wasn't built by the Carnegie Steel Company was it? It seems totally reasonable to separate the aspirations/interests of the owner of a company with the company that he used to make the money.

hangonhn2• 8 years ago

No it wasn't but neither is it in this case:

"After spinning off the steel business and adding schools, it changed Jiangsu Zhongtai’s name to Beijing Kaiwen in January."

They got rid of their steel business, went into education, and change its name to reflect that.

RobertRoberts8• 8 years ago

An idea, any foreign country that forbids buying land in their country [0] is not allowed to buy land in our country. Sound equal?

[0] "Foreign investors are not allowed to buy land in China. The land in China belongs to the state and the collectives."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_property_law#Buying_la...

Edit: I think it's reasonable to leverage our freedom as an asset instead of a liability to be abused.

Edit: Replaced "fair" with "equal"

rgbrenner• 8 years ago

Chinese can't buy chinese land. They only get the right to use the land. Land-use rights can be bought by foreign investors for some projects.

seanmcdirmid8• 8 years ago

And they might even be granted as an incentive....

HumanDrivenDev2• 8 years ago

That's not the rest of the worlds problem. If they want to buy other peoples land, then other people should be able to buy theres.

They're taking advantage of us.

pascalxus2• 8 years ago

Yes, but for the right to use that house or condo, they don't need to pay property taxes, whereas most of the rest of the world you have to pay rent (property taxes) to the government. If you have to pay vast sums of rent to keep it, do you really own it?

masonic• 8 years ago

Perhaps Mexico is a better example; they restrict the ability of Americans to buy Mexican land within X distance of the border or within Y distance of a coast.

msie2• 8 years ago

What is "fair", really? It may not sound fair to those property owners who want to sell and bought the land on the hope that they can sell it some day.

seanmcdirmid8• 8 years ago

Nobody can buy land in china, but Microsoft was granted a long term lease on some nice prime real estate in zuongguancun that HR at the time of our move bragged had already made Microsoft a lot of money in land appreciation.

ksk2• 8 years ago

An idea, any foreign country that forbids buying land in their country [0] is not allowed to buy land in our country. Sound equal?

FWICT, they also don't allow their own citizens to purchase land. In that sense, they're treating foreign citizens equally.

Also, this seems to return some useful info:

https://www.google.com/search?&q=how+to+buy+land+in+china

Seems like people have found a way to purchase land.

I think it's reasonable to leverage our freedom as an asset instead of a liability to be abused.

What do you mean by leverage?

RobertRoberts8• 8 years ago

What do you mean by leverage?

Use our freedom to implement a fair trading system. We are free to buy and sell here, but not in China. China takes advantage of us because of this, and up till now, we have had no recourse accept "trade wars".

Instead of a trade war with tariffs and accusations and bickering, why not remove all possible complaints and treat others as they want to be treated?

Use Chinese rules for the Chinese. Completely and utterly balanced trade. If they don't like it, they can change their rules to be more free, and they get more freedom to buy here.

How would the Chinese government complain to the international community about the US applying their own rules to land ownership? How could anyone complain? It would be the height of hypocrisy, so they wouldn't.

So why not use our freedom as the ultimate bargaining tool to create a balance in the world? Other countries could do the same to us, and we couldn't complain either. It seems there has to be a game theory equation to explain this, it can't be the first time it's been considered.

halflings• 8 years ago

This is the same argument constantly used to justify violating a country's own values: "If we can't build a church in Saudi Arabia, you shouldn't be able to build a mosque in our country."

Thing is, it's Americans selling this land. So compromising on those freedoms just to align yourself with bad policies a country is following that sound wise.

RobertRoberts8• 8 years ago

This is the same argument constantly used to justify violating a country's own values...

I think you are conflating two separate issues, nations vs individuals. If an individual wants to buy land and happens to be Chinese, who cares? But this is the Chinese Government buying land in the US.

It's not the same thing, so different rules should apply.

Let's take this to the extreme to see how bad it could unreasonably get. What would happen if a single foreign government (for the sake of argument, run by a dictator for life) bought all the land in the US...? Or even less crazy, a majority of the movie production companies (or used their market share to force government paid censors to be at the filming and have editorial rights), colleges (or controlling interest in them), news companies, or valuable land (no need to buy deserts), etc ... seem far fetched?

forapurpose• 8 years ago

First, I agree with halflings' comment

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16633122

Second, there are two sides to a deal. The parent's plan will penalize the seller as well the buyer, both buy reducing demand and by taking away the best deal.

That's a problem with all trade restrictions. If your country won't buy from others, why will others buy from you? Only North Korea tries to go without trade to a large extent and even they smuggle goods.

RobertRoberts8• 8 years ago

...buy reducing demand and by taking away the best deal.

Are you suggesting a completely free market without any government constraints at all?

zmonkeyz• 8 years ago

My mother-in-law is Korean (became a citizen in the 80's) and even she thinks it is stupid that anyone can come in and buy American land.

arenaninja• 8 years ago

Not only that, but businesses as well. A friend and I came up with a pretty obvious idea on something we could ship to China, only to figure out we were landlocked unless we essentially took on Chinese partners. We launched another venture aimed at the US population where Chinese citizens freely compete against us, honestly it sucks that we can't do the same.

bpicolo• 8 years ago

I think we should prevent any foreign country from buying our land in general tbh. Land is literally the country itself and while it's good for capital owners, the past 10 years show that foreign real estate investment seems to be decreasing QoL of the people that live here by jacking up rents and home prices.

jermaustin1• 8 years ago

Are these colleges accredited? And if so, will they still be accredited and reviewed just as they were when they were wholly owned by the University?

It smells weird that a foreign state-owned company wants to buys a US college. Maybe they want the land, or maybe its all about that tuition money. The China sees that we Americans are stupid enough to pay $30-40k per year to go to a private music college, and they want a cut of that.

lainga• 8 years ago

It is a safe haven for capital, too - see the comment below about the 1980s Japanese property bubble.

pzh• 8 years ago

Or most likely, they do it for the real or perceived immigration benefits. An accredited educational institution in the US can issue F-1 student visas, and these can be converted to OPT, H-1B, Greencard, and ultimately a US Citizenship. That's probably what would attract wealthy families to send their kids to an unknown no-brand college that is clearly owned by a Chinese company.

mark-r• 8 years ago

How is it possible that any colleges are cash-strapped with the tuition they are charging these days? It boggles my mind - they must be incredibly mismanaged.

dv_dt2• 8 years ago

I haven't seen any reports, but my impression is that many universities have cut loose many permanent professors, hiring masses of part time, super low wage adjuncts. At the same time gold-plated administration and facilities costs have increased much faster than inflation along with textbooks and tuitions. It's a massive devaluing of the actual education with super-inflation on the trappings of education.

sli• 8 years ago

Literally describes my last uni to a T, it was a new state uni. I left before finishing my degree because all the good professors left after their first year, leaving some very blatantly unqualified professors behind. Most (but not all) of the replacements are adjuncts. Also, I got a job in my field, which made it easier to leave.

My favorite example to give to explain their hiring problem is the professor of a webapp development class, a computer science professor, who was completely dumbfounded by ES6 syntax and closures and taught straight from the W3 Schools website. Literally came into class, plugged in his laptop, opened W3 Schools and started reading. I ended up tutoring a lot of people for that class, and typically had to dispute all my test grades by proving that my (handwritten -- he was that type) code worked.

That is to say, he was simply not qualified to teach that class. Not even close. We didn't even get anywhere near finishing all the material, we never even wrote a single webapp in that class. We didn't even get close to that point.

However, the building is gorgeous. And also sunk so far in the first year that they had to bolster their drainage considerably. This is Florida, by the way. Rain is a way of life here, and they didn't plan for it. After the recent hurricane, the building was damaged, but they can't do a whole lot to fix it because the architect owns a copyright on the building. It's a damn shame that if the damaged parts fail, it will be a huge disaster because directly under them is the glass-filled roof over the student commons.

Feel free to guess the school if you like, it should be easy. But I have nothing more to add.

E: Wait, I do have one more thing to add. I worked in a lab with grad students, ostensibly as a tech but since I was already experienced with the stuff we were doing (mostly development), I was instead tasked with real R&D. Except all of my work just ended up on a table to be used as a marketing tool during the ten tours that stopped to gawk at us every day. None of it ever went anywhere. And now that lab is going unused. So basically all that money just went completely wasted.

JustAnotherPat3• 8 years ago

permanent professors are tenured or tenure track and are very hard to 'cut loose'

mtgx• 8 years ago

The tuition is so high primarily because they are so mismanaged.

lvs• 8 years ago

Well, the typical story is that the money is going to an overabundance of administrators, construction boondoggles, and institutional vendors. There's a lot of profit-taking that happens in academics, and administration is always going to slim faculty and programs at the expense of pet projects and personal priorities. Faculty lost control of the academic enterprise to professionalized administration, and there does not appear to be any chance of a reversal.

JustAnotherPat3• 8 years ago

The same reason it costs 1 billion dollars to build 1 mile of railroad track. Nonprofits pay premium to get anything done. Tenure and administration costs are through the roof at these schools.

jgamman• 8 years ago

Toys'R'Us

stephengillie• 8 years ago

This makes no sense to me as well.

Where I attended, they relocated whole buildings to different locations on the campus. One was a historic Women's Studies building. They spent a week putting a truck bed under it, then moved it uphill on a Friday morning as I walked to class. A month later they were building another building where it originally stood.

The next summer they completely demolished and rebuilt half of the student dorms - 4 buildings.

In the past 10 years, while tuition has doubled twice and their sports teams won championships, they also rebuilt half of the campus. It doesn't look like the place I attended.

thathappened• 8 years ago

I wonder if this is their answer to their absurd requirements to get into American Universities

organsnyder• 8 years ago

Westminster has a towering presence in the choral music world. At one point, the plan was to shut down the college entirely, so this purchase is definitely an improvement. It will be interesting to see how the college evolves after the acquisition.

hguhghuff• 8 years ago

I wonder what it might mean if extrapolated into China eventually buying the lions share of houses, farms, companies, infrastructure, educational institutions..

What would be the outcome?

It’s sort of weird that such buyup isn’t seen as a national security issue.

xkcd-sucks• 8 years ago

It is in Australia, where food supply is the hot commodity for foreign investment

wolco• 8 years ago

The outcome would be higher land taxes.

kuschku2• 8 years ago

Americans bought the lions share of farms, companies, infrastructure in Europe in the past 70 years.

Now it’s gonna be China.

It’s too profitable to worry about it, and just like we sold out to the Americans, they’ll now sell out to China, as the circle continues.

adventured6• 8 years ago

The US acquired practically zero infrastructure in Europe over the last 70 years and practically zero of Europe's farming output. Europe as a whole is notoriously protective of its farming, both in terms of ownership and tariff protection.

Trains/rail, bus systems, power generation, power distribution, telecom - US companies own an extroardinarily tiny share of those things in Europe overall.

Verizon + AT&T are worth ~$420 billion and are giant, wildly profitable businesses. Why don't they own most of Europe's telecom industry, which is mostly dominated by numerous far smaller companies? Because it doesn't work that way. You can't just go into a dozen European nations and buy up all of their telecom, the government roadblocks to doing that make it impossible. Instead, it's Softbank (Japan) that owns Sprint (#4), and it's Deutsche Telekom that owns T-Mobile that is the #3 telecom carrier in the US.

RobertRoberts8• 8 years ago

It is apparent that there is Chinese influence on this board.

Look at the commenter's history for some of the comments on China related news. This is interesting. China is known for manipulating information and spreading propaganda.

I hope HN cracks down on comment manipulation related to Chinese government news stories.

KaoruAoiShiho• 8 years ago

Silicon Valley is like 30% Chinese dude. If there isn't Chinese influence that would be even more problematic.

dang5• 8 years ago

Less than 10% of the HN community is in Silicon Valley.

blackrock• 8 years ago

Let's make a distinction here.

These people are most likely Americans, of Chinese descent. They are probably also 2nd or 3rd generation Americans, like yourself. They went to American schools and universities. They speak perfect English. They vote. They are patriotic. And they pay their taxes.

These people have no connection to the China government. They probably don't have any more close relatives that even live in China. So their connection to their ancestral home lands have been severed. They are by definition, Americans.

Now, yes, there may be some people in Silicon Valley, who are Chinese nationals, and who are working with an H-1B visa. I don't know the numbers breakdown.

But, I think you need to make a distinction between the two types.

dang5• 8 years ago

Please don't impute astroturfing or shillage. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about it, email us and we'll look at the data.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

We always look for evidence when people are worried, and we take action, such as banning accounts, when we find it.

Frankly, though, the greater danger—orders of magnitude greater—is users' tendency to assume that other users must be astroturfing, or shills, bots, or spies, just because they hold opposing views. The truth is that HN is divided on divisive issues, just like society at large, all the more because it is a majority international community.

That is why the site guidelines ask you not to post comments like this. The attempted cure is more toxic than the seeming disease.

I've written about this a ton if anyone wants it: https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

RobertRoberts8• 8 years ago

I have read the rules, and I simply did not think of this at the time of the comment. I posted in haste.

I certainly don't have the data to demonstrate a valid concern, this was an assumption.

The rules mention we should "email you" if we are concerned. Out of curiosity, if you did find manipulation in the data, would you share it with individual who emailed you about the concern?

pobo• 8 years ago

Yeah, bro. Report them to FBI, let our president know.

msie2• 8 years ago

Or maybe there is a difference of opinion on a forum. On the other hand some people just only comment on China related news with a xenophobic spin.

buchanaf• 8 years ago

Well there's one way to slow down China's economy. Nothing says first-world country like crippling student-loan debt.

OliverJones2• 8 years ago

Hear that "pop"? It's the student-debt-driven education bubble springing a leak and starting to deflate.

Thanks, Bush 43, for your legacy in this when you "reformed" the bankruptcy laws to make it impossible to discharge student loans in bankruptcy. That set educational institutions free to raise their rates to ludicrous levels: it took away the incentive for student lenders to push back.

It took away lenders' incentive to say such things as "$126,000 is too much debt for a special education teacher. She'll never be able to pay it back. We won't lend it to her to give it to you. Reduce your tuition, and cut your administrative overhead."

Institutions with some cachet, like Westminster, will get rescued. Others will just collapse.

This bursting bubble is going to hurt.

matt_wulfeck2• 8 years ago

I don’t really understand how there can exist any debt that can’t be bankrupted, apart from federal treasuries.

It may produce some desired affect in the short term, but in time creates a massive liability for everyone, not just those who took out the debt.

cbr• 8 years ago

The standard argument for why student loan debt survives bankruptcy is that otherwise students would declare bankruptcy on graduation. At least with our current system, where bankruptcy is wiped from your record after 7 (or 10) years this would be a good move for most students.

stuntkite• 8 years ago

I had a bad year last year and the couple before. I defaulted on my student loans, they got sold off, and it just so happened that I was in a group of sold off student debt that didn't get the information sold to the new organization handled correctly so for me and a couple hundred thousand delinquents had their student loans lost in the mail.

It's completely unfair that mine went away and people that are upside down and have been "playing the game" are still in the slog, but it by a wide margin the most fortuitous thing that has ever happened to me.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfriedman/2017/07/18/5-billi...

colordrops• 8 years ago

Out of all the debts you'd want to forgive, education seems like the top of the list. The fact that it's not even on the list is insane.

rdtsc3• 8 years ago

I don’t really understand how there can exist any debt that can’t be bankrupted, apart from federal treasuries.

Because it's debt to get a degree. I don't agree necessarily but the idea is that students would get large loans, go to schools, get a degree, then declare bankruptcy.

I think the GP comments makes a good point that large loans would be harder to get if all of the sudden they knew bankruptcy option is going to considered after graduation.

beamatronic2• 8 years ago

Its not about money. It’s about control. The student becomes legally enslaved by the banks.

wefarrell• 8 years ago

The argument is that if they could be bankrupted the interest rates would be much higher because the likelihood of default would be high.

yequalsx• 8 years ago

At least at public institutions of higher learning the downward trend in funding per student started well before bankruptcy reform.

xienze2• 8 years ago

You make it sound like tuition wasn’t already increasing at unsustainable rates before GWB. Or that people are just now foolishly pursuing degrees without factoring in ROI.

adventured6• 8 years ago

That's because tuition costs were not increasing at unsustainable levels before GWB (and technically the big debt explosion almost entirely happened during the Obama terms). University costs were extremely reasonable in the US prior to the year 2000. They were hilariously cheap compared to today.

As so nicely represented by the explosion in student debt:

https://i.imgur.com/K6TxfQB.png

leereeves2• 8 years ago

It was already impossible, or nearly so, to discharge student loans in bankruptcy before Bush 43.

seanmcdirmid8• 8 years ago

True for federal loans, but Bush also made private student debt difficult to discharge during a bankruptcy.

dpweb• 8 years ago

The loans that someone can take out should be capped on the average 1 year salary for the field they are going into.

Too bad it won't happen, because it's cruel to not provide students the opportunity to acquire hundreds of thousands of debt.

If the funding was cut, the schools may have to make due with only 100 million dollars for the ice hockey stadium.

drak0n1c• 8 years ago

Federally guaranteed student loans totaled $122,500,000,000 last year [1]. Subsidies create artificial demand and push prices upward. They take away the student's incentive to say those same things of the price that you're ascribing to lenders. Traditional college isn't necessary for everyone.

[1] https://www2.ed.gov/about/reports/annual/2017report/fsa-repo...

lr4444lr3• 8 years ago

So the taxpayer who didn't go to college and instead went to work because he lacked either the interest/ability or money to do so at the time, should be left holding the bag on the default of the person who irresponsibly took out too big a loan for a worthless degree? Yeah, great alternative.

killjoywashere• 8 years ago

No, the debtor should eat the default, and the lender, with insight into aggregate market conditions, should take their default rates into consideration when advising institutions on pricing.

lovich5• 8 years ago

If you want to be fair at this point the college's and banks should be eating the default. The information assymetry is massively on their side and the college's have done nothing to try and use their money efficiently while the banks have seemingly given up on doing their job of making sure the investment is worthwhile.

Unfortunately that might make our entire economy collapse as we've let the student debt bubble get so large. We'll likely have to all shoulder some of the pain, regardless of how fair it is

OliverJones2• 8 years ago

This is the "systemic fairness" argument, also known as the "moral hazard" argument. It's a fair point.

But my original point (I wrote the top-level comment to which you're responding) was this: Taking away ALL risk from the .edus and the lenders took away a really important part of downward tuition-price pressure. Easy student loan money means escalating student fees.

Who should "pay" if a schoolteacher can't pay her Salem State College loans? Good question. The college who charged so much ought to be on the hook, at least partly. The same goes for the lender, taxpayers in the community where she teaches, and she herself.

Who should pay if an investment banker can't pay his Harvard Business School student loans? Is it a different kind of question? That is hard to know in general.

Without the ability to bring student loans to bankruptcy court, there's no legal way to address these questions of fairness. That is not sustainable for student debtors, colleges, or the society at large.

gok• 8 years ago

I fundamentally agree but...student loans were made impossible-to-discharge-in-bankruptcy via the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978. This has been a looooooong time coming.

pure_ambition2• 8 years ago

"Xu Guangyu, chairman of Beijing Kaiwen... runs K-12 schools in China and said Westminster could provide the knowledge to help upgrade arts education for his students."

There you have it. The Chinese company is buying the college specifically for the purpose of using their intellectual property. Is this not the same thing they have been doing buying US businesses? Purchasing the know-how that they lack to gain a competitive edge, while preventing MNCs from competing fairly in the Chinese domestic market?

It's a smart strategy and seems to be working. Not fair though, and shouldn't be allowed.

horsecaptin• 8 years ago

Perhaps we shouldn't allow any foreign national to own US property when a US national can't own property in their country.

shanghaiaway• 8 years ago

Maybe all countries should ban American citizens and corporations from owning anything outside of the US.

analyst742• 8 years ago

US does the same, no? Think of all the Chinese researchers, athletes and business people who immigrated to US and brought their knowledge and resources to America.

In the end, the more countries and firms compete on expert knowledge, the better it is for knowledge workers.

adventured6• 8 years ago

US does the same, no?

No, the US doesn't do the same. You're comparing two very different things. Property is/can be owned, people are not and should not be. China & the US do not own their people or their brains, even if they'd like to.

Both countries technically allow people to move to and work in them, from other nations. It's practically impossible to become a citizen of China as a foreigner. The US grants a million green cards per year.

China almost entirely disallows outbound technology/IP/property/asset tranfers. That's the overwhelming point of contention.

pure_ambition2• 8 years ago

No, because we don't have such draconian rules about domestic competition as China does.

bearjaws• 8 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

JustAnotherPat3• 8 years ago

American colleges have an anti-asian bias. I, for one, don't blame the Chinese for buying up the system so that they get decide who comes through the door now.

tabtab2• 8 years ago

Re: American colleges have an anti-asian bias

I don't think it's an anti-Asian bias but more of a pro-diversity bias. Colleges often want a good mix of ethnic groups such that having 60% Asians when the US population is about 8% Asian won't get them the mix they want. Whether the goal of "diversity" is more important than the "fairness" of raw merit is a complex moral and philosophical debate.

Consultant324522• 8 years ago

After years of looking at this phenomenon your post finally made something click in my head. We've decided that birth rate is the primary measure of your merit. The more babies you have the more people that look like you we're going to allow into universities and good jobs. So weird...

rllin• 8 years ago

They have a known anti asian american bias not an anti asian bias. Asians pay full tuition.

FLUX-YOU2• 8 years ago

/slight-tinfoil-hat

A lot of espionage recruiting goes on through academics, so I'm wondering if this isn't just a good opportunity to open avenues for spies to be sent over.

That name change alone makes me immediately suspicious of this company:

- From: Jiangsu Zhongtai Bridge Steel Structure Co

- To: Beijing Kaiwen Education Technology Co.

tozeur• 8 years ago

I think that would really depend on the university. I doubt the Chinese government would care to plant spies in US choir societies versus let’s say sending students to Georgetown with direct recruitment feeds to Capitol Hill.

FLUX-YOU2• 8 years ago

Sure, although if you own the university (also, this is near Princeton), it probably makes the job easier. Unless Georgetown is run by the Chinese already.

seanmcdirmid8• 8 years ago

This is common. Either it’s a back old listing or a failing SOE that is looking to exit the steel industry with some cheap capital.

apo• 8 years ago

Can't help but be reminded of this:

The Mitsubishi Estate Company of Japan plans to walk away from its almost $2 billion investment in Rockefeller Center, the Hope diamond of world real estate.

https://www.nytimes.com/1995/09/12/business/japanese-scrap-2...

seanmcdirmid8• 8 years ago

We are already seeing that happen with HNA.

fspeech3• 8 years ago

HNA seems to have made money on disposed assets so far. Maybe they are hanging onto the losers for now.

quickConclusion• 8 years ago

"Westminster is at least the fourth college site bought by Chinese interests since 2015."

Pretty much one per year. Let's keep looking at it, but probably nowhere as near as foreign companies investing in China's education system.

malloreon• 8 years ago

This might be my favorite paragraph in a news article ever:

"Beijing Kaiwen Education Technology Co. agreed in February to pay $40 million for Westminster Choir College, an affiliate of Rider University that trains students for careers as singers, conductors and music teachers. The announcement came just weeks after the government-controlled Chinese company changed its name from Jiangsu Zhongtai Bridge Steel Structure Co."

Bridge steel -> Music education. Now that's innovation!

leereeves2• 8 years ago

Carnegie did it 100 years ago.

downrightmike• 8 years ago

Now that's grade A copying!

adventured6• 8 years ago

No he didn't.

Carnegie gave away his wealth.

US Steel did not rename itself the US Library Corporation.

bawana• 8 years ago

I guess they see tuition inflation as a guaranteed revenue stream. Certainly they have experienced this firsthand as much of Asia sends their offspring for a US ‘education’.

SubiculumCode• 8 years ago

Letting China control American universities may give China an opportunity to influence intellectual thought about the role of China in the world, and the abuses it has committed at home. There are multiple reports about China using money and influence to limit the free speech of students [1,2], and is consistent with reports that China is heavily investing in international propaganda[3].

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/26/opinion/beijing-free-spee... 2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/05/23... 3. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-20/xi-create...

macintux• 8 years ago

I’m not sure it scares me as much as, say, the Koch brothers doing the same.

http://time.com/4148838/koch-brothers-colleges-universities/

lgleason• 8 years ago

Given how regressive/repressive many universities have become this is really scary. With that being said it is not entirely surprising given the amount of Chinese investment going into the us with things such as this https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/16/how-china... . It is getting more brazen by having them buy our universities and is the perfect Trojan horse. As it is, our universities, which used to be institutions that valued free speech, open inquiry etc. are becoming places with strict speech codes, repression of dissenting ideas and places where due process is thrown out the window. The US education bubble needs to pop, but if it is bailed out and propped up by foreign interests (who's interests are not direct profit from the venture) there could be a lot of other negative consequences for the US beyond stealing IP. To continue to be innovative we need generations of people to be able to critically think about things, not a mass of indoctrinated people.

naveen99• 8 years ago

I thought most universities are non profit and essentially own themselves. I don't think they can be sold as no one owns them.

watertom• 8 years ago

Since all Chinese companies are partially owned by the Chinese Government, and ultimately controlled by the Chinese Govrrment they all should be blocked from purchasing anything in the U.S. we would never sell anything to the Russian government, or the German govt. etc.

It’s foolish to test their companies as independent from the government.

jedberg• 8 years ago

In the 1980s, people assumed that Japanese companies would eventually own everything in the US. You can see this in the pop culture of the time, namely in Back to the Future 2, where they go to 2015 and Marty works for a Japanese company.

I have no idea if China is in a fundamentally different position than Japan was in the 80s, but just something to keep in mind when prognosticating doom and gloom about a "Chinese takeover".

xeeeeeeeeeeenu• 8 years ago

I have no idea if China is in a fundamentally different position than Japan was in the 80s,

It is. Its economy is much bigger, it is not a democracy and, most importantly, today's China is much more expansionistic than post-1945 Japan ever was.

zumu• 8 years ago

As far as Japan's position in the 80's, they were in a massive bubble through most of the decade all the way up to '91. When the bubble burst Japan was stopped dead in it's tracks. The 90's are called the 'Glacial era' or 'Lost decade' of Japanese economic development.

Time will tell if China is in a bubble and if so when it will pop.

forkLding• 8 years ago

I do think that for the Chinese owner, they're either very interested in music, see something we don't see, has children attending that college or is involved in a very clever money capital outflow plan as Chinese overseas investment and major currency outflow is heavily monitored and restricted by the Chinese govt:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-10/china-fin...

Chinese Companies Are Buying Up Cash-Strapped U.S. Colleges

Related Stories