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Growth Industry
December 26, 2014
We have wondered why Michigan’s high schools would enroll more J-1 visa students than in any other state, as well as more J-1 and F-1 visa students combined than the schools of any other state. It certainly can’t be our weather!
Like schools in many states, Michigan schools are looking to foreign countries to fill classrooms where enrollments have been falling, and they are looking to the tuition dollars of international students to help fill the hole of declining state funding.
And schools across the US are finding a hungry market, especially in Asia where families are willing to pay almost any amount to give their children the kind of educational opportunities their own countries don’t, including a leg up in gaining admission to a US college or university.
One unique contributing factor to our state’s leading totals is the late date when public school classes start in the fall. International students who miss the start of school in states which begin classes two, three or four weeks before Michigan can still try for a placement in Michigan where public high schools cannot begin classes until after Labor Day.
These late, scrambling and sometimes inadequately vetted enrollments are one of the many problems attendant to the increasing numbers of J-1 and F-1 visa students enrolling in Michigan each year. More serious are the “pipelines” that, for example, direct basketball players to some schools and ice hockey players to other schools.
It makes some people feel warm and fuzzy, but a lot more people get hot under the collar, to observe a foreign exchange student become a suddenly successful basketball team’s high scorer and rebounder, and then later be given a Division I university basketball scholarship. Or be the leading scorer on an ice hockey team that posts its best record and deepest MHSAA tournament run in the school’s history.
My wife and I have hosted an international college level student in our home for almost two years. I know the benefits to both parties. And I also know that there is a growing number of problems related to sports and profit that need to be stopped, or at least sent to some other state.
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Our Best and Brightest
April 12, 2015
The best two hours of each work year are those spent with the MHSAA Scholar-Athletes and their parents on the last Saturday of the winter tournament season.
This is a happy and pardonably proud group who epitomize the best of what our schools and school sports produce because of the giftedness of the student-athletes and their grit to maximize those gifts with the help of family and the faculty of member schools.
This year’s 32 recipients of $1,000 scholarships represent 22 of the 28 MHSAA tournament sports. The 32 recipients average 2.56 sports per person, and their average GPA is 3.95.
Five of this year’s class have won MHSAA state championships as individuals or members on a team. Nineteen of this year’s class have perfect 4.0 GPAs.
Over the years, 323 MHSAA high schools have been represented with scholarship winners; and this year, 10 students were first-time winners for their schools.
This is the 26th year of this program, underwritten since its inception by Michigan Farm Bureau, which has now invested $652,000 in MHSAA's scholar-athletes. The longevity and generosity of this sponsorship is Michigan at its best.
And these 32 students are among our state’s most precious resources for creating a better future for our state, nation and world.