Why it’s time to Make America Think Again

The numbers tell a stark story. According to a new report by the Economic Innovation Group, foreign-born workers who arrived on student visas out-earn their American peers by nearly $30,000 annually. They’re twice as likely to work in research and development.

But this isn’t a zero-sum game where one group’s success diminishes another’s potential. Instead, it’s a mirror reflecting what America could achieve if it stopped settling for mediocrity and started demanding excellence from its own educational system.

Walk across any American university campus today, and the contrast becomes painfully clear. While international students pack engineering labs and computer science departments, too many American students have drifted toward paths of least resistance — degrees in Critical Race Studies, Queer Theory and Gender Analysis.

One group is building the future; the other is deconstructing the past. These fields offer little beyond debt and limited career prospects. Yet they proliferate while hard sciences struggle for enrollment. 

The real revelation isn’t that international students are outperforming Americans. It’s that they’re succeeding within systems America built, but has allowed them to decay. They’re mastering curricula Americans designed, conducting research in labs Americans constructed, and launching careers from universities Americans funded. The infrastructure for greatness already exists. America has simply forgotten how to use it.

Consider the typical trajectory of today’s international STEM student. They arrive focused, disciplined, and pragmatic. They pursue electrical engineering, computer science, and biotechnology. Not because these fields are fashionable, but because they understand something fundamental: Education is a tool for building the future, not just exploring feelings about the present. They treat university as a launching pad, not a four-year therapy session.

There’s an opportunity hidden within this crisis. America doesn’t need to choose between welcoming global talent and developing domestic potential. The country can do both, and doing both is precisely what made it a superpower in the first place.

The solution begins with recognizing that excellence attracts excellence. The same rigorous programs that draw international students can inspire American ones — if we make them accessible and appealing. This means rebuilding pathways that connect high school students directly to high-impact fields, regardless of their background or ZIP code.

Imagine a system where every public university receiving federal funding must maintain world-class STEM programs with guaranteed spots for qualified American students.

Picture apprenticeship programs that blend university research with practical training, giving students hands-on experience while they earn degrees, or partnerships between elite universities and community colleges that create seamless transitions from technical training to advanced research.

This isn’t about lowering standards or creating separate tracks. It’s about raising expectations across the board while removing the barriers that prevent talented Americans from reaching their potential. The farm kid in rural Iowa who builds robots in his garage should have access to the same opportunities as the international student with perfect test scores. 

The key is understanding that competition drives excellence. International students aren’t just filling seats. They’re setting benchmarks. Their success should inspire their American counterparts to rise up and meet them, not retreat into easier alternatives.

When classrooms contain students from around the world, all working at the highest level, everyone benefits from the elevated — and more, yes, diverse — standards.

America needs to rehabilitate the culture around education itself. Learning must be reframed as adventure, not obligation. Discovery should be celebrated more than comfort. The pursuit of knowledge needs to be understood as both personally fulfilling and nationally essential.

This cultural shift requires leadership from academic institutions. Universities must stop marketing themselves as lifestyle brands and start functioning as intellectual boot camps. They should measure success not by graduation rates or student satisfaction surveys, but by the real-world impact of their graduates—the patents filed, the companies launched, the problems solved.

President Trump’s instinct to “Make America Great Again” is correct, but greatness begins with thinking. To MAGA, we must MATA: Make America Think Again.

That doesn’t mean closing the door to foreign talent. It means refusing to accept a future where American students are bystanders in their own country’s labs and lecture halls. It means ensuring American students can stand shoulder to shoulder with foreign talent.

Foreign students dominating scientific fields aren’t the problem. They’re the reminder of what happens when a system still believes in mastery and refuses to apologize for it. Now it’s time to give American students that same shot. Not a head start, but a fair fight. Because if America intends to lead the world again, it’ll need to outthink it first.

Greatness isn’t handed down. It’s trained, tested, and taught.