Two Minus One

Sometimes, it seems that the lack of understanding between political factions in the United States is intentional. I was listening to "The Opinions" podcast from The New York Times; specifically their episode on "Trump, MAGA and 'toxic empathy'."

One of the points raised is that a lot of things that are not zero-sum are treated as such, and that drives much of the lack of empathy. An example was foreign students attending universities in the United States. The point was made that since these students are paying full tuition, they are subsidizing the education of poorer American students who presumably wouldn't be able to attend.

A fair point, but it misses something important; universities don't increase the number of people they admit just because they have an overseas student paying the full sticker price. 100 foreign students out of 1,000 might make it easier for low-income American students who are admitted to pay for their education, via the subsidy effect, but the top 100 American students who didn't make the cut are still locked out, because there isn't room for them. And that's the zero-sum aspect of this that a lot of people resent.

It seemed like such an obvious thing that it was conspicuous in its absence. Now, I understand that it simply didn't occur to anyone while the conversation was actually happening, but it did illustrate the divide in play... I'm pretty sure that if any of the panelists had asked someone about it, they would have been told why people see foreign students as a problem for their own children's chances. As it is, they demonstrated why so many people feel "the media" is out of touch with their concerns.