(08-16-2017 04:50 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  In a *very* qualified defense of the indelicately expressed "too many Asians" argument, I do think it might be possible for a school to go too far in admitting international students, which in the present moment has in fact come to essentially mean students from Asia (mostly China). I am open to correction with data (not anecdotes, thank you) but I suspect international students are the cohort least likely to support athletics and least likely to donate as alumni, especially those that return to their home countries. A too-high percentage becomes penny-wise and pound-foolish: They pay full price for 4 years now but give very little back over the remaining 50-60-70+ years of their lives. Rice's 11% number strikes me as maybe double (?) from my time (late '80s-early '90s), but I could be wrong on that and in any event having 50 more international kids in a class of 1,000 is obviously not what's holding us back from P5 status. It's certainly nowhere near the 25% that has been the case for several years now at the University of Illinois, which (as a law school alum) I fear is mortgaging its future to pay its present bills. And one wonders if it is not just a coincidence that Illinois is now going on 4 years with no bowl games and no men's basketball tournament appearances, which I'm not sure has ever happened before.

Funny, having a lot of international students doesn't seem to be hurting other P5 schools like Miami, Oregon, Michigan, USC, Washington, and Michigan State. Given Illinois' less than stellar football history (Red Grange was a long, long time ago and they have had plenty of bowl game gaps before) and tortured history in basketball, maybe international students aren't the problem. Maybe, just maybe, you guys just aren't that good at stuff.