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When I was in graduate school at CBU from September 2016 to May 2018, there were four students of color, all but one mechanical engineers (one software). Eighty-eight percent (88%) of the students were directly off the tarmac from India. I noticed quickly that the course work was directly proportional to the technical English ability that the majority of the students held. It was clear that the administration had saddled the professors with a task of giving a Masters level education with an American high school’s English speaking level.

But the astute reader will ask, how can 88 percent of the students be of color when there were only four? Is the class 5 people? Well, the four students were white, with two Chinese and the other 24 students, Indian, half from Bangalore and half from Ahmedabad. My experience was the same: They were the hardest working people, except when they weren’t. And they were the laziest, coat-tails riding SOBs, except when they weren’t.

Let’s be clear. My contrarianisms and bone-to-pick is not with my peers, who courageously flew across the ocean to better themselves as aliens in a foreign land. But it is with the obtuse growth at any cost mindset of an administration that took their own religious creed to transfer wealth to a techno-class 3rd world country. The academic competition balance sheet presented to future students who look and talk like me grew. It grew so that I was not competing within my class, nor within my county, state or country. The whole world is wearing a different jersey to come for dollars.

A wise Stoic said this about times of struggle and development: No one owes you anything in this life. And I agree, under one fundamental agreement: If you’re on the nation’s team, look to that pool of players first, second and all the way up until all has been exhausted. For a rising tide lifts all boats.