I did some tutoring in graduate school. Unfortunately some were clearly admitted for a variety of, doubtless well-intentioned, reasons who did not have the most basic underpinnings of math and related skills. Graduate school, even with remedial training, is not the place to get students up to speed on 8th grade arithmetic.
Perhaps, in some cases, general diligence was also an issue but a lot of it was just a total disconnect with respect to (especially quantitative) skills. When someone comes up to you and requests (I still remember this many years later) "I need you to teach me about graphs" (the simple X-Y version), it's hard to know where to even start.
“If they come out of here without the ability to write programs, that’s embarrassing to my department,”
Why will you admit such students in the first place? This is a lapse shown by the admissions office. Paying recruiters to find students, giving students spot admissions - these are questionable practices the university shouldn't indulge into.
> Even for citizens I've seen universities admit students to programs who have little to no chance of graduating
Yes, this is very common in unfunded graduate programs (ie, for which students are on the hook for the full tuition).
Unlike undergraduate programs, these get far less scrutiny, and it's also much harder to compare success rates, because programs are often specialized and employment rates aren't always as indicative of the value of the graduate degree as they are for undergraduate education.
I have seen this first-hand. Many of my supposed GTAs, particularly for more advanced courses like Operating Systems, did not know any of the material that they were teaching. In one case, I had to show them how to use the CLI. Some had wonderful questions like "Are pipes how copy and paste work". Can I get a refund on my degree?
Seriously don't understand the point of this story other than the implied racist undertones. Why is it important to highlight the nationality of the students in the title, when the failure is clearly on the part of the university admissions office for not vetting the student applications/GRE scores etc prior to having them fly in. The nationality just happens to be related to the country where the recruiters looked in. I bet they would have found equally unqualified candidates in any other country, but it's far easier to go to India where just by the way of shear numbers you can swoop in a lot more interested candidates in a much shorter time period.
Some countries have stricter standards for graduation and against cheating than others.
India has lots of cheating. Ask an Indian.
Nothing racist about article at all.
Yes there are unqualified students everywhere but clearly some countries will have fewer because of enforcement of standards.
Hell the headline using the word "lured" puts the blame on the univerity/recruiters.
Perhaps, in some cases, general diligence was also an issue but a lot of it was just a total disconnect with respect to (especially quantitative) skills. When someone comes up to you and requests (I still remember this many years later) "I need you to teach me about graphs" (the simple X-Y version), it's hard to know where to even start.