[Zarath]

A vast majority of the Chinese international students I met in college were:

Already incredibly wealthy (if you think inequality is bad in the US, you should see Shanghai or other parts of China) and had no intentions of staying in the US and were just here for education. It was extremely common to see Chinese students driving around in BMWs, Mercedes, Audis, and very often nicer cars, and it became something of a stereotype with most of the people I knew. Not to mention my university was taxpayer funded.

[paxys]

Ever since the recession most states have cut funding for public universities down to nothing, so they have to rely on rich international students paying exorbitant tuition in order to subsidize costs. It's pretty likely that it was those students and not taxpayers that were funding your education.

[thaumasiotes]

> Not to mention my university was taxpayer funded.

Assuming it was a US university, the Chinese students were paying a special extra-high tuition for international students.

[lkCbdBclE]

I think their point was that it was a public university. At least in my experience, you'll see less (they still exist) obviously wealthy students. It makes the wealthy international students more jarring/juxtaposed.

[krageon]

Back when I actually bothered to investigate the matter (more than ten years ago), there were no universities that were taxpayer funded in the way that everyone expects when you say that (no to low tuition). Has that changed?