[kelnos]

Private and public; don't forget that there are many, many public colleges and universities in the US. And presumably this would be limited to accredited higher-education institutions; you couldn't just stand up Butts University, start issuing degrees in Flatulence and Cheekiness, and have met the criteria. And maybe it's not just anyone who graduates from a US institution; maybe limit it to certain levels of achievement, and/or certain fields that the US has interest in developing or maintaining competence or dominance in.

I get your objection about unelected/unaccountable, but this happens all the time, and is normal, expected, and unavoidable. The government very often reaches outside itself for expert opinions on things that it cannot or should not develop its own expertise in.

The current system is stupid. Educating foreigners in the US and then kicking them out (absent something with the intentions of a Fullbright, for example) is just bad policy.