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Comment by jmchuster | Hacker News Reader

The majority of Indian and Asian Americans you see in the US are self-selected to be the richest and most successful ones from their country. Those who don't come from rich families, those who didn't go to the top schools in their country, are much more likely to just stay home, instead of get sponsored by their families to go to the other side of the world to search out the best opportunities.

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> The majority of Indian and Asian Americans you see in the US are self-selected to be the richest and most successful ones from their country.

For Indian and Asian Americans, “their country” is the USA, and especially for Asian Americans, it's not uncommon that was true of their ancestors for several generations.

> especially for Asian Americans, it's not uncommon that was true of their ancestors for several generations.

A large majority of Asian Americans are foreign born. The only groups that aren’t majority foreign born are the Japanese and Hmong.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/22/key-facts-a...

>> The majority of Indian and Asian Americans you see in the US are self-selected to be the richest and most successful ones from their country.

This is absolutely not true for "majority." A significant minority of them, this is probably true about, but a cursory review of how Chinese-Americans arrived to this country will probably dispel this rumor fairly quickly.

54% of Chinese Americans have a Bachelor’s or higher, 50% for foreign born. Things have changed in the last 30 years. Trust me when I say 50% of Chinese in China do not have a university degree.

https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/fact-sheet/asian-americans-c...

Sorry, "majority you see in the US" is wrong. I'm thinking more along the lines of "majority that migrated over the last 50 years".

Do you have any evidence for this you could link?

So the native population simply is not of the same caliber as the immigrant population?

Hmm, international students have to pay a full ride. So maybe you'd say that the immigrant population is roughly the same caliber as the portion of the native population that is too successful to qualify for financial aid.

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