Merit and the Case for Immigration

Most of the high-achieving U.S. students to whom we award college scholarships have foreign-born parents

By Phil Gramm and Robert Topel. Excerpts:

"Once we make our selections, we ask for more biographical information as part of our counseling support. When the process is complete each year, the most common characteristic among recipients is that both parents were born in a foreign country. This was true of 62% of the recipients in 2024, about three times the share that would be expected if the students were drawn at random from the nation’s schools. Another 9% had one foreign-born parent, while only 29% had both parents born in the U.S. Parents of this year’s recipients came from China, Guatemala, India, Korea, Kuwait, Laos, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan and Vietnam. Not surprisingly in Texas, 20% of foreign-born parents were from Mexico.

These extraordinary numbers raise the question: Why did a majority of high-school seniors chosen on merit come from families with immigrant parents? Part of the reason is that foreign-born parents are on average poorer and more likely to meet the foundation’s income requirement. But there’s more to it. Based on research from the Institute for Family Studies, immigrant households are more likely to have both natural parents in the household. Also, their children were less than half as likely to have recorded behavioral problems at school, and were much less likely to have ever been expelled.

But immigrant households also predominantly spoke a foreign language at home, were much more likely to live in poor areas or areas with high minority populations, and were less likely to own their own home. The overwhelming majority of Welch Foundation scholarship recipients attended public schools—often subpar ones—though they were more likely than other students in their neighborhoods to attend charter schools. But perhaps the most significant finding is that 91% of all immigrant parents nationwide expected their children to graduate from college, and 59% expected them to pursue graduate or professional degrees."

"Immigrants bring new energy to America, and their drive to succeed has been a powerful force for American progress."