> At the risk of being branded a commie, this is what happens when countries progressively privatise higher education.

Private higher education is still better in every way. It's only that just like every other application of free market, there needs to be some amount of government regulation.

The main problem is that the western nations have been sleeping at the wheel for a while now, embracing oikophobia as a moral good, they have forgotten enemies exist and how to deal with them. Some countries just need to be blanket banned from having access to anything western, no matter how "xenophobic" it might make academics feel.