Why is this portrayed as an “addiction”? This is one of America's important exports, and it is also really good for rural areas (usually would otherwise be in decline) with a college.

What we need is to strengthen this by granting green cards to those who get advanced degrees in key fields.

Yeah, overspending is a big problem (cut Administrative overhead and highly paid deans, etc!), but foreign students are a sign of a healthy and competitive higher education system.