A solution to that would be tightening up admission requirements. But if universities deem that applicants are legit, there is no detriment to the supposed "influx" that you are pointing to. At that point, that's just the US drawing in trained labor force

How many white collar jobs do we actually need?

As many as can be absorbed without leaving blue collar workers (further) behind

> How many white collar jobs do we actually need?

More educated immigrants lead to more jobs and economic growth.

Where does this universal truth come from?

Various sources.

1. https://www.cato.org/blog/fiscal-impact-immigration-united-s...

2. https://www.aclu.org/other/immigrants-and-economy

3. https://www.bushcenter.org/catalyst/north-american-century/b...

4. https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2016/1/27/the-e...

5. https://www.cbpp.org/research/poverty-and-inequality/immigra...

Because American's have chosen to have immigration opportunities spread among different countries and specifically written that into our system? Because I don't want a system that promotes elites that 'have the funds to pay tuition'? None of my grandparents could have afforded that high bar. If you have the funds, you don't NEED to immigrate as much as others do.

None of your grandparents would have made it to the US under the current system either (probably)

Lower ranked US universities will grant admission to anyone who can afford their fees. Majority of the people coming to the US are from tier 3/4 colleges in their home country. There are few states in this particular country that have consultancies submitting thousands of student applications. Everything is taken care of - from the application form filling to preparing SOPs and letters of recommendation. Always a good idea to understand the ground reality before jumping to conclusions.

US had that most of its history with European immigrants. Just show up and not be sick and feeble. Later they added a basic literacy test.