>aren’t writing colleges big checks in exchange for “produce us people who can function in real life teams”.
The US has has the privilege($$$) to import the minds and workforce it needs, thereby skipping the need to invest in local education, and offshoring this burden to brain-drain countries in the process.
The US spends more per capita on education than any other large country on earth. The only countries in the OECD that surpass the US in per capita education spending are Luxembourg, Norway, Austria, and Iceland. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd
So, the US is actually doing both: doing its best to brain-drain other developed countries while also spending more than anyone else on education. Is college the best place to train people to function better in teams? Or would Amazon be better served in funding lots of youth sports teams and recruiting from those?
And this is done without any violent process of physical capture. Others could play that game too, and the US could play it as well as it once did. All the participating parties would benefit directly, and "the world" indirectly.
The US has has the privilege($$$) to import the minds and workforce it needs, thereby skipping the need to invest in local education, and offshoring this burden to brain-drain countries in the process.