One could consider this a threat: sending bright college graduates back to their country of origin will help those countries’ businesses to compete with American businesses. Alternatively, this could be interpreted as the strongest form of marketing a positive message about America to those foreign nations. Rather than our State Department involving themselves overtly in the politics of competing nations, foreign nationals are changed through their experience of living, studying, and working in America. They have perhaps become accustomed to some of the benefits of living in America (a few include: relatively low prices for food and fuel, commoditization of basic goods, equality for women, wide availability of the internet, and freedom of speech). These college graduates will wish to have a similar standard of living at home. We influence the rest of the world’s choices for food, luxury goods, television shows, and popular music… the list goes on and on. Surely the participants in the “Arab Summer” have many personal reasons for standing up to their oppressive regimes, but the importance of foreign-born emissaries of American culture upon their revolts should not be understated. And by educating people from around the globe in America, we’re likely to build better relations with their nations in the future, and perhaps gain access to those markets as they mature and their populations become more affluent.