DeSantis vs. the Visa Economy: When the Nation’s #1 Education System Met the Wall Street Journal’s Worst Argument

Host Croaky Caiman examines a brewing feud between Florida’s top-ranked public university system and Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley, who argues that limiting H-1B hires amounts to an attack on higher education.

The episode contrasts Florida’s record—low tuition, rising graduation rates, and system efficiency—with the WSJ critique that cutting visa pipelines supposedly undermines academia. Croaky pushes back, arguing Florida’s results show success without dependence on imported labor and that pundit outrage defends a model of institutional dependency.

Listen for a data-driven take on whether prioritizing local hiring and fiscal discipline is a reform or a threat, and how this debate exposes deeper assumptions about the future of American higher education.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
🐊 Croaky Caiman Founder,The Rational Purview 📻 Firing Lane Podcast | 💬 Substack | ☕ Buy Me a Coffee 👗 Mrs.

Croaky’s Merch Shop Introduction (00:09):
There’s a delicious irony in watching coastal punditry sermonize about how to run a university system while ignoring the scoreboard.
Florida—now being scolded by The Wall Street Journal—is the precise example that exposes how brittle the pundit class’s assumptions are.
Today I want to walk through that irony,call out the talking points,

(00:31):
and explain why the outrage smells more like a defense of a broken model than a defense of education.

The setup (00:37):
Florida has been lauded — even ranked #1 in higher education for the ninth consecutive year,
per recent lists — while also claiming the nation’s lowest tuition,
rapidly rising graduation rates,and what its advocates call the most efficient public university system in America.
Yet when the state tightens the visa pipeline and asks universities to prioritize domestic hires,

(01:02):
that pragmatic choice becomes a national scandal.
Jason Riley’s Wall Street Journal column frames it as an attack on higher education itself,
as if academic quality requires shipment from a global temp agency.

Why that framing fails (01:16):
You’d think leading the nation in measurable outcomes would earn a little credibility.
But in certain editorial theologies,success achieved without outsourcing offends the gods of globalization.
The underlying assumption is that universities must lean on imported labor,
constant federal support,and sprawling administration to function.

Florida’s results cut through that assumption (01:38):
more students graduating, faster, and for less money.
If outcomes matter, the critique has to start looking a lot different.

Enter the High Priest of Cheap Labor (01:49):
Riley’s piece reads less like reporting and more like a catechism for the donor class.
He treats foreign visas as a sacrosanct input of the education machine and any effort to favor local talent as heresy.

He doesn’t defend universities as places of learning so much as labor-arbitrage operations (02:04):
institutions charging six-figure tuition while insisting they can’t find Americans to staff freshman calculus.

The rebuttal (02:17):
What Riley characterizes as xenophobia is, in this context, fiscal common sense.
Florida has demonstrated that you can govern with discipline and still get better results.
The real “attack on higher education” is the insistence—utterly unsupported by Florida’s outcomes—that the academy must collapse the moment it’s asked to hire locally and operate responsibly.

The wider point (02:40):
Maybe the pundit class is rattled because Florida disproves their model
When a state succeeds by cutting the Gordian knots of bureaucracy and perverse incentives,
it blows up a lot of convenient narratives.
Before Manhattan lectures Tallahassee about destroying a system,

(03:03):
it’s worth asking whether what’s being “ruined” is an illusion—that the American academy cannot thrive without outsourcing.

Closing and call to action (03:10):
If you want commentary that keeps poking the comfortable myths and calling out the contradictions,
Croaky’s Substack is a reader-supported publication.
Consider subscribing—free or paid—to get more pieces like this.
The Gospel According to Wall Street is loud;
the scoreboard is quiet and persistent.

(03:32):
My money’s on the scoreboard.