Some notes on enrollment and immigration

This year's announced enrollment at Southeast Missouri State University is 11,970 students. Similar to national averages, 57.6 percent (6,899) are women and 42.4 percent (5,072) are men.

The number of men 20 and older without paid work is 32 percent...and only 15 percent of men 25 to 54 who worked not at all in 2014 said they were unemployed because they could not find work.

With 11 of our 14 grandchildren being girls, the field for college-educated husbands is diminishing.

Some stats from a recent St. Louis Business Journal are:

"Women are making 77 cents on every dollar men make in Missouri. Women are outliving men by at least five years on average. Women are less likely to be in the workforce as long." Nikki Crawford, Northwestern Mutual

"Today women control more than 50 percent of the American wealth. That's over $14 trillion. We're also the breadwinners in 40 percent of the homes." Julie Sward, Moneta

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St. Louis is the fastest-growing metro area for immigrants, census data shows:

"The foreign-born population in the St. Louis area grew by about 9 percent from 2014 to 2015, according to census data collected in the American Community Survey

(www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/about.htm).

During that time, the number of immigrants grew to 129,559. St. Louis attracted the highest percentage increase of the nation's top 20 metropolitan areas, beating out New York City, Chicago and San Francisco.

Immigrants make up less than 5 percent of the region's residents, and building on an already small community can be hard, said Betsy Cohen, executive director for the Mosaic Project (www.stlmosaicproject.org).

The organization has been working since 2013 to make St. Louis the fastest-growing area for immigrants by the next census in 2020. It works in tandem with a number of other local organizations that support people who are new to the country.

'It's very rewarding after three and a half years of organizing that we can see the efforts are starting to take hold,' Cohen said. 'It's like wheels turning, when we all run together, you can truly move the region ahead economically, culturally, and socially.'

Without foreign-born residents, St. Louis' population would have declined in 2015."

Source: St. Louis Public Radio

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Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, on immigration:

"At 42.4 million, there are now more immigrants, legal and illegal, in America than ever before, fueled by a massive flood from Muslim nations, and the growing numbers are substantially impacting public services like public schools, according to a weighty new analysis of Census Bureau data.

One impact of note: There are 10.9 million students from immigrant households in public schools, accounting for 23 percent of all public school students, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.

And while the doors remain open on the U.S.-Mexico border, the biggest percentage increases in immigration are all from largely Muslim nations, a fact that has been drawn into the presidential election.

According to CIUS authors Steven A. Camarota, director of research, and Karen Zeigler, a demographer: "The sending countries with the largest percentage increases in immigrants living in the United States from 2010 to 2014 were Saudi Arabia (up 93 percent), and Pakistan, India, and Ethiopia (each up 24 percent)."

The report breaks down the Census immigration reports of the last two years to determine where the legal and illegal immigrants are from, where they live, what they do, how much they make, their education and how births are adding to the population.

Their full report can be seen here, www.cis.org/Immigrants-in-the-United-States. Their conclusion is sweeping in impact. They wrote: "The latest data collected by the Census Bureau shows that 18.7 million immigrants arrived in the country from 2000 to 2014. Just between 2010 and 2014, 5.6 million immigrants arrived in the United States. The more than 1 million immigrants settling in the country each year have a very significant effect on many areas of American life. New immigration plus births to immigrants added more than 8 million people to the U.S. population between 2010 and 2014, accounting for the overwhelming majority of population growth. Immigrants account for more than one in eight U.S. residents. Children from immigrant households now account for nearly one in four public school students, almost one-third of children in poverty, and one-third without health insurance, creating enormous challenges for the nation's schools, health care system, and physical infrastructure. The large share of immigrants who arrive as adults with relatively few years of schooling is the primary reason so many live in poverty, use welfare programs and lack health insurance."

The key highlights from the report:

• The nation's 42.4 million immigrants (legal and illegal) in 2014 is the highest number ever in American history. The 13.3 percent of the nation's population comprised of immigrants in 2014 is the highest percentage in 94 years.
• States with the largest percentage increases in the number of immigrants from 2010 to 2014 were North Dakota (up 45 percent), Wyoming (up 42 percent), Montana (up 19 percent), Kentucky (up 15 percent), New Hampshire (up 14 percent), and Minnesota and West Virginia (both up 13 percent).
• In 2014, 49 percent of maids, 47 percent of taxi drivers and chauffeurs, 33 percent of butchers and meat processors, and 35 percent of construction laborers were foreign-born.
• Almost one in three children (under age 18) in poverty have immigrant fathers.
• There are 64 public school students per 100 immigrant households, compared to 38 for native households. Because immigrant households tend to be poorer, immigration often increases school enrollment without a corresponding increase in the local tax base."

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"In any contest between power and patience, bet on patience." W.B. Prescott

"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important." Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

"Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do." Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980)

"A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies." Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

"Well-timed silence hath more eloquence than speech." Martin Farquhar Tupper

"You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there." Yogi Berra

"I am not young enough to know everything." Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Gary Rust is chairman of the board of Rust Communications, which owns the Southeast Missourian, as well as a member of the editorial board.