The magnitude of the economic costs associated with the presence of foreign students in U.S. higher education and to what degree these costs are subsidized and by whom are discussed to help develop an appreciation for the rich, complex, and changing context of the U.S. higher education system. Five sections are: (1) foreign students and the changing economic context of U.S. higher education (foreign students do not represent a homogenous group, and the economic implications of different categories of foreign students may be changing in quite different ways and by very different magnitudes in the various diverse components of the U.S. higher education system); (2) the academic labor market, the demand for graduate students, and foreign supply (a decline in quality and graduate enrollments has adverse consequences for both instructional and research capabilities of universities, for graduate students are a relatively low cost source of academic labor, and the shift in demand for graduate students to lower-quality teaching oriented instructions, along with a relatively weak market for Ph.D.s, has reduced the supply of domestic graduate students and foreign students have become a critical source of high quality supply for U.S. graduate education); (3) undergraduate excess capacities, marginal costs, and prices (while foreign enrollments increased significantly, there were greater increases in the prices which reflected the true marginal or incremental costs associated with additional enrollment); (4) foreign demand for U.S. higher education (undergraduate foreign student demands are likely to respond to prices and institutional pricing policies then become especially significant); (5) and conclusion (foreign graduate and undergraduate students contribute significantly to the stabilization of the system). (SM)