if you read carefully, I made it very clear--there are two tiers of the market: few top research schools and many teaching schools. Your friends quite possibly work for good research schools--which are located in the middle of nowhere (not a good location for many asians).
do not generalize from limited examples to the whole population/market. I have seen enough Chinese students who have no idea or little knowledge about accounting and then struggle in the accounting PhD programs, wasting their time and also school's money ....
