Slump Sinks H1-B Visa Program

[alain]

My view is that if you get an engineering, science, or math graduate degree from a US school, you should be REQUIRED to stay and work here for a certain period of time as I think IIT was attempting to do in India.

Why? Education here is not free. If you pay for it, you should do whatever you want after you are done.

 

[Aditya Chitral]

You and your friends are going to repent this decision.

Just out of curiosity, could you shed some light on your background.

I know a guy who completed MFE in 2008 and still looking for a job in the US.

Conclusions drawn on sample size of 1. Are you trying to become a quant?

 

[IlyaKEightSix]

Your sample space is too small. There are much more to the college education than science and engineering fields.
What's wrong with people getting an American degree and go back if that's what they want to do all along? Education is just a business like everything else. Students pay to get a degree/knowledge. Best business attracts more clients. If you don't provide, they simply go to Europe, whatever to study.
There should not be any law to capture talents against their will. Our best hope is to provide the best incentives for foreign talents to stay. You can give them GC/citizenship for free but if they decide that other countries offer them better environment career-wise, there is not a thing you can do about it.

Since we're discussing education, anytime someone pokes me there, my reply is usually too long to post in a forum.

I did give it a reply, however.

 

[Aditya Chitral]

We weed out those who simply want an American degree and then go back to wherever, while at the same time, encouraging home-grown engineers/mathematicians/scientists/technologists.

You should be happy if people come here only for the degree. They come here, spend money (good for the economy) and go away.

Silver lining: WOO! Less competition for you ^_^.

 

[IlyaKEightSix]

In the short term? Yes. In the long term? Not at all.

 

[Aditya Chitral]

In the short term? Yes. In the long term? Not at all.

Since you did not elaborate on that answer. Let me take the freedom of speculating. So in short term you are happy that people come here, create a demand for dollar, spend a lot of money keeping the economy growing.

In long term you feel, "why should a foreign national come here and utilize the facilities of US and then not repay back by working here".

Correct me if I am wrong.

 

[IlyaKEightSix]

Very well. I will correct you on one minor aspect. In education only.

There is probably enough domestic demand for American universities, so if a foreign national is accepted who then leaves the country to work in another one, this is strictly a worse economic outcome than a domestic student paying the same money and staying in the states.

At the doctorate level, the university pays the students instead of the other way around, so if this happens at the doctorate level, this is simply a disaster.

However, other than that, I am happy that there is demand for U.S. products.

 

[vdhinaka]

Just out of curiosity, could you shed some light on your background.

Conclusions drawn on sample size of 1. Are you trying to become a quant?

Nice to see that your reading abilities have drastically improved after my critisism.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

vdhinaka,
We have come to expect a certain level of constructive discussion from our members. Any personal remark or calling names isn't going to be much loved around here.

 

[Aditya Chitral]

There is probably enough domestic demand for American universities, so if a foreign national is accepted who then leaves the country to work in another one, this is strictly a worse economic outcome than a domestic student paying the same money and staying in the states.

At the doctorate level, the university pays the students instead of the other way around, so if this happens at the doctorate level, this is simply a disaster.

It boils down to the fact that the person would go where he finds better opportunities. If you think that US paid for the doctorate study, the create an opportunity which is more competent than what he could find elsewhere. This way what you are actually doing is paying for a more competent guy and making him work for you.

And this is not just about US. Its same everywhere. If there is a good school in Europe and after graduating he finds a better opportunity in US, he would come here and work for US. In this situation US paid nothing and is benefiting.

I think its a fair game.

 

[IlyaKEightSix]

In terms of the doctorate, yes, that person would go where he finds better opportunities, or where he can get better opportunities.

The problem is that the interests of America's best educational institutions (or for that matter, all of them) are not aligned with the interest of America.

The heart of the problem is this: there simply isn't enough room in the universities for everyone to be accepted (duh).

So to that extent, in order for the interests of the country's best educational institutions and the country itself to be aligned, there needs to be a legislation that we simply decrease the number of spots available to anyone in the world, and instead create a number of spots available only for someone who is a citizen of the United States.

In return, anyone who completes a technical degree in the United States (or at least a graduate degree) should be given a green card for them, their spouse, and any children in order to severely encourage them to stay in the US.

 

[Eugene Krel]

Having read this thread (and mostly feeling dumber for it), I am still confused as to where all of these sweeping statements are coming from. Would you mind posting your sources of enrollment information for lets say the top 200 universities in the US as well as the information that tells us where graduates have been going over the past 10 years (keep in mind more people leave in bad times and in good).

As was already pointed out, the "numbers" being used to justify various arguments seem to be based on a sample of 1 or 1.5 universities.

 

[GoIllini]

Why? Education here is not free. If you pay for it, you should do whatever you want after you are done.

Yes, but our country essentially has a huge share of this oligopolistic market, and education is generally considered a non-profit enterprise. Why not ensure that students who benefit from our country's charitable institutions stay here a while and give back to the country for a few years?

Not-for-profit education is a social enterprise. If it were a laissez-faire for-profit enterprise, everyone would be graduates of DeVry and University of Phoenix. Just because you pay for something doesn't mean you've paid the market rate for it.

---------- Post added at 10:07 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:19 AM ----------

Most of the Indian students coming to US universities these days are those who could not get good jobs in India. Almost all top students from IITs and good universities join companies like Google, Goldman, Microsoft etc. These companies pay a starting salary of about $25K in India, so it does not make sense to come to US for an MS.

That really hasn't been my experience. We have a lot of people who graduated at the top of their classes at the IITs here at the New York banks. $25K might go a lot further in India than New York, but many first-year programmers and engineers are able to save $25K their first year in the US. My understanding also is that Google starts their San Jose programmers with bachelors degrees at $95K. I'm not allowed to talk much about actual compensation in the financial sector, but I would note that in order for the investment banks and hedge funds to get programmers who are as smart as the guys who work for Google, they have to make sure their compensation is competitive with that.

Don't get me wrong- I find it scary that some of the brightest programmers in India are only paid $25K/year for 70 hours/week of work- I know that our salaries will have to normalize in the long-run.

Do you want give scholarships to the guys who come to US and ask them to stay here permanently? What are they going to contribute?

The US has a shortage of scientists and engineers. Why not have them stay a few years and be part of the community that helped subsidize their education?

 

[Stefan Zota]

The US has a shortage of scientists and engineers. Why not have them stay a few years and be part of the community that helped subsidize their education?

Very good point, few people notice it.

US universities are financing large majority science/engineering of international grad-school students. They expect some research and of course they expect that student will build a career and add to the name of the school.
So far it has worked pretty well. The money invested was returned in research grants so universities continue to accept international students.

Only a small percentage of these students can go to academia, few positions. If the rest are blocked by visa limitations to work in U.S., the country loses. They have trained a person for 2-5 years, spending 50k average for tuition, advisors, professors, equipment. Probably the expense is well over 100k.
Oppportunity cost is even larger (already mentioned here), many of these students are looking to stay in the States as a first option.

A lot of politicians understand these things, but this is not a time to take the right position. This is a time to be careful to your voters and try to "keep jobs in the country". So there will be some short-term satisfaction. In about 5 years, you will see the real loss of this policy ...

 

[GoIllini]

4%? Seems like 90% to me at the graduate level. Most of my regression class is Chinese, most of my fin opt class was also Chinese.

Agreed. At UIUC, about 1/2-2/3 of the engineering grad students were foreigners; about half the undergrads were foreigners as well. I think they added a lot to the program, and it would be nice if we could have them add to our country when they graduate.

At the very least, if you get a graduate degree in a hard science or engineering discipline, we should give you an automatic green card. If Lou Dobbs shows up and starts complaining, we can simply ask if he'd prefer we sent all of the Chinese nationals back to work for the communist government.

In terms of requiring those with a technical degree to work in the U.S., I say make them citizens, however, on the flip side, legislate a certain quota in these subjects to be devoted to U.S. citizens. That way, everyone wins. We weed out those who simply want an American degree and then go back to wherever, while at the same time, encouraging home-grown engineers/mathematicians/scientists/technologists.

Disagree with this assessment. We arguably have the best post-secondary education system in the world, and if we limit the students that our schools can admit, it will make them less competitive against the IITs, TUMs, and Oxbridges of the world.

I think a bigger problem for many middle-class Americans is simply paying for a public school education, let alone paying for a top-notch private school.

A lot of politicians understand these things, but this is not a time to take the right position. This is a time to be careful to your voters and try to "keep jobs in the country". So there will be some short-term satisfaction. In about 5 years, you will see the real loss of this policy ...

Good point. What if we offer everyone in certain disciplines an automatic green card if unemployment is below, say, 6%?

 

[IlyaKEightSix]

Disagree with this assessment. We arguably have the best post-secondary education system in the world, and if we limit the students that our schools can admit, it will make them less competitive against the IITs, TUMs, and Oxbridges of the world.

I don't think schools such as Stanford and MIT are at any loss for a number of applicants. The kind of idea I'd have is this:

U.S. citizens get a special U.S. citizen only window to apply between date A and date B. Of those, the top min(quota number, applicants with half-decent chance at succeeding if putting in the work) after accounting for matriculation percentages will be automatically admitted.

The idea is this: it doesn't matter who the top educational institutions admit, so long as the people they admit have a reasonable shot at succeeding. It doesn't matter whether they take a 3.2 cumulative/3.6 major U.S. citizen engineering major who displayed high grades in the last two years of his education in technical coursework, or a 4.0 out of IIT/Oxbridge/what have you, so long as the former candidate has a reasonable chance of succeeding in the coursework and/or doing research.

Because at the end of it, an MIT/Stanford/Etc... MS/PhD graduate is just that. In grad school, as far as I hear, so long as you put in the work and the due diligence, your GPA will be very high. As my internship boss said (who literally owns the fastest trading system on Wall Street and received an M.S. in pure mathematics from Courant), in grad school, "A is average, B is bad, C is catastrophic".

Furthermore, consider this: given that there are not many academic research positions open in which a researcher with a heavy foreign accent and a massive language barrier can simply do research and write papers (this is the best case scenario, considering foreigners who obtain a PhD), communication in English will probably be very necessary at some point. Consider an employer's perspective: would they be willing to forgo some slight technical expertise in favor of a much more facilitated channel of communication?

Now in the case of master's students, all of them are going into industry. Odds are, when you're dealing with a large population of foreign students who come from China or India or elsewhere (not trying to stereotype here but I call it like I see it), odds are, not every one of them will be able to obtain an H-1B sponsorship.

Now, Eugene, I'm not sure about the exact statistics of American graduates from technical graduate degrees.

However, if Jim Simons says that there is a massive problem with the lack of American talent in the technical fields, then I'll take his word over yours (or just about anybody else's) regarding this matter.

 

[atreides]

At the very least, if you get a graduate degree in a hard science or engineering discipline, we should give you an automatic green card.

Call me a cynic but...horses will probably fly before this ever happens

 

[alain]

Yes, but our country essentially has a huge share of this oligopolistic market, and education is generally considered a non-profit enterprise.

If you think education is considered a "non-profit" enterprise, you are sadly mistaken. Every single institution of higher education is always trying to make a buck as a whole. I'm sorry to bring this reality to you

Why not ensure that students who benefit from our country's charitable institutions stay here a while and give back to the country for a few years?

Again, why? The beauty of this country is that you are free. So, if I pay for my education why should I be forced to do anything.

 

[GoIllini]

If you think education is considered a "non-profit" enterprise, you are sadly mistaken. Every single institution of higher education is always trying to make a buck as a whole. I'm sorry to bring this reality to you.

Regardless, educational institutions are treated by the IRS as 501(c)3s. From the federal government's perspective- and again, we're arguing about the perspective the federal government should take- there is little difference between Harvard and Save the Children.

Again, why? The beauty of this country is that you are free. So, if I pay for my education why should I be forced to do anything.

But you didn't pay for all of it. If you live in subsidized housing, you can't claim you shouldn't be forced to take a drug test every month to stay. A student at a typical American school is benefiting from the benevolence of the American people and, in fact, the designation of a tax-favored status from the federal government. Hence, if you don't stay in this country for a certain number of years and give back to it, we want our charitable investment in you back to give to other charities.

---------- Post added at 11:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:48 PM ----------

Call me a cynic but...horses will probably fly before this ever happens

Don't we have enough trouble filling jobs in the hard sciences and engineering as it is? Don't the politicians claim that the US is losing its edge in the sciences? This is the fix.

 

[alain]

But you didn't pay for all of it.

Oh yes I did. Every single penny came out of my pocket.