US keep pursuing this political agenda that goes against the whole foundation of the country rise as world superpower. I wonder how long it needs to last before Europe starts to roll serious academic policy that attracts the orphaned talent refused by US.
The Netherlands started well with the Tulip Fund but a systematic effort is needed. Korea is expanding his VISA grants for AI or tech top talents. Its the first time in decades where top world talent does not point altogether towards US and will be interesting to see which policy from other countries will reveal to be more effective. It's a tight window to take advantage of before the change in US administration so an economical effort in a short time period is required.
So can you please explain me the rise of Switzerland, Singapore and South Korea? No natural resources, no energy independency, small countries surrounded by enemies. And why Russia that has all the natural resources of the world is such a failed state? Starting conditions are something that was valid around 2000 years ago in the civilization and empires rise and fall. Not actual anymore.
I'm not a believer in geographic destiny but the fact that Russia is still relatively rich (compared to e.g. CAR or Uganda) shows that natural resources are quite handy. Switzerland does have quite some hydro energy (potential) and because of its resource poverty many Swiss had to leave the country during the 19th century (and these swiss actually created wealth in many of these places). There's millions of americans with swiss ancestry.
Luck? They killed 95% of the existing inhabitants, used a huge agricultural, mining, and forestry base to spread productivity, built national infrastructure with enslaved and indentured labor. They stayed out of two crippling wars as long as they possibly could, and ultimately were the only major power that was able to mostly avoid damage from the war.
After which they invited the best scientists from the axis to come build things for them.
What about these steps is luck? Evil, sure, but luck?
2 World Wars broke out that had impacts on us, it left a ton of our peers completely devastated and we were not. UK did not end food rationing until 1954. By that time, US was building suburbs out, sending a ton of GI to higher education and Marshall plan had our completely functioning factories turning out goods by metric tons an hour.
Luck means things just happened to work out not that they didn’t take steps. Luck means the same thing somewhere else wouldn’t work. That’s the way I’m using it.
I don't think this would negatively affect the crème de la crème, they would even have a high demand in US companies especially in STEM fields with higher salaries after finishing the studies.
US is popular for higher studies for students all around the world not only because of the opportunities, but also English being the language for studies. I'm not sure how it works in EU countries. Does Netherland or South Korea offers degree programs completely in English?
Yeah, all higher studies and institutions are in English and you can get around in public with just English. Most expats will rarely hear or need Dutch (The language of The Netherlands).
Every top university worldwide open to international talent offers the programs in English, from South Korea to Europe, Singapore etc. The challenge would have to keep the talents in country after the university, and language barrier, especially in South Korea plays a role. But US administration is making also harder for companies to hire international talents, and many of those have in any case offices in Europe to avoid the issue. In any case the silicon valley and industrial/tech hubs have historically born around university excellence campus, which is what the US policy is currently degrading. In Europe, beside the UK, there are at least Zurich ETH and TU Delft that have the potential to growth enormously by taking advantage of that.
The US government (and all it's downstream component institutions) for reasons that are beyond the scope of this comment has burnt a huge amount of the goodwill that gets the people who need to pay it's taxes, bend over and take its policies at great expense, fight in it's wars, go to bat for it ideologically, etc, etc.
And in an attempt to rebuild the goodwill that gets people to do all these things, they're restricting specific visa programs that people see as particularly offensive to their wellbeing.
The US, albeit at the state and local level, is also in the processes of walking back all manner of restrictions on housing construction.
There's a theme here, even if some of the specifics are objectionable.
When we hit the academic brain drain tipping point in the US, talent isn't going to just start trickling away, it's going to be like a greedy cup siphon. Countries preparing to attract these people now will reap a windfall the US has carefully cultivated over a century. This administration has demonstrated the federal government cannot be trusted to keep it's commitments and long-term plans, and it will now take a generation of stability to disabuse people of that notion.
I doubt Trump is actively trying to work against tech companies now that they are all best buddies (Jensen, Elon, Altman and others). More likely they are betting that all knowledge work will be automated by SI.
Blaming the government is a cop out. The american government is an expression of the will of the american people. For all the screaming, a politicaly significant percentage of the population supports every decision being made by this administration. There is an election comming up. I want to be proven wrong. But i suspect the ussual patterns will emerge and little will change. Too many people are too comfortable with the current situation.
This is such a crazy statement. Democracy in the US is dead. People are incredibly dumb and I believe you have the causal relationship reversed, even for relatively smart people.
The will of the American people is deeply influenced by interested parties dumping money into various areas. Rich elite own almost all media and even "democratized" social media is heavily influenced. You can't even use a search engine these days.
Ultimately, the 70% plus "will" of the people is money out of politics, stock bans for elected officials, no foreign wars and universal healthcare. Things both parties unite to curtail
Democracy isn't dead, but in the US, it's sure in troubled water. The two-party system encouraged people not to think for themselves but instead have to choose between two parties that, at least initially had common ground but now are diametrically opposed to one another. Now one of the two parties is pretty weak, having lost ground, giving the impression that it had lost touch with the common people and focused on loud but semi-fringe issues. One party owning the system has the same look as Democracy is dead.
Not to mention that even with a strong leader in both parties, we are on a race to the bottom, each election oscillating between the two parties, each spending lots of money and focus undoing what the other party did. When the two parties had common ground, this was much less of an issue.
In the end, this isn't going to get fixed, the US is going to just keep printing money, blowing up the deficit until the last few countries outside the US who trust us no longer do. We'll be in too many wars, in too many places, with too few friends. End up the same way the USSR was when they were in Afghanistan for too long.
I don't think even if you pulled money out of politics, banned stock trading for elected officials, no foreign wars, universal health care - that we would right the ship. Our problems are fundamental. Our early leaders warned us against a two-party system, trying to show us the problems it would lead to, and we ignored it.
Yes, US will print money to inflate debt until it can no longer do so. Yes, the realignment after it cannot get treasuries sold externalkyexternally, will be painful. But this has happened before (in the world) and will happen again. The country doesn't have to fail in the way of the USSR.
And once the dust settles the long term state will probably be better for many countries, US included. My 2c.
Perhaps it is too pessimistic, but it's the default state to fail, die in some sense, just like any other organic thing. The world doesn't have a good record of these things we've created lasting very long.
The hopeful part of me thinks that what will emerge from the disorder will be better, just like anything else that survives today that was once part of something else.
While I agree with much of what you wrote the percentage of people supporting every (or even most) decision of this administration is very small. But a large portion of the population doesn't like the alternative any better.
They said a few years ago that Trump and Biden have a chance only if they run against each other.
So it is more nuanced. We will see what the candidates in 2 years look like.
The vote is skewed because of the large number of Latinos and East Asians that have flowed into the country over the last three decades. If you tally the vote by ethnicity you'll see there's a large amount of support from the white majority (which is getting smaller every year) for these measures.
I do not think you can get the support level for specific measures from a vote. A vote is a single, crude A vs B on a large set of measures. And when a vote is between two options seen as largely abhorrent the winning basket can be a very strange one. My 2c.
I just read that many Latinos have stopped supporting Trump due to the ICE clampdown on illegal immigration.
Not that it matters, of course since Trump cannot be re-elected anyway. But it will be interesting to see if it prevents Vance/Hegseth/Rubio from becoming Presidential candidates.
The thing about dumb people is that the dumber they are the easier it is to convince them that changing their position is against their interests.
This has been something that's been foisted upon the American public through its politics, propaganda, media, and other systems for decades. As a result they have been fleeced through the visage of democracy that has been capped and gerrymandered away from them.
We are now in a situation where the entire fate of the country rests on ~250k people who live in some of the poorest, most homogeneous, media-blasted parts of the country.
“Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses and American universities, and they are elected by American citizens. This is the best we can do folks. This is what we have to offer. It's what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out. If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're going to get selfish, ignorant leaders. Term limits ain't going to do any good; you're just going to end up with a brand new bunch of selfish, ignorant Americans. So, maybe, maybe, maybe, it's not the politicians who suck. Maybe something else sucks around here... like, the public. Yeah, the public sucks. There's a nice campaign slogan for somebody: 'The Public Sucks. F*ck Hope.”
― George Carlin
Interesting perspective. Incidentally, taking this view to its logical conclusion puts into perspective what a lot US adversaries say regarding civilian targets in the US.
That is a debate whenever a democracy goes to war. There are few bright line rules and decisions invariably boil down the moral character of commanders. But do not scratch that itch. There are some not-good stories in america's last hundred years of war. The current situation is not much of an abberration for those who read beyond recent decades.
This rhetoric is insulting to Americans. We're not talking about something "carefully cultivated over a century." U.S. didn't have OPT until 1992!
The foreign-born population in the U.S. was around 5% when tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, HP, and Intel were founded. And most of the immigration to the U.S. up to that point was low-skill immigration, with ad-hoc measures to take skilled immigrants here and there. That approach worked fine to develop the U.S. into a leading technological power.
I'm an American who's not insulted by the parent comment, but am tired of your constant weirdly racist anti-immigration posts. Aren't you an immigrant or child of immigrants from Pakistan or India? I recognize your username but forget which exact unique form of hypocritical xenophobia you hold.
The US has benefited massively from having years of the best and brightest from all around the world come to the US to research medicine, engineering and science. It's not about the one guy who's CEO of some tech company, it's about the thousands of graduate students, post docs and researchers doing the actual work to move humanity forward one lab-rat or laser measurement or petri dish at a time.
The 20th century was full of authoritarians attacking the intelligencia. A nation of uneducated peasants is easier to control and exploit. History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.
The US multination corporations have benefited massively. The common American shares a lower portion of the wealth than ever before. Wealthy foreigners are taking an outsized portion of higher learning seats, and driving up prices. Then they take the white collar jobs. This clearly is keeping downward pressure on the average American economically, more so for the disenfranchised.
With 0 immigration, even sending most of the white collar immigrants back, the US would still be the greatest nation on the planet, except the common American would enjoy more of the spoils. If these immigrants were so valuable, other the countries would be competing hand over fist to bring in as many as possible as quickly as possible, but they're not.
If you take a poll of American highschoolers, their dream jobs are streaming, influencing, playing sports, playing music, acting... basically they want to be rich and famous. Doctor / Nurse is still a go to dream job, but scientist, engineer, astronaut, mathematician, teacher... these are not things American students want to become.
You know what want to be those things more than anything? The students who come from foreign countries to study in America.
With 0 immigration, the US wouldn't be able to get shit done, at all.
> If these immigrants were so valuable, other the countries would be competing hand over fist to bring in as many as possible as quickly as possible, but they're not.
lol they actually competing hand over fixt, but but America has such a strong pull there's literally nothing they can do to make their countries more attractive. The pull of the US is so strong that even with all the abuse it's still more attractive than other countries. That should tell you how good our school system is/was.
The post-1990 program is very different in scope. The 1947 rules provided for a six-month work eligibility that was granted to very few people: https://thepienews.com/us-launches-re-evaluation-of-opt/. Today, OPT is three years and granted to 300,000 people.
IMHO it would be better to limit their stay to 4 years after which they need to exit the country for 3 months to prevent them applying for citizenship. After those three months they can apply for an extension for another 4 years.
By setting up a jobs market for foreigners but not for Americans, and by allowing corporations to install immigrant intake machines at the expense of Americans? Yes. That's what needs fixing.
I'm in favor of legal immigration. I'm not in favor of H1Bs and the "default" pathway.
If we don't get educated and employed as Americans, then yes, we'll be committing suicide.
If someone's post-graduate work is that important, and that particular individual is so unbelievably critical to that particular post-doc work, then surely the fee would be worth it. If it's not, then advantaging the market for post-docs in America to actual Americans seems like a good thing, something governments are meant to do for their citizens.
Is there a reason the American government shouldn't be allowed to act on behalf of its citizens and must act in favor of everyone else?
Let me guess, you’ve never done graduate admissions at a large research university. Even if we admitted 100% of all American citizens who apply, there wouldn’t be enough filled slots to run the programs and do the research.
Moreover, educating foreigners in America does benefit Americans: we get the research, schools get their foreign tuition dollars, local landlords and business absorb their cost of living expenses, local governments get tax money from them, they have kids and they become Americans. Or, if they go home they have great stories to share about how amazing America was for them, inspiring a new generation to come here and grow our country.
When the American government acts as it does now, all that happens is that economic activity moves somewhere else. There is no void filled by Americans, there’s just a void.
This comment is an excellent of scarcity mentality* (I can't decide if that's an insult; if it is, I apologize).
It's in America's best interest as a nation to have as large a pool of smart students to choose from as possible. The loser nations are the ones whose brightest minds leave (aka: "brain drain")
If the people of a nation capable of attracting foreign students are resentful about it, the real problem probably lies elsewhere (eg: inequality, economic depression, or broken media environment)
Except we know for a fact that the exact effect the H1B program had on science is to depress the number of Americans hired for post-docs hired for work in American universities.
You can wave around theories, or we can discuss what actually happened with the program. In the 1940s and 50s we had refugees, but we also had an extremely robust academy producing the likes of Feynman, Wheeler, Thorn, Everett and many more. Then we blew that up, because foreign students were cheap virtually indentured servants.
Enter today's world where tech is doing the same. America doesn't have an obligation to favor or subsidize foreign employment. If we had a system producing more Wheelers, Feynmans, and Thorns, it would still be worthwhile to immigrate and work with them, for a full salary. The same goes for tech. I want to attract foreign students and foreign workers to the American system, not to the American subsidy.
I assure you that you do not know for a fact that H1-Bs have prevented the US citizens from getting postdocs. Partly because postdocs are hired on J-1, not H1-B.
In any case, postdoc salaries come from research funding, which is basically a fixed pot for the entire country. Salaries for American postdocs would not rise if the labor supply falls. We would just have fewer postdocs and less highly skilled labor.
At the PhD level, if we admitted every American who applies without evaluating their record, we would still need to admit foreign students. Few people want to sign up for that challenge, and it just so happens 95% of all other people are not American citizens.
For tenure track faculty, we hire for fit and quality without regard for nationality. This is a requirement of Federal law, and it makes the country better overall.
Qualified foreigners have no advantage over qualified Americans for academic positions. If you don’t believe me, most state universities have salaries publicly listed for their faculty. You could easily see if foreigners are paid a lower wage.
An argument against foreign students and academics is an argument for a smaller scientific workforce, not a more “American” one.
Keeping highly educated and productive foreigners, whom which another country paid to raise and school, IS America acting on behalf of its citizens. These grads will pay tons of tax, create economic activity, perhaps even new companies. And it cost America zero. It’s an insanely good deal.
My understanding is that since OPT was created via executive magic instead of Congress the department overseeing the program is woefully understaffed and underfunded. Visa work in the US really is at the intersection of DHS, DOL and DOS at the end of the day. It may be that the executive needs to rethink this for better department communication, collaboration and efficiency and investment is genuinely necessary given the scale of these programs compared to their inception.
Nobody will tolerate being forced to use "EU government phone" instead of iPhone or Google Android. They will just revolt against their own government instead.
At least here in Scandinavia, the US is quite popular for the most ambitious and driven students that are interested in entrepreneurship. They apply to top US schools on either coasts via exchange programs, or a full degree, exactly because the schools are so close to the startup scene. Imposing a $100k fee to hire those, would effectively make such types of graduates very unattractive to startups.
If the US imposes this charge, they will go somewhere else. Europe, maybe. China, maybe. We won't get the immediate benefit of their work like we do now. This will kill some graduate programs and constrain a lot of others. It is hard to see any positive benefits from this move.
If I were China, I'd move on this aggressively. If I were any country with a strong interest in STEM, I'd do the same. In fact, just the mention of this action should spur a somewhat aggressive response.
China has already been aggressively funding Chinese language education in Africa.
I suggested to a friend of mine that he consider a CS masters in China. He's semi fluent, but lacks a CS background. I imagine he could figure it out though
If I were a younger man and in better health, I’d seriously consider going to China. Obviously, there are some downsides to living there, but I’d like to think I could have overcome them.
This government is doing everything they can to make the lives of my students a living hell. First it was the kidnappings and deportations, if that wasn’t enough.
Then they defunded their projects, even projects that had already been funded so they destroyed a bunch of in-progress research that can’t be restarted.
Then they started fucking with internships, trying to make it so that foreign students can only get an internship if it’s part of the degree program, which most are not.
And of course they completely slowed the document processing down to a snail pace so that students can’t even get to campus on time for the start of the semester.
Now this. Absolutely insane. America had a higher academic system second to none, people came from around the world to attend our schools, made America better, and brought America back to the places they came from in a positive light.
I have one student who fled civil war, he started learning about CS from a country he took refuge in, made his way to America over years, started at a state school and then worked his way up to the graduate level where he busts his ass working in a kitchen every day to be able to afford it. Today he’s publishing papers at top conferences in CS. Every day he is eager to learn and grateful for all opportunities he’s given.
And this government wants to chase that kind of student out of the country.
Meanwhile my American students show up to class and ask me “is this class hard?” And then they drop it once they find out it takes work, like gasp opening a paper book and reading it faints.
It’s going to take decades to repair this damage and I hope all of you here who voted for it (I know there are plenty) understand the damage you caused with your choice. I wish you’ll help fix it because it’s going to take everyone.
The US is ruining itself by ruining the minds of the current and next generations of students.
I finally realized that this is irrecoverable from, when you all laughed and derided Vivek Ramaswamy for saying it as it is. You have simply been enjoying the fruits of labour of your forbears and immigrants and have no plans to sustain it for the future.
Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG. A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers…. This can be our Sputnik moment. We’ve awaken [sic] from slumber before & we can do it again…but only if our culture fully wakes up. A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness.
Regardless of your political leanings, American culture has been devaluing knowledge, education and everything else to do with them for a while now.
International Students made college so much fun, for a kid who grew up poor, causally studying history with a girl from Japan was out of the realm of possiblity.
This was not only free for me, but I got a large cost of living grant on top of tuition itself being free.
Community College was amazing. For international students it's a very easy way to get a visa. The requirements are basically making tuition payments on time.
Well it's over now. Even if the tides shift again you'd have to be silly to risk coming to such an unstable place.
What has being a citizen of a superpower ever done for you, the individual?
You might think cheap imports, but those come with other costs. You might think a say in global affairs, but that benefit is reserved for our leaders.
Prior to WWII, the American majority wanted isolation, an inward focus. WWII is evidence of the only counterargument I can envision, which is international stability. That's not nothing, but there's also nothing that necessitates a singular hegemon to get this result. Even if it did, why's that need to be our country?
Someone argue this is fine since there used to be no OPT long time ago and US is doing fine. But the key is here is NOT if there is OPT or H1B but rather about that 100K cost. It is much better to cancel the OPT/H1B than charge this fee. Because for the former you do not lower the bar, but the latter doesn’t stop the people coming through the program but you only get low tier of talent, which is the least you want in the competitive world. Also it does not reduce spying but rather make it easier.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 117 ms ] threadAfter which they invited the best scientists from the axis to come build things for them.
What about these steps is luck? Evil, sure, but luck?
US is popular for higher studies for students all around the world not only because of the opportunities, but also English being the language for studies. I'm not sure how it works in EU countries. Does Netherland or South Korea offers degree programs completely in English?
Yeah, all higher studies and institutions are in English and you can get around in public with just English. Most expats will rarely hear or need Dutch (The language of The Netherlands).
The US government (and all it's downstream component institutions) for reasons that are beyond the scope of this comment has burnt a huge amount of the goodwill that gets the people who need to pay it's taxes, bend over and take its policies at great expense, fight in it's wars, go to bat for it ideologically, etc, etc.
And in an attempt to rebuild the goodwill that gets people to do all these things, they're restricting specific visa programs that people see as particularly offensive to their wellbeing.
The US, albeit at the state and local level, is also in the processes of walking back all manner of restrictions on housing construction.
There's a theme here, even if some of the specifics are objectionable.
calling it SI is the version is equal to the 3 meme from Inglorious Basterds[0]
[0]: https://www.reddit.com/r/shittymoviedetails/comments/1q0hrdj...
The will of the American people is deeply influenced by interested parties dumping money into various areas. Rich elite own almost all media and even "democratized" social media is heavily influenced. You can't even use a search engine these days.
Ultimately, the 70% plus "will" of the people is money out of politics, stock bans for elected officials, no foreign wars and universal healthcare. Things both parties unite to curtail
Not to mention that even with a strong leader in both parties, we are on a race to the bottom, each election oscillating between the two parties, each spending lots of money and focus undoing what the other party did. When the two parties had common ground, this was much less of an issue.
In the end, this isn't going to get fixed, the US is going to just keep printing money, blowing up the deficit until the last few countries outside the US who trust us no longer do. We'll be in too many wars, in too many places, with too few friends. End up the same way the USSR was when they were in Afghanistan for too long.
I don't think even if you pulled money out of politics, banned stock trading for elected officials, no foreign wars, universal health care - that we would right the ship. Our problems are fundamental. Our early leaders warned us against a two-party system, trying to show us the problems it would lead to, and we ignored it.
Yes, US will print money to inflate debt until it can no longer do so. Yes, the realignment after it cannot get treasuries sold externalkyexternally, will be painful. But this has happened before (in the world) and will happen again. The country doesn't have to fail in the way of the USSR.
And once the dust settles the long term state will probably be better for many countries, US included. My 2c.
The hopeful part of me thinks that what will emerge from the disorder will be better, just like anything else that survives today that was once part of something else.
They said a few years ago that Trump and Biden have a chance only if they run against each other.
So it is more nuanced. We will see what the candidates in 2 years look like.
Not that it matters, of course since Trump cannot be re-elected anyway. But it will be interesting to see if it prevents Vance/Hegseth/Rubio from becoming Presidential candidates.
This has been something that's been foisted upon the American public through its politics, propaganda, media, and other systems for decades. As a result they have been fleeced through the visage of democracy that has been capped and gerrymandered away from them.
We are now in a situation where the entire fate of the country rests on ~250k people who live in some of the poorest, most homogeneous, media-blasted parts of the country.
The foreign-born population in the U.S. was around 5% when tech giants like Apple, Microsoft, HP, and Intel were founded. And most of the immigration to the U.S. up to that point was low-skill immigration, with ad-hoc measures to take skilled immigrants here and there. That approach worked fine to develop the U.S. into a leading technological power.
The US has benefited massively from having years of the best and brightest from all around the world come to the US to research medicine, engineering and science. It's not about the one guy who's CEO of some tech company, it's about the thousands of graduate students, post docs and researchers doing the actual work to move humanity forward one lab-rat or laser measurement or petri dish at a time.
The 20th century was full of authoritarians attacking the intelligencia. A nation of uneducated peasants is easier to control and exploit. History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.
With 0 immigration, even sending most of the white collar immigrants back, the US would still be the greatest nation on the planet, except the common American would enjoy more of the spoils. If these immigrants were so valuable, other the countries would be competing hand over fist to bring in as many as possible as quickly as possible, but they're not.
You know what want to be those things more than anything? The students who come from foreign countries to study in America.
With 0 immigration, the US wouldn't be able to get shit done, at all.
> If these immigrants were so valuable, other the countries would be competing hand over fist to bring in as many as possible as quickly as possible, but they're not.
lol they actually competing hand over fixt, but but America has such a strong pull there's literally nothing they can do to make their countries more attractive. The pull of the US is so strong that even with all the abuse it's still more attractive than other countries. That should tell you how good our school system is/was.
Founded by the child of a Syrian immigrant?
...which was created to streamline somewhat similar rules that had been in place since 1947.
I'm in favor of legal immigration. I'm not in favor of H1Bs and the "default" pathway.
If we don't get educated and employed as Americans, then yes, we'll be committing suicide.
If someone's post-graduate work is that important, and that particular individual is so unbelievably critical to that particular post-doc work, then surely the fee would be worth it. If it's not, then advantaging the market for post-docs in America to actual Americans seems like a good thing, something governments are meant to do for their citizens.
Is there a reason the American government shouldn't be allowed to act on behalf of its citizens and must act in favor of everyone else?
Moreover, educating foreigners in America does benefit Americans: we get the research, schools get their foreign tuition dollars, local landlords and business absorb their cost of living expenses, local governments get tax money from them, they have kids and they become Americans. Or, if they go home they have great stories to share about how amazing America was for them, inspiring a new generation to come here and grow our country.
When the American government acts as it does now, all that happens is that economic activity moves somewhere else. There is no void filled by Americans, there’s just a void.
It's in America's best interest as a nation to have as large a pool of smart students to choose from as possible. The loser nations are the ones whose brightest minds leave (aka: "brain drain")
If the people of a nation capable of attracting foreign students are resentful about it, the real problem probably lies elsewhere (eg: inequality, economic depression, or broken media environment)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarcity_(social_psychology)
You can wave around theories, or we can discuss what actually happened with the program. In the 1940s and 50s we had refugees, but we also had an extremely robust academy producing the likes of Feynman, Wheeler, Thorn, Everett and many more. Then we blew that up, because foreign students were cheap virtually indentured servants.
Enter today's world where tech is doing the same. America doesn't have an obligation to favor or subsidize foreign employment. If we had a system producing more Wheelers, Feynmans, and Thorns, it would still be worthwhile to immigrate and work with them, for a full salary. The same goes for tech. I want to attract foreign students and foreign workers to the American system, not to the American subsidy.
I assure you that you do not know for a fact that H1-Bs have prevented the US citizens from getting postdocs. Partly because postdocs are hired on J-1, not H1-B.
In any case, postdoc salaries come from research funding, which is basically a fixed pot for the entire country. Salaries for American postdocs would not rise if the labor supply falls. We would just have fewer postdocs and less highly skilled labor.
At the PhD level, if we admitted every American who applies without evaluating their record, we would still need to admit foreign students. Few people want to sign up for that challenge, and it just so happens 95% of all other people are not American citizens.
For tenure track faculty, we hire for fit and quality without regard for nationality. This is a requirement of Federal law, and it makes the country better overall.
Qualified foreigners have no advantage over qualified Americans for academic positions. If you don’t believe me, most state universities have salaries publicly listed for their faculty. You could easily see if foreigners are paid a lower wage.
An argument against foreign students and academics is an argument for a smaller scientific workforce, not a more “American” one.
If I were China, I'd move on this aggressively. If I were any country with a strong interest in STEM, I'd do the same. In fact, just the mention of this action should spur a somewhat aggressive response.
I suggested to a friend of mine that he consider a CS masters in China. He's semi fluent, but lacks a CS background. I imagine he could figure it out though
Then they defunded their projects, even projects that had already been funded so they destroyed a bunch of in-progress research that can’t be restarted.
Then they started fucking with internships, trying to make it so that foreign students can only get an internship if it’s part of the degree program, which most are not.
And of course they completely slowed the document processing down to a snail pace so that students can’t even get to campus on time for the start of the semester.
Now this. Absolutely insane. America had a higher academic system second to none, people came from around the world to attend our schools, made America better, and brought America back to the places they came from in a positive light.
I have one student who fled civil war, he started learning about CS from a country he took refuge in, made his way to America over years, started at a state school and then worked his way up to the graduate level where he busts his ass working in a kitchen every day to be able to afford it. Today he’s publishing papers at top conferences in CS. Every day he is eager to learn and grateful for all opportunities he’s given.
And this government wants to chase that kind of student out of the country.
Meanwhile my American students show up to class and ask me “is this class hard?” And then they drop it once they find out it takes work, like gasp opening a paper book and reading it faints.
It’s going to take decades to repair this damage and I hope all of you here who voted for it (I know there are plenty) understand the damage you caused with your choice. I wish you’ll help fix it because it’s going to take everyone.
I finally realized that this is irrecoverable from, when you all laughed and derided Vivek Ramaswamy for saying it as it is. You have simply been enjoying the fruits of labour of your forbears and immigrants and have no plans to sustain it for the future.
From Ramaswamy nailed the education challenge - https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/ramaswamy-n...
Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG. A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers…. This can be our Sputnik moment. We’ve awaken [sic] from slumber before & we can do it again…but only if our culture fully wakes up. A culture that once again prioritizes achievement over normalcy; excellence over mediocrity; nerdiness over conformity; hard work over laziness.
Regardless of your political leanings, American culture has been devaluing knowledge, education and everything else to do with them for a while now.
This was not only free for me, but I got a large cost of living grant on top of tuition itself being free.
Community College was amazing. For international students it's a very easy way to get a visa. The requirements are basically making tuition payments on time.
Well it's over now. Even if the tides shift again you'd have to be silly to risk coming to such an unstable place.
You might think cheap imports, but those come with other costs. You might think a say in global affairs, but that benefit is reserved for our leaders.
Prior to WWII, the American majority wanted isolation, an inward focus. WWII is evidence of the only counterargument I can envision, which is international stability. That's not nothing, but there's also nothing that necessitates a singular hegemon to get this result. Even if it did, why's that need to be our country?
Thanks Trump; next do EV cars worldwide.
That felt dirty as a Canadian.
I did also wonder what the Riddler had to do with Canadians going to the States...