US proposes $100k charge for international students to do post-graduate work
nature.comWhen 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.
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.
F-1 visas are categorized as non-immigrant visas. No amount of years in the U.S. would make them eligible for citizenship.
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.
US rise as a world superpower was luck as opposed to something deliberate, just like most rises are.
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. They then used their position to topple governments around the world for their companies, annex territory (see: Hawaii), and press their interests globally.
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.
You missed reserved currency advantage
It's not luck it's starting conditions. People have written books about the benefits of geography and natural resources.
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.
starting conditions is pretty much the definition of luck.
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?
> Netherland
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).
> Most expats will rarely hear or need Dutch
That is an overstatement. Dutch is the primary language everywhere like the native language of any country. It is true that in major cities most people speak excellent English and you can definitely manage easily without speaking Dutch.
But Dutch is spoken absolutely everywhere and most signage is only in Dutch. Also, as soon as you get a bit outside of the big cities, you find many people with a middling level of English, similar to most other countries in Europe. Even in cities, many working class people and actually most immigrants from non English speaking countries only speak Dutch.
Most Dutch will only speak English to non-Dutch. Which is really annoying if you’re there trying to learn Dutch
Same in Sweden, welcome!
How about the language usage at workplace after graduation? Would one have to learn Dutch or still continue everything with English?
Also is it easy to get a job after graduation in Netherlands in STEM field? As an example if someone graduated in medicine (doctor, nurse, etc.) then wouldn’t proficiency in Dutch be mandatory to work?
It's probably not that big of a problem in the absolute top companies but once you go anywhere else they'll prefer Dutch natives and you'll face hurdles trying to get promotions. This is a big reason why expats end up leaving the country. It also causes resentment from both sides in daily life.
That’s what I thought as well. Also, in US one could start work in New York after graduation and if a better job offer comes they can move around the country in different states where as in EU, you graduate and start working in Netherland and assume one learns Dutch, then they are restricted to Netherland in terms of language if they get a job offer in another EU country like Italy or Germany or France, then they would have to learn that languages as well I guess
Yeah it's not great, I don't think it's hopeless everywhere but if you got the ability to work in the UK it prevents most these problems. English language really benefits some countries.
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.
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.
Every country should block american big tech to create tech jobs for their people. This fixes americas immigration problem too
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.
They would actually. But it wouldn't be the "EU government phone". It'd be Jolla, and then competitor after competitor would form.
Most Europeans hate american gov and companies so much. They just need a good alternative to jump the ship.
Maybe they'll buy a Chinese one, since their iPhone and many of it's components was already built there.
The physical hardware is a nearly irrelevant commodity compared to the software and the ecosystem.
Eh? I'm guessing you've never spoken to a European. Especially since Trump's second term (though not just because of Trump), Europeans generally have a bad view of US tech companies.
> never spoken to a European
Irrelevant. The EU is not taking American tech, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon away from 330 million Europeans and replacing it with..nothing? without widespread outrage. In a lot of ways it would cause a societal collapse.
Maybe that’s true in your close people bubble. Don’t generalise it to every European. I’m pretty sure there a big Trump fans base in Poland, Hungary and Germany to name a few.
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 under way, 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.
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.
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.
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.
If memory serves, they've tried this several different ways but keep getting injuncted since it amounts to a tax and not a reasonable processing fee.
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.
Ohh so this is a tax but inflation isn't? I don't ever remember voting for an inflation tax. Our government is so corrupt.
I have trouble following the logic of this comment
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.
speedrunning brain drain, you spend decades building a moat based on stability and proceed to end decades of work in 24 months.
We are committing suicide as a nation.
Look at their handlers.
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?
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)
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarcity_(social_psychology)
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.
Academic here.
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.
Even if we admitted 100% of qualified 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.
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.
I remember while growing up hearing talk on the news about brain drain.
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...