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A comment on Trump administration cracks down on H-1B visa abuse. Parent comment

Re:Trump administration cracks down on H-1B visa abuse by geebee on Saturday February 24, 2018 @10:32PM (#16456962)
As an alternative viewpoint, the RAND institute (a historically very pro-immigration organization) concluded that the American aversion to graduate degrees in STEM fields is rational and market driven[1]. In other words, STEM graduate degrees are not competitive with professional and other degree paths available to academically talented people in the US who have choice.

Americans, by this theory, aren't putting the effort into this difficult field because other grad degrees offer shorter completion times, lower attrition rates, higher pay, and better career stability.

Part of the purpose of the H1b is to create a pool of workers who don't have that freedom of choice, whose right to live and work in the US is controlled by tech corporations.

This is why I, along with a lot of others who would describe themselves as pro-immigration, don't support the H1B program. We're more than ok with talented people coming into the US, but see no reason why we should specifically use our immigration system to increase the number or STEM graduates above. Let people make their decisions according to their interests and market signals. If that means they don't become software developers in Silicon Valley in the numbers tech CEOs think they should, that's the market's answer.

[1]https://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP241.html

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Re:Trump administration cracks down on H-1B visa abuse by thansharp on Saturday February 24, 2018 @11:46PM (#16457184)
This is really surprising to me. Compared to other high paying paths (medicine, law, MBA, finance), STEM degrees offer a much shorter completion time, lower debt, and higher starting salary. This holds even for engineering jobs, completely outside tech companies.

I do concede that the software industry can improve on attrition rates and career stability.

But on a simple time value of money front, I'm yet to come across a field of study in the American education system that pays more with lower debt than a STEM degree does.

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Re:Trump administration cracks down on H-1B visa abuse by gowld on Sunday February 25, 2018 @01:28PM (#16460333)
Parent is talking about graduate degrees. You are talking about undergraduate degrees.
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Re:Trump administration cracks down on H-1B visa abuse by gowld on Sunday February 25, 2018 @01:27PM (#16460329)
"citizens with graduate degrees" have almost 0 correlation to H1-B. H1-B only tend to have graduate degrees because they get into USA Masters degree programs (Masters degrees are moneymakers for universities, not competitive positions) on F-1 (student) visas and jump to H-1 B jobs. Those H1-B candidates aren't more competitive than US citizens with bachelors or self-taught.
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Re:Trump administration cracks down on H-1B visa abuse by baumy on Saturday February 24, 2018 @11:48PM (#16457193)
The claim that STEM degrees are not competitive with other degree paths in terms of professional success is obviously wrong.

Skimming the linked paper, it seems to be exclusively discussing PhD programs. Not sure how relevant that is.

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Re:Trump administration cracks down on H-1B visa abuse by geebee on Sunday February 25, 2018 @12:05PM (#16459864)
Many politicians and tech ceos have discussed a severe shortage of US citizens getting advanced degrees in STEM fields. Here's one such link. There has also been legislation proposed that would have made this a formal part of the immigration system, again specifically for advanced (preferably PhD) degrees in STEM fields (notably not law, medicine or business). The legislation did not pass, though largely because it was bogged down in part of a larger (and failed) effort to negotiate a general immigration system.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/3089314/it-careers/cli...

This isn't the entire issue, I'd agree with that. But it is definitely a relevant piece. And it is notable that tech ceos and politicians are calling this a "shortage" when organizations like RAND are simply seeing a rational, market-based aversion to certain fields.

I'm in the odd position of completely agreeing that the US should have a skills based immigration system like many other countries, but opposing a particular focus on STEM, as I don't like the idea of coercing would-be immigrants into studying this particular field as a condition of coming to the US, and I don't agree that there is any "shortage" that can't be explained as the product of rational decision making about careers.

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