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Comment by pneill | Hacker News Reader

Across the US, about 20% of the spots to get a computer science degree are occupied by foreign nationals. The research at these universities is funded by US research grants. If there's a need to create more skilled tech workers, it might make sense to tie federal search funding to changing these numbers until the need for H-1B visas falls below a threshold value.

Right now, the US taxpayer is funding the education of skilled foreign workers to take jobs from US citizens. That's messed up.

For reference: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11347

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Foreign students typically pay full tuition. Rather than being subsidized by the U.S., they are actively subsidizing U.S. domestic students.

It's not about tuition.

It's about funding of the university.

Typically a university will take 50-90% (Yes, up to 90%) of a research grant to fund the university (keeping the lights on, etc). And universities are the ones making the decision to fill available slots in CS departments with foreign nationals.

Tuition and university funding are almost directly connected. They are doing so because 50-90% of those research grants is not enough to keep the lights on and professors employed. A lot of universities (barring the most well endowed ones like Harvard, Yale and Princeton) admit international students to help fund the university and either increase the spots for local students or subsidize their school fees.

Tuition is a drop in the bucket of the funding model for a research university. The majority of university funding comes from research grants and that's why the piece they take off the top is so outrageously high.

Note that I don't question your point about the use of international student fees to subsidize domestic students. I'm just saying reducing the cost for students can be done many, many other ways.

The point I'm making is that the US tax paper should not pay for foreign students to take US jobs. And if we tightened up that we might not need so many H-1B visas.

Citation needed.

Looking at Form 990 for several top private research universities:

Harvard: $1,462M tuition vs $592M government grant

Yale: $680M tuition vs $528M government grant

Princeton: $369M tuition vs $293M government grant

Stanford: $938M tuition vs $1,299M government grant

As you go down in research activity, the differences only get bigger.

Rochester Institute of Technology: $501m tuition vs $113m government grant

University of New Haven: $214m tuition vs $6m government grant

U.S. taxpayers are not paying for foreign students. Foreign students are paying for themselves, and then some.

First, thanks for the awesome tip about 990 forms. Had no idea. It's interesting in that these numbers differ from the conversations I've had with academics who tell a different story. But I had those conversations decades ago, so perhaps the inflation of higher education has had an impact here.

The number you cite is inflated because in includes both US and international students. Is the revenue from international students broken out anywhere?

But that doesn't change my point. If the number is >0, it's a problem. The US tax payer should not pay for foreign workers to take US jobs.

To be clear, I'm not opposed to international students. I'm just saying that when it comes to impacted majors like computer science, where not everyone who wants to study it can do to capacity constraints, the US government should incentive universities to offer the opportunities first to citizens and then to international students. Right now, for some universities, those slots are reserved for international students.

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