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Comment by nrmitchi | Hacker News Reader

> Master's holders would get permanent residency in an expanding set of fields and ideally PhDs in every field.

Unfortunately, this is ripe for abuse. You're basically allowing educational institutions to sell green cards. If you thought almost-unlimited-student-loans inflated education prices, you don't even want to see what selling green cards would do.

> but there should never be the case where a smart person educated in the US, especially in a growing or important field is forced out of the country

I agree with the premise, but this is kind of like "It is better than 1000 guilty men go free, than 1 innocent man be wrongly convicted". It sounds great in premise, but in practice can't reasonably happen. Again, I agree with your premise, but I think it needs to be approached in a different way.

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> Unfortunately, this is ripe for abuse. You're basically allowing educational institutions to sell green cards. If you thought almost-unlimited-student-loans inflated education prices, you don't even want to see what selling green cards would do

That's pretty much how it's done in Australia. It props up a massive industry (education was the fourth largest export in 2018-2019) whilst ensuring a supply of qualified applicants for residency.

Prices for locals are still set by the government. So, whilst there is inflation, disadvantage to locals is limited to there being fewer places available to them. Whether it's morally okay is another question but the economics seem to work out pretty well.

Australia does /kind of/ do this with the skilled occupation list, but it's not like getting a Bachelor of Accounting means you are guaranteed a path to permanent residency (thanks to many of the recent visa pathway changes). Graduates from an Australian university can get a Temporary Graduate (485) Visa which lasts 2-4 years, but the pathway from then on usually requires getting an employer to sponsor your permanent residency (186/187) after 3 years of work experience, unless you get explicitly invited to some of the other programs (189/190)[+]. If you live in a regional area there are more options (887 for instance) but most people don't and might find it difficult to live in regional towns and cities.

As an immigrant to (and citizen of) Australia myself, I find it pretty appalling how hard it has become to become a permanent resident in Australia even if you are reasonably skilled (and the fact that permanent residency requires nomination by an employer -- which is unlike most other countries, where permanent residency is based on your own residence and skills). The work-based streams are becoming more and more narrow and it's longer the case that studying in Australia gives you any guaranteed pathway to residency (and I would argue it hasn't been the case for a fairly long time now).

[+]: A quick look at the EOI statistics <https://api.dynamic.reports.employment.gov.au/anonap/extensi...> shows that 7.2% ((LODGED+INVITED)/SUBMITTED ~= 7.2%) of people who register their interest end up being invited.

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