Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rayiner | Hacker News Reader

These CEOs are correct. But that doesn’t mean the existing H1b program isn’t broken. 70% of H1bs go to India, while a negligible number go to other countries with good education systems. Is it believable that 70% of the “smartest people” are in India? https://fortune.com/2025/09/22/india-government-responds-tru...

India has about 70 million college graduates, which is a lot, but only a bit more than half have the skills to be employable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_... https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/education/news/degree-vs...

We already have evidence that Indian consulting agencies, among the largest recipients of h1bs, are discriminating against American employees: https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/09/us_jury_cognizant_cas... https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-s... https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/...

I can understand why maybe Japanese wouldn’t want to leave their homeland. But if these workers are the cream of the crop, the compensation in America should be such that we could hoover up top candidates from the former soviet union.

I think there are a few bits of context that should be considered.

India has 1/8th of the planets population. China is another 1/8th.

Obviously, Americans don't need H1B visas, and you are going to see more visa's coming from developing countries.

India's common language is English, they can easily communicate and get hired by American companies because of this.

Considering this, should it be a surprise they are such a significant part of the H1B program?

It isn't that 70% of the smartest people, though, they also have a great education system, it's 70% of the people that companies can assimilate into their environments are coming from India.

Perhaps the system could be overhauled to have an India specific visa and not group everyone in together?

Also, as a Canadian, another large immigrant population in the US, most of us don't come into the states under H1Bs because TN (and possibly other Visa's) are quite a bit easier.

India has about 70 million college graduates, and gets about 70% of H1bs. The Philippines has 18 million a quarter as many as India), but accounts for only 1-2% of H1bs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_... https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/h-1b.... The Philippines is a former U.S. colony!

Should all tertiary education be considered the same? Maybe I'm wrong about how this is considered, and I'm not American, or in America, so it doesn't really make a difference to me, but if we're mostly talking about tech jobs, do you hear of people talking about great Philippian universities like?

My impression is that India has some universities with high reputations.

Tertiary education isn’t all the same, but that cuts against India as much as for it. India has some good universities, but also many bad ones. Half of Indian college graduates are unemployable: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/education/news/degree-vs...

The Philippines has universities ranked higher than some IIT: https://www.topuniversities.com/asia-university-rankings. Indonesia and Malaysia have ones ranked higher than any IIT. Of course Korea and China dominate the rankings for Asia. Latin America has many universities ranked in the range of the IITs as well.

But to put all that in perspective, Arizona State is ranked 173 in the QS rankings, above all but 2 Indian universities. The U.S. has an extremely deep talent pool.

I don’t understand why we cannot just blacklist these consulting companies as a first step. The 100K fee may effectively do that so it sounds good to me.

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