Immigration Reform: Should We Treat Engineers Differently Than Bricklayers? | Hacker News Reader

Immigration Reform: Should We Treat Engineers Differently Than Bricklayers?

newyorker.com

4 pointsrdouble3 comments

Interesting angle on the benefits of a system that requires a job offer over merely obtaining a degree. The author is correct that this could lead to very expensive and low quality MS degrees that mainly exist to charge would-be immigrants for a way to bypass the usual immigration system, and he does make a good point that the requirement of a job offer from a company willing to go through the H1B process may be a better filter than a one year MS degree.

As I understand it, this is already what Australia does. Australia gives points for youth, english language proficiency, and valuable work skills, and if you cross a certain threshold, you are allowed entry into the country. The threshold is lower if you have a job offer.

Here's the huge difference - while the job offer helps the immigrant gain entry to the country, the visa itself is not controlled by the employer.

To me, it seems incredibly obvious that if you allow an employer to control an employees right to reside in the US, this will be abused, badly. This is probably the single worst thing about the H1B visa - and it seems to be one of the few things everyone agrees on.

Instead of just saying "degree" it might be more sensible to white-list certain universities alone based on their reputation. These names can be published every year.

That still makes me a little nervous, though it would be an improvement.

Part of my problem with this is that I think a day of reckoning needs to come for higher education in STEM fields, and the sooner the better. PhD programs have atrociously high attrition rates and extremely long completion times compared to the professions, and MS programs are often a neglected stepchild. Employment prospects according to a RAND study[1] are surprisingly bad for such a challenging career path.

Americans are already shunning these programs, and I think this is a good thing to the extent that it will force the PhD programs to adapt and become more attractive (perhaps by following a professional school model, with far lower attrition rates and much more predictable and shorter completion times).

The problem is, PhD programs benefit enormously from the low cost labor of graduate students, and they don't want to adapt. One way they've avoided adapting is by tapping into international students who need their degree to gain admission into the United States. People who already have US residency may not bother, but people who don't have it yet will put up with all kinds of crap.

It's a strange situation. Should people who get a PhD from a top US institution be allowed to stay in the US? Hell yes! Should PhD programs be trusted with the power to bestow US residency on students? Hell no.

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

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