3 ms·

> In this case, getting advanced STEM degrees provides a path towards residency, work rights, and perhaps eventually a green card or citizenship. At my very fi

> In this case, getting advanced STEM degrees provides a path towards residency, work rights, and perhaps eventually a green card or citizenship. At my very first job, nearly all of my coworkers were Indian. As I met more people at work and started adding them on LinkedIn, I noticed one thing in common with all their LinkedIn profiles: they all got their bachelor's in India and their master's in the US. One day, I was riding either to or from a company lunch with a coworker, and we started talking about our lives. He asks me about my education, and when I told him I only did my undergrad and never went to grad school, he told me that in his case, he had to go to school here as a condition of getting into this country, and since he already had a bachelors in CS, he went for a master's in CS. This was before I learned how fucked-up our immigration system is. Once I learned that, his words made so much more sense.

mikec3010 8y ago
> before I learned how fucked-up our immigration system is. Fucked up because they give higher-educated people preference, or fucked up because corporations lobby for more H1B workers to depress engineering wages industry wide?
- amyjess 8y ago
  It's fucked-up because there are very, very few ways to actually get into the US legally. And in this case they're not giving educated people preference. They didn't come here on a rule that says that people with postgraduate degrees get to come to the US. They came here on a student visa because coming here on a student visa is one of the few ways to get in at all, and it just so happens that a student visa can be upgraded to an H1-B later if the student lands a job with a company willing to sponsor them. I'd recommend reading this flowchart which explains in detail how fucked-up our immigration system is: https://reason.com/assets/db/07cf533ddb1d06350cf1ddb5942ef5ad.jpg https://reason.com/assets/db/07cf533ddb1d06350cf1ddb5942ef5a... Interestingly enough, it doesn't mention coming here on a student visa and then upgrading to an H1-B; it's basically the only loophole around that depressing flowchart. Vox's slideshow on immigration, though, does link the flowchart and mention student visas are one of the only other ways to get in (the other is a tourist visa, which is useless for immigration because you can't upgrade, and you'll be denied a tourist visa if the US thinks you're interested in immigrating): https://www.vox.com/cards/immigration-immigrants-reform-us/how-does-legal-immigration-work-right-now https://www.vox.com/cards/immigration-immigrants-reform-us/h...
  - neuromantik8086 8y ago
    The academic route is basically a form of modern-day indentured servitude, which is another way in which wages for American students who decided upon pursuing a PhD for "the life of the mind" rather than economic reasons are depressed (e.g., Indians are willing to work for much less because it's their only way in, and the money is much better than developing countries). I have little faith that efforts at unionization among grad students and adjuncts will gain any traction until this is addressed. tl;dr: Immigration reform would be a godsend for restoring some sense of sanity to the system.
  - CostanzaKing 8y ago
    About 1,000,000 people legally immigrate to the US each year. That's hardly indicative of a "fucked up" system. Sure there are 7 billion people in the world outside of the US, but we can't just open our borders and let everyone come in. It would be chaos and destroy the country and all the reasons for coming in the first place.
monksy 8y ago
The quality of the degrees are very different. The US is known from having a good level and it's respected in most places around the world.
axiom92 8y ago
It's also fucked up because a vast majority of the people who come via this route are rich kids with parents ready to back them up with cash if shit hits the fan. Lower middle class/lower class students usually don't even dream about taking a 4 million rupee loan, because they realize how fucked they would be if something goes wrong. No wonder what this kind of a sampling bias will do to the average quality of people coming in. It used to be different when a vast majority of students used to come on scholarships, but there are plenty of colleges now who run the MS program like a cash cow.

mikec3010 8y ago

> before I learned how fucked-up our immigration system is. Fucked up because they give higher-educated people preference, or fucked up because corporations lobby for more H1B workers to depress engineering wages industry wide?

amyjess 8y ago
It's fucked-up because there are very, very few ways to actually get into the US legally. And in this case they're not giving educated people preference. They didn't come here on a rule that says that people with postgraduate degrees get to come to the US. They came here on a student visa because coming here on a student visa is one of the few ways to get in at all, and it just so happens that a student visa can be upgraded to an H1-B later if the student lands a job with a company willing to sponsor them. I'd recommend reading this flowchart which explains in detail how fucked-up our immigration system is: https://reason.com/assets/db/07cf533ddb1d06350cf1ddb5942ef5ad.jpg https://reason.com/assets/db/07cf533ddb1d06350cf1ddb5942ef5a... Interestingly enough, it doesn't mention coming here on a student visa and then upgrading to an H1-B; it's basically the only loophole around that depressing flowchart. Vox's slideshow on immigration, though, does link the flowchart and mention student visas are one of the only other ways to get in (the other is a tourist visa, which is useless for immigration because you can't upgrade, and you'll be denied a tourist visa if the US thinks you're interested in immigrating): https://www.vox.com/cards/immigration-immigrants-reform-us/how-does-legal-immigration-work-right-now https://www.vox.com/cards/immigration-immigrants-reform-us/h...
- neuromantik8086 8y ago
  The academic route is basically a form of modern-day indentured servitude, which is another way in which wages for American students who decided upon pursuing a PhD for "the life of the mind" rather than economic reasons are depressed (e.g., Indians are willing to work for much less because it's their only way in, and the money is much better than developing countries). I have little faith that efforts at unionization among grad students and adjuncts will gain any traction until this is addressed. tl;dr: Immigration reform would be a godsend for restoring some sense of sanity to the system.
- CostanzaKing 8y ago
  About 1,000,000 people legally immigrate to the US each year. That's hardly indicative of a "fucked up" system. Sure there are 7 billion people in the world outside of the US, but we can't just open our borders and let everyone come in. It would be chaos and destroy the country and all the reasons for coming in the first place.

monksy 8y ago

The quality of the degrees are very different. The US is known from having a good level and it's respected in most places around the world.

axiom92 8y ago

It's also fucked up because a vast majority of the people who come via this route are rich kids with parents ready to back them up with cash if shit hits the fan. Lower middle class/lower class students usually don't even dream about taking a 4 million rupee loan, because they realize how fucked they would be if something goes wrong. No wonder what this kind of a sampling bias will do to the average quality of people coming in. It used to be different when a vast majority of students used to come on scholarships, but there are plenty of colleges now who run the MS program like a cash cow.