4 ms·

I’m the President of MIT America Needs Foreign Students

20 points by justin66 6y ago

otoburb 6y ago
Survivorship bias notwithstanding, nothing hits home harder than Dr. Reif's personal anecdote: "This country derives many intangible advantages from being a beacon of hope for people around the world; I first came to America in 1974 from Venezuela, where my parents finally settled as refugees from Hitler’s Europe. I came to improve my own prospects through a graduate degree. But I found a culture of openness, boldness, ingenuity and meritocracy — a culture which taught me that in coming to America, I had truly come home."
- pjc50 6y ago
  Statistically I wonder how many future Dr. Reifs are stuck in ICE detention. Or, for that matter, the vast refugee camps from Syria that are scattered over Europe and Turkey.
  - otoburb 6y ago
    Mark Twain thought along the same lines: "Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered — either by themselves or by others. But for the Civil War, Lincoln and Grant and Sherman and Sheridan would not have been discovered, nor have risen into notice." --Mark Twain
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
ta1972 6y ago
Why not take in African American students and thus improve their economic/social standing?
- ta1972 6y ago
  ?
eanzenberg 6y ago
Universities need foreign students to pay full price.
- pwinnski 6y ago
  They absolutely do. My church includes quite a few international students, and they always pay full sticker, a price that close to zero American-born students pay. And then often extra fees on top of that. It's staggering.
- stunt 6y ago
  Surely they can find a way to fund it without international students if they have it. I think it's about all the other added values. So much comes out of these universities. All the researches, studies, entrepreneurs, inventors. That's the main goal.
PaulHoule 6y ago
Yes, but... If you look at a place like Silicon Valley, high housing costs, dysfunctional taxes, and poor public services make it uncompetitive to raise children. You can start them out in some village outside Bangalore, give them more advanced schooling in the city, then send them to the core for college or graduate school, then you have a capital-efficient worker. I walked around in New York City with an Indian coworker who was waiting for an H-1B and told him about how my ancestors fled economic collapse in Quebec and impending war in Poland, how my mother-in-law was a hillbilly who married an Italian fleeing the economic collapse that came after the war... and how we were in a city in which linguists go to discover endangered languages, a country that was so able to benefit from immigration -- but I could tell he felt hurt that the U.S. didn't want him and I had no idea how to comfort him. Talk to an African American man and you might find they don't like immigrants coming from Mexico (who would work in the chicken factories in the South if they didn't hire hundreds of illegals?) Many of them worked in jobs in the 1950s that are now mainly staffed by women. Many of them were just getting settled in to factory and call center jobs when those went overseas. A person like that might identify their own struggles and oppressions with those of others and become more humanized (e.g. imagine Jewish people who traveled to the American South to put their bodies in front of black bodies) or they might feel that have a special burden and see themselves in competition with other ethnic groups (e.g. Korean grocers in the ghetto.) So for one thing there is resentment of immigration in the U.S. which is based on class interests. If Trump makes explicit racism uncool for a generation but pedal-to-the-metal globalism reigns, you may see black people get together with "white people who have black problems" and form one of the two political poles maybe 20-30 years from now. Another problem with the "import workers" concept is that it produces a person who is out of touch with their environment. A person who travels the world all over their career and spends their time in air conditioned building cannot understand the reality of global warming. Farmers in any part of the world are intimately involved with the weather and they are adapting to global warming now, not thinking about what they will do in 20-30 years. If I went to some place like India and tried to sell something I know I would have to learn about the culture, not in an abstract or comfortable sense, but probably in the school of hard knocks. When companies try to develop products for the U.S. in an environment such as NYC or SV and the leadership and workforce are heavy in young immigrants they might make mistakes that they might not have been made if they were more representative of the target market and also had an age-mixed workforce bringing experience and a broader viewpoint.
nayuki 6y ago
The title of the HN post is confusing: "I’m the President of MIT America Needs Foreign Students". Adding a period after MIT would be a lot better: "I’m the President of MIT. America Needs Foreign Students".
linuxftw 6y ago
I don't understand this nationalistic view that "America" needs to have the best innovators from everyone corralled into it. Does the wealthiest country on the planet need the most talented people on the planet to succeed? No, it does not. Developing countries need those people. As long as America is the brain drain for everyone else, it's easier to exercise economic imperialism. Too much immigration is tied to corporate welfare. Immigration should be based on human rights rather than importing white collar labor.
- JoeAltmaier 6y ago
  Hm. Not sure what a medical researcher is going to do, plunked down in a country without resources or labs or anything, really, they need to be effective. Its an efficiency argument, that concentrating resources yields more results. Ideally, for everyone. That's not working out so great, but the solution is probably to work on that, and not cripple innovation for spite.
  - linuxftw 6y ago
    > Not sure what a medical researcher is going to do, plunked down in a country without resources or labs or anything, really, they need to be effective. It's not clear that this person needs to be a medical researcher. Maybe they need to be an electrical engineer or civil engineer to help build this infrastructure to allow medical researchers to exist. Of course, there's no domestic market for those positions, civil authorities just hire engineering firms from developed countries. It's also not clear if America needs a supply of this labor from elsewhere. Even if "America" did, if "America" was short on this supply, then wages would rise for the existing labor pool, this would stimulate growth in the other countries for this sector because the market is signaling there is money to be made. Of course, it's better for American corporations if they can control as much of the talent capital as possible. Taking in foreign students also distorts the education market place in developing countries. Everyone has heard of MIT, but what is the best engineering university in Kenya? The education industry as a result is underdeveloped in developing countries as well. We can go into another can of worms about how many students and graduate students are essentially free labor for these institutions, and the 'students' are paying for the privilege. What they really look like to me are unpaid internships under the guise of 'education' in which major universities have a monopoly.
stunt 6y ago
Reminds me Dr. Michio Kaku talk about H1B visa as America's secret weapon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK0Y9j_CGgM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK0Y9j_CGgM
stunt 6y ago
At least some people could related a few issues when Trump was only targeting illegal immigrants. But, what is the deal with students and high-skill workers? To me the logic is like this: "I have eight years max. And I know that I can't fix the unemployment problem. So let's go and blame other things and promise this problem will disappear when we solve those other things. If I repeat it, everyone will believe it"

20 points by justin66 6y ago

Survivorship bias notwithstanding, nothing hits home harder than Dr. Reif's personal anecdote: "This country derives many intangible advantages from being a beacon of hope for people around the world; I first came to America in 1974 from Venezuela, where my parents finally settled as refugees from Hitler’s Europe. I came to improve my own prospects through a graduate degree. But I found a culture of openness, boldness, ingenuity and meritocracy — a culture which taught me that in coming to America, I had truly come home."

pjc50 6y ago
Statistically I wonder how many future Dr. Reifs are stuck in ICE detention. Or, for that matter, the vast refugee camps from Syria that are scattered over Europe and Turkey.
- otoburb 6y ago
  Mark Twain thought along the same lines: "Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered — either by themselves or by others. But for the Civil War, Lincoln and Grant and Sherman and Sheridan would not have been discovered, nor have risen into notice." --Mark Twain
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

ta1972 6y ago

Why not take in African American students and thus improve their economic/social standing?

ta1972 6y ago
?

eanzenberg 6y ago

Universities need foreign students to pay full price.

pwinnski 6y ago
They absolutely do. My church includes quite a few international students, and they always pay full sticker, a price that close to zero American-born students pay. And then often extra fees on top of that. It's staggering.
stunt 6y ago
Surely they can find a way to fund it without international students if they have it. I think it's about all the other added values. So much comes out of these universities. All the researches, studies, entrepreneurs, inventors. That's the main goal.

PaulHoule 6y ago

Yes, but... If you look at a place like Silicon Valley, high housing costs, dysfunctional taxes, and poor public services make it uncompetitive to raise children. You can start them out in some village outside Bangalore, give them more advanced schooling in the city, then send them to the core for college or graduate school, then you have a capital-efficient worker. I walked around in New York City with an Indian coworker who was waiting for an H-1B and told him about how my ancestors fled economic collapse in Quebec and impending war in Poland, how my mother-in-law was a hillbilly who married an Italian fleeing the economic collapse that came after the war... and how we were in a city in which linguists go to discover endangered languages, a country that was so able to benefit from immigration -- but I could tell he felt hurt that the U.S. didn't want him and I had no idea how to comfort him. Talk to an African American man and you might find they don't like immigrants coming from Mexico (who would work in the chicken factories in the South if they didn't hire hundreds of illegals?) Many of them worked in jobs in the 1950s that are now mainly staffed by women. Many of them were just getting settled in to factory and call center jobs when those went overseas. A person like that might identify their own struggles and oppressions with those of others and become more humanized (e.g. imagine Jewish people who traveled to the American South to put their bodies in front of black bodies) or they might feel that have a special burden and see themselves in competition with other ethnic groups (e.g. Korean grocers in the ghetto.) So for one thing there is resentment of immigration in the U.S. which is based on class interests. If Trump makes explicit racism uncool for a generation but pedal-to-the-metal globalism reigns, you may see black people get together with "white people who have black problems" and form one of the two political poles maybe 20-30 years from now. Another problem with the "import workers" concept is that it produces a person who is out of touch with their environment. A person who travels the world all over their career and spends their time in air conditioned building cannot understand the reality of global warming. Farmers in any part of the world are intimately involved with the weather and they are adapting to global warming now, not thinking about what they will do in 20-30 years. If I went to some place like India and tried to sell something I know I would have to learn about the culture, not in an abstract or comfortable sense, but probably in the school of hard knocks. When companies try to develop products for the U.S. in an environment such as NYC or SV and the leadership and workforce are heavy in young immigrants they might make mistakes that they might not have been made if they were more representative of the target market and also had an age-mixed workforce bringing experience and a broader viewpoint.

nayuki 6y ago

The title of the HN post is confusing: "I’m the President of MIT America Needs Foreign Students". Adding a period after MIT would be a lot better: "I’m the President of MIT. America Needs Foreign Students".

linuxftw 6y ago

I don't understand this nationalistic view that "America" needs to have the best innovators from everyone corralled into it. Does the wealthiest country on the planet need the most talented people on the planet to succeed? No, it does not. Developing countries need those people. As long as America is the brain drain for everyone else, it's easier to exercise economic imperialism. Too much immigration is tied to corporate welfare. Immigration should be based on human rights rather than importing white collar labor.

JoeAltmaier 6y ago
Hm. Not sure what a medical researcher is going to do, plunked down in a country without resources or labs or anything, really, they need to be effective. Its an efficiency argument, that concentrating resources yields more results. Ideally, for everyone. That's not working out so great, but the solution is probably to work on that, and not cripple innovation for spite.
- linuxftw 6y ago
  > Not sure what a medical researcher is going to do, plunked down in a country without resources or labs or anything, really, they need to be effective. It's not clear that this person needs to be a medical researcher. Maybe they need to be an electrical engineer or civil engineer to help build this infrastructure to allow medical researchers to exist. Of course, there's no domestic market for those positions, civil authorities just hire engineering firms from developed countries. It's also not clear if America needs a supply of this labor from elsewhere. Even if "America" did, if "America" was short on this supply, then wages would rise for the existing labor pool, this would stimulate growth in the other countries for this sector because the market is signaling there is money to be made. Of course, it's better for American corporations if they can control as much of the talent capital as possible. Taking in foreign students also distorts the education market place in developing countries. Everyone has heard of MIT, but what is the best engineering university in Kenya? The education industry as a result is underdeveloped in developing countries as well. We can go into another can of worms about how many students and graduate students are essentially free labor for these institutions, and the 'students' are paying for the privilege. What they really look like to me are unpaid internships under the guise of 'education' in which major universities have a monopoly.

stunt 6y ago

Reminds me Dr. Michio Kaku talk about H1B visa as America's secret weapon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK0Y9j_CGgM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK0Y9j_CGgM

stunt 6y ago

At least some people could related a few issues when Trump was only targeting illegal immigrants. But, what is the deal with students and high-skill workers? To me the logic is like this: "I have eight years max. And I know that I can't fix the unemployment problem. So let's go and blame other things and promise this problem will disappear when we solve those other things. If I repeat it, everyone will believe it"