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I support this reform, but we should consider the unintended consequences. Tying US citizenship with graduate work will incentivize universities to treat gradu

I support this reform, but we should consider the unintended consequences. Tying US citizenship with graduate work will incentivize universities to treat graduate students like slave labor, moreso than they are already. This is a recipe for exploitation.

blizkreeg 14y ago
There is an unintended consequence for everything, including inaction.
- programnature 14y ago
  That kind of reasoning is what got us into Iraq. I'm simply suggesting thinking through the consequences rather than simply cheerleading. For example, would we be comfortable with 90% of science students being not from the US? What if we make a system where no one born in this country can actually afford to do graduate work? Remember, the foreign-born students don't have the kind of undergrad debt load that we have in the US.
  - blizkreeg 14y ago
    You are so, so misguided in your thoughts. I came to this country for graduate studies and took on a loan for a portion of it, amounting to almost $20K. Took me the better part of 2 yrs to pay it back. I came from a modest family background. While I didn't have an undergrad loan, I certainly didn't have any money to back me up. Most foreigners grow up with far fewer resources than you did in this country. The USD is still stronger than 99% of currencies. While I don't dispute that college education is ridiculously overpriced here, that is a different, unrelated problem.
    - programnature 14y ago
      This is not about you, this is about what is good for the country. Is it good for the country to disincentivize graduate work for people who are born here? Is it good for the country for every STEM lecturer to have bad english language skills? This is already the norm at many state schools, and makes people drop those subjects because they can't understand or relate to their teachers. Of course it is hard for immigrants to relate to the spoiled "fat" americans, but the social and cultural realities exist and are not trivial.
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
  - mpyne 14y ago
    I wouldn't be comfortable with 90% necessarily, but at the same time if these 90% want to come to the U.S. and remain (for at least some nominal period of time) and contribute to U.S. interests then I'd rather that they were over here working to make the country great instead of wherever they came from. Fixing education here in the U.S. is itself an important task but it's orthogonal to immigration. If our kids want to do basket-weaving instead of STEM then the next best thing is to let those from overseas who want to come to the U.S. and work actually do so. But there should be plenty of capacity in the universities for non-immigrants to get STEM majors if they want. At least I had no difficulty. Despite all the mud the U.S. has on its name internationally, the country is still in a great position to execute a "brain drain" (for lack of a better term) and it would be pretty foolish to miss out on that, especially as the world becomes increasingly specialized.
  - enraged_camel 14y ago
    >>That kind of reasoning is what got us into Iraq. That's a pretty incredible kind of Godwin you just invoked there.
websymphony 14y ago
No it won't. Universities don't treat students like slaves, professors do. And they don't have any additional incentive of doing it more than they already do, just because of this reform.
- programnature 14y ago
  Sure it does. This instantly makes the degree more valuable to the foreign student. Thus the university can extract more work for lower wages from them. Wages for teaching are not set by individual professors, and thats where most of the poorly compensated labor is.
splintercell 14y ago
Your own suggestion overlooks the unintended consequences of what happens right now. Right now the people become slaves of the companies they work for because their immigration status is tied to their companies. You think its the option between not getting exploited and getting exploited by the university, but in reality its the option between getting exploited by the companies which sponsor work visa vs getting exploited by the university. Finally, why can't you leave the choice on the people themselves, you're helping the immigrants in anyway by not allowing corporations or universities to be able to hire them easily.
pepr 14y ago
I'm a foreign graduate student doing my Master's degree at a relatively well-known university in Texas and I really don't feel like a slave. The pay is modest (15K/year for 20h/week) but it is sufficient to live comfortably and occasionally travel (I travelled 6 weeks last summer all over US). And I don't feel like any of my fellow students are slaves either. No crazy hours, no crazy pressure on results. Maybe it's worse for PhDs or at better (research) universities?
moultano 14y ago
>we should consider the unintended consequences. What would you recommend we do as a result of considering them? Without getting a more substantial position from you, this reads like concern trolling.
eshvk 14y ago
So right now, the way the system is setup, you can in theory move from a PhD from a fairly popular university to a EB-1 Green Card. So it is not like the path to citizenship doesn't exist. (It is another matter that the process is convoluted and requires pages and pages of documentation.) The article is sketchy on the details so I assume they are talking about extending this benefit to Masters students. I am not so sure how I feel about this. For every school that is highly competitive and tries to bring in the cream of the immigrant class, there are enough schools that use the Masters program as a way of injecting an easy $100K into their coffers. Having said this, I can say one thing from personal experience though: Universities are way better at treating their students than the H1B system. At least at my university, the way the system was setup, you would have to really fuck up for you to get kicked out of Grad. School and this is one of the top ten C.S. schools. On the other hand, the way the H1B works, your manager might not like the fact that you sit and you get fired and you are immediately out of status. This means that you work constantly with that pressure in your head. If you are in the unlucky situation of having been born in India or China, this runs for a few years. This is not something you will hear people from industry clamoring for reform.

blizkreeg 14y ago

There is an unintended consequence for everything, including inaction.

programnature 14y ago
That kind of reasoning is what got us into Iraq. I'm simply suggesting thinking through the consequences rather than simply cheerleading. For example, would we be comfortable with 90% of science students being not from the US? What if we make a system where no one born in this country can actually afford to do graduate work? Remember, the foreign-born students don't have the kind of undergrad debt load that we have in the US.
- blizkreeg 14y ago
  You are so, so misguided in your thoughts. I came to this country for graduate studies and took on a loan for a portion of it, amounting to almost $20K. Took me the better part of 2 yrs to pay it back. I came from a modest family background. While I didn't have an undergrad loan, I certainly didn't have any money to back me up. Most foreigners grow up with far fewer resources than you did in this country. The USD is still stronger than 99% of currencies. While I don't dispute that college education is ridiculously overpriced here, that is a different, unrelated problem.
  - programnature 14y ago
    This is not about you, this is about what is good for the country. Is it good for the country to disincentivize graduate work for people who are born here? Is it good for the country for every STEM lecturer to have bad english language skills? This is already the norm at many state schools, and makes people drop those subjects because they can't understand or relate to their teachers. Of course it is hard for immigrants to relate to the spoiled "fat" americans, but the social and cultural realities exist and are not trivial.
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
- mpyne 14y ago
  I wouldn't be comfortable with 90% necessarily, but at the same time if these 90% want to come to the U.S. and remain (for at least some nominal period of time) and contribute to U.S. interests then I'd rather that they were over here working to make the country great instead of wherever they came from. Fixing education here in the U.S. is itself an important task but it's orthogonal to immigration. If our kids want to do basket-weaving instead of STEM then the next best thing is to let those from overseas who want to come to the U.S. and work actually do so. But there should be plenty of capacity in the universities for non-immigrants to get STEM majors if they want. At least I had no difficulty. Despite all the mud the U.S. has on its name internationally, the country is still in a great position to execute a "brain drain" (for lack of a better term) and it would be pretty foolish to miss out on that, especially as the world becomes increasingly specialized.
- enraged_camel 14y ago
  >>That kind of reasoning is what got us into Iraq. That's a pretty incredible kind of Godwin you just invoked there.

websymphony 14y ago

No it won't. Universities don't treat students like slaves, professors do. And they don't have any additional incentive of doing it more than they already do, just because of this reform.

programnature 14y ago
Sure it does. This instantly makes the degree more valuable to the foreign student. Thus the university can extract more work for lower wages from them. Wages for teaching are not set by individual professors, and thats where most of the poorly compensated labor is.

splintercell 14y ago

Your own suggestion overlooks the unintended consequences of what happens right now. Right now the people become slaves of the companies they work for because their immigration status is tied to their companies. You think its the option between not getting exploited and getting exploited by the university, but in reality its the option between getting exploited by the companies which sponsor work visa vs getting exploited by the university. Finally, why can't you leave the choice on the people themselves, you're helping the immigrants in anyway by not allowing corporations or universities to be able to hire them easily.

pepr 14y ago

I'm a foreign graduate student doing my Master's degree at a relatively well-known university in Texas and I really don't feel like a slave. The pay is modest (15K/year for 20h/week) but it is sufficient to live comfortably and occasionally travel (I travelled 6 weeks last summer all over US). And I don't feel like any of my fellow students are slaves either. No crazy hours, no crazy pressure on results. Maybe it's worse for PhDs or at better (research) universities?

moultano 14y ago

>we should consider the unintended consequences. What would you recommend we do as a result of considering them? Without getting a more substantial position from you, this reads like concern trolling.

eshvk 14y ago

So right now, the way the system is setup, you can in theory move from a PhD from a fairly popular university to a EB-1 Green Card. So it is not like the path to citizenship doesn't exist. (It is another matter that the process is convoluted and requires pages and pages of documentation.) The article is sketchy on the details so I assume they are talking about extending this benefit to Masters students. I am not so sure how I feel about this. For every school that is highly competitive and tries to bring in the cream of the immigrant class, there are enough schools that use the Masters program as a way of injecting an easy $100K into their coffers. Having said this, I can say one thing from personal experience though: Universities are way better at treating their students than the H1B system. At least at my university, the way the system was setup, you would have to really fuck up for you to get kicked out of Grad. School and this is one of the top ten C.S. schools. On the other hand, the way the H1B works, your manager might not like the fact that you sit and you get fired and you are immediately out of status. This means that you work constantly with that pressure in your head. If you are in the unlucky situation of having been born in India or China, this runs for a few years. This is not something you will hear people from industry clamoring for reform.