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US proposes $100k charge for international students to do post-graduate work

49 points bluenose69 1 hour ago 58 comments

Gigioingiro 1 hour ago | parent

US keep pursuing this political agenda that goes against the whole foundation of the country rise as world superpower. I wonder how long it needs to last before Europe starts to roll serious academic policy that attracts the orphaned talent refused by US. The Netherlands started well with the Tulip Fund but a systematic effort is needed. Korea is expanding his VISA grants for AI or tech top talents. Its the first time in decades where top world talent does not point altogether towards US and will be interesting to see which policy from other countries will reveal to be more effective. It's a tight window to take advantage of before the change in US administration so an economical effort in a short time period is required.

dingaling911 54 minutes ago | parent

US rise as a world superpower was luck as opposed to something deliberate, just like most rises are.

Iolaum 37 minutes ago | parent

It's not luck it's starting conditions. People have written books about the benefits of geography and natural resources.

causesothere 24 minutes ago | parent

Luck? They killed 95% of the existing inhabitants, used a huge agricultural, mining, and forestry base to spread productivity, built national infrastructure with enslaved and indentured labor. They stayed out of two crippling wars as long as they possibly could, and ultimately were the only major power that was able to mostly avoid damage from the war.

After which they invited the best scientists from the axis to come build things for them. They then used their position to topple governments around the world for their companies, annex territory (see: Hawaii), and press their interests globally.

What about these steps is luck? Evil, sure, but luck?

sajithdilshan 47 minutes ago | parent

I don't think this would negatively affect the crème de la crème, they would even have a high demand in US companies especially in STEM fields with higher salaries after finishing the studies.

US is popular for higher studies for students all around the world not only because of the opportunities, but also English being the language for studies. I'm not sure how it works in EU countries. Does Netherland or South Korea offers degree programs completely in English?

iamniels 39 minutes ago | parent

> Netherland

Yeah, all higher studies and institutions are in English and you can get around in public with just English. Most expats will rarely hear or need Dutch (The language of The Netherlands).

fifilura 37 minutes ago | parent

Same in Sweden, welcome!

manvillej 34 minutes ago | parent

Most Dutch will only speak English to non-Dutch. Which is really annoying if you’re there trying to learn Dutch

sajithdilshan 33 minutes ago | parent

How about the language usage at workplace after graduation? Would one have to learn Dutch or still continue everything with English?

Also is it easy to get a job after graduation in Netherlands in STEM field? As an example if someone graduated in medicine (doctor, nurse, etc.) then wouldn’t proficiency in Dutch be mandatory to work?

boelboel 9 minutes ago | parent

It's probably not that big of a problem in the absolute top companies but once you go anywhere else they'll prefer Dutch natives and you'll face hurdles trying to get promotions. This is a big reason why expats end up leaving the country. It also causes resentment from both sides in daily life.

oersted 27 minutes ago | parent

> Most expats will rarely hear or need Dutch

That is an overstatement. Dutch is the primary language everywhere like the native language of any country. It is true that in major cities most people speak excellent English and you can definitely manage easily without speaking Dutch.

But Dutch is spoken absolutely everywhere and most signage is only in Dutch. Also, as soon as you get a bit outside of the big cities, you find many people with a middling level of English, similar to most other countries in Europe. Even in cities, many working class people and actually most immigrants from non English speaking countries only speak Dutch.

yummypaint 50 minutes ago | parent

When we hit the academic brain drain tipping point in the US, talent isn't going to just start trickling away, it's going to be like a greedy cup siphon. Countries preparing to attract these people now will reap a windfall the US has carefully cultivated over a century. This administration has demonstrated the federal government cannot be trusted to keep it's commitments and long-term plans, and it will now take a generation of stability to disabuse people of that notion.

sandworm101 30 minutes ago | parent

Blaming the government is a cop out. The american government is an expression of the will of the american people. For all the screaming, a politicaly significant percentage of the population supports every decision being made by this administration. There is an election comming up. I want to be proven wrong. But i suspect the ussual patterns will emerge and little will change. Too many people are too comfortable with the current situation.

wand3r 21 minutes ago | parent

This is such a crazy statement. Democracy in the US is dead. People are incredibly dumb and I believe you have the causal relationship reversed, even for relatively smart people.

The will of the American people is deeply influenced by interested parties dumping money into various areas. Rich elite own almost all media and even "democratized" social media is heavily influenced. You can't even use a search engine these days.

Ultimately, the 70% plus "will" of the people is money out of politics, stock bans for elected officials, no foreign wars and universal healthcare. Things both parties unite to curtail

pirate787 19 minutes ago | parent

"Democracy is dead" because I disagree with the policy preferences of the majority of voters.

bix6 15 minutes ago | parent

They aren’t wrong about the influence of money though.

rzerowan 12 minutes ago | parent

IMHO its mostly been proven that special intrests , corporations hold more influence than the electorate. To that extent that bot wings of the uniparty basically persue the same agenda with very little variation in econ/pol while distarcting everyone with nonstop culture war bs. Ergo its more feasible to playact at parades thsn it is to have a proper industrial policy for example that would mean hosing Wall Streeet profits to do. so.

markvdb 13 minutes ago | parent

> Democracy in the US is dead. People are incredibly dumb[...]

So what alternative or incremental improvement to democracy would you propose? And more importantly, how would you like to get there?

ptero 12 minutes ago | parent

While I agree with much of what you wrote the percentage of people supporting every (or even most) decision of this administration is very small. But a large portion of the population doesn't like the alternative any better.

They said a few years ago that Trump and Biden have a chance only if they run against each other.

So it is more nuanced. We will see what the candidates in 2 years look like.

sdcfgy 10 minutes ago | parent

Yeah. America is a symptom of Americans...

micromacrofoot 6 minutes ago | parent

The thing about dumb people is that the dumber they are the easier it is to convince them that changing their position is against their interests.

This has been something that's been foisted upon the American public through its politics, propaganda, media, and other systems for decades. As a result they have been fleeced through the visage of democracy that has been capped and gerrymandered away from them.

We are now in a situation where the entire fate of the country rests on ~250k people who live in some of the poorest, most homogeneous, media-blasted parts of the country.

ubermonkey 41 minutes ago | parent

We are committing suicide as a nation.

chinathrow 20 minutes ago | parent

Look at their handlers.

slowmovintarget 17 minutes ago | parent

By setting up a jobs market for foreigners but not for Americans, and by allowing corporations to install immigrant intake machines at the expense of Americans? Yes. That's what needs fixing.

I'm in favor of legal immigration. I'm not in favor of H1Bs and the "default" pathway.

If we don't get educated and employed as Americans, then yes, we'll be committing suicide.

If someone's post-graduate work is that important, and that particular individual is so unbelievably critical to that particular post-doc work, then surely the fee would be worth it. If it's not, then advantaging the market for post-docs in America to actual Americans seems like a good thing, something governments are meant to do for their citizens.

Is there a reason the American government shouldn't be allowed to act on behalf of its citizens and must act in favor of everyone else?

rcr-anti 35 minutes ago | parent

If memory serves, they've tried this several different ways but keep getting injuncted since it amounts to a tax and not a reasonable processing fee.

braj0 19 minutes ago | parent

Ohh so this is a tax but inflation isn't? I don't ever remember voting for an inflation tax. Our government is so corrupt.

fg137 9 minutes ago | parent

I have trouble following the logic of this comment

arenaninja 10 minutes ago | parent

My understanding is that since OPT was created via executive magic instead of Congress the department overseeing the program is woefully understaffed and underfunded. Visa work in the US really is at the intersection of DHS, DOL and DOS at the end of the day. It may be that the executive needs to rethink this for better department communication, collaboration and efficiency and investment is genuinely necessary given the scale of these programs compared to their inception.

gsky 26 minutes ago | parent

Every country should block american big tech to create tech jobs for their people. This fixes americas immigration problem too

petcat 22 minutes ago | parent

Nobody will tolerate being forced to use "EU government phone" instead of iPhone or Google Android. They will just revolt against their own government instead.

figmert 18 minutes ago | parent

Eh? I'm guessing you've never spoken to a European. Especially since Trump's second term (though not just because of Trump), Europeans generally have a bad view of US tech companies.

petcat 15 minutes ago | parent

> never spoken to a European

Irrelevant. The EU is not taking American tech, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon away from 330 million Europeans and replacing it with..nothing? without widespread outrage. In a lot of ways it would cause a societal collapse.

sajithdilshan 12 minutes ago | parent

Maybe that’s true in your close people bubble. Don’t generalise it to everyone European. I’m pretty sure there a big Trump fans base in Poland, Hungary and Germany to name a few.

TrackerFF 20 minutes ago | parent

At least here in Scandinavia, the US is quite popular for the most ambitious and driven students that are interested in entrepreneurship. They apply to top US schools on either coasts via exchange programs, or a full degree, exactly because the schools are so close to the startup scene. Imposing a $100k fee to hire those, would effectively make such types of graduates very unattractive to startups.

2PqboPPmKegvanx 14 minutes ago | parent

speedrunning brain drain, you spend decades building a moat based on stability and proceed to end decades of work in 24 months.

drivingmenuts 14 minutes ago | parent

If the US imposes this charge, they will go somewhere else. Europe, maybe. China, maybe. We won't get the immediate benefit of their work like we do now. This will kill some graduate programs and constrain a lot of others. It is hard to see any positive benefits from this move.

If I were China, I'd move on this aggressively. If I were any country with a strong interest in STEM, I'd do the same. In fact, just the mention of this action should spur a somewhat aggressive response.

ModernMech 12 minutes ago | parent

This government is doing everything they can to make the lives of my students a living hell. First it was the kidnappings and deportations, if that wasn’t enough.

Then they defunded their projects, even projects that had already been funded so they destroyed a bunch of in-progress research that can’t be restarted.

Then they started fucking with internships, trying to make it so that foreign students can only get an internship if it’s part of the degree program, which most are not.

And of course they completely slowed the document processing down to a snail pace so that students can’t even get to campus on time for the start of the semester.

Now this. Absolutely insane. America had a higher academic system second to none, people came from around the world to attend our schools, made America better, and brought America back to the places they came from in a positive light.

I have one student who fled civil war, he started learning about CS from a country he took refuge in, made his way to America over years, started at a state school and then worked his way up to the graduate level where he busts his ass working in a kitchen every day to be able to afford it. Today he’s publishing papers at top conferences in CS. Every day he is eager to learn and grateful for all opportunities he’s given.

And this government wants to chase that kind of student out of the country.

Meanwhile my American students show up to class and ask me “is this class hard?” And then they drop it once they find out it takes work, like gasp opening a paper book and reading it faints.

It’s going to take decades to repair this damage and I hope all of you here who voted for it (I know there are plenty) understand the damage you caused with your choice. I wish you’ll help fix it because it’s going to take everyone.

ChoGGi 7 minutes ago | parent

I remember while growing up hearing talk on the news about brain drain.

Thanks Trump; next do EV cars worldwide.

That felt dirty as a Canadian.

I did also wonder what the Riddler had to do with Canadians going to the States...