“There are lots of liberal studies majors, too few Comp Sci and Electrical Engineers. By enlarging the H1-b program without real protection all you are doing is ensuring that in the future there will be more real estate agents and less engineers.”
More American real estate agents, certainly.
If the US wants to keep its place as one of the foremost technological innovators, then it needs scientists, and lots of them.
If you’re not ‘growing your own’ so to speak, then they have to come from somewhere. Until the US college system starts churning out Science Majors in adequate numbers to replace the H1Bs, then you have the choice of either downsizing science-based R&D by only using US citizens, or you bite the bullet and hire foreign nationals to fill the gap.
Maybe, rather than blaming H1Bs for coming to work here, some hard work rehabbing the US education system is in order, to woo the good minds away from business/finance/law towards hard science….?
Its not just a US problem either – I worked as a Math teacher in London for many years, and the level of numeracy and science in both schools and junior colleges has been dropping for years.
And yet…there’s all those keen, enthusiastic, well-educated Indians and Chinese who would give their right arms for a chance to see the world and make some decent money….
Not blaming anyone for it….but this argument reminds me of the one where neighbours get angry with a seller for reducing the asking price of their house, in order to sell it. “But you’re lowering our comps! Now we won’t be able to sell our places for a profit because you’ve selfishly lowered your price to a realistic level!”
