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US Colleges Say Hiring US Students a Bad Deal
theodp writes "Many US colleges and universities have notices posted on their websites informing US companies that they're tax chumps if they hire students who are US citizens. 'In fact, a company may save money by hiring international students because the majority of them are exempt from Social Security (FICA) and Medicare tax requirements,' advises the taxpayer-supported University of Pittsburgh (pdf) as it makes the case against hiring its own US students. You'll find identical pitches made by the University of Delaware, the University of Cincinnati, Kansas State University, the University of Southern California, the University of Wisconsin, Iowa State University, and other public colleges and universities. The same message is also echoed by private schools, such as John Hopkins University, Brown University, Rollins College and Loyola University Chicago."
the majority of them are exempt from Social Security
The last time I worked with people on an H1B visas, Social Security was paid.
Developers: We can use your help.
So is the right course to: change the tax code so that businesses have to pay the same taxes for international workers as for domestic workers (could reduce employment)? reduce the cost of employing domestic workers (could reduce tax revenue)? or further limit the number of work visas issued (could cause shortages of certain types of skilled labor)?
Surely you were supposed to say "1st Post" but anyway this is definitely not a good advert for the universities in question or are they doing it to highlight the inherent discrimination in the system?
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
i thought the US needed to encourage more and better American citizens to go to college and become scientists and engineers...
looks like our educational institutions have said, "f that".
i say, "f them"
(i'm not opposed to immigration or people coming to get an education and leave, but i don't think my tax dollars should pay for these colleges to actively sabotage my kids' chances at getting a job.)
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
Who is the problem here? The universities who tell it like it is? Or the morons in congress who make it the way it is?
I seem to have wandered into LouDobbsDot by accident.
These students I am sure are paying well to be attending those universities and part of that fee is towards support services for their interests.
It doesn't seem unreasonable to me for those services to highlight whatever advantages these students have, because they probably have a lot of disadvantages in language and local knowledge.
Who'd of thought that employers, even state agencies, change their behavior in response to tax policy. If you want employers to hire more workers, make it easier and less expensive to hire and pay.
Oooookaaaay. It's not like the colleges are saying US students are bad. Instead, they're saying that these international students aren't as hard to hire as one might think and that there are benefits to it.
Just because I tell you that you should eat oranges because they're high in Vitamin C doesn't mean that I don't think eating apples is a good idea.
I'm impressed, though, because I've not seen a summary this reactionary and poorly constructed in a long time.
They get more money from out of state students than they get from local students. They get even more money from out of country students than in-country students.
They want more students alright... just more of the big-money students is all.
If you look at these links these are list pertaining to why companies SHOULD hire international students not reasons as to why companies should avoid domestic students.
They are simply trying to "sell" certain types of students (international) to companies by stating the benefits of hiring those types of students, thereby catering to those student's interests.
Nothing to see here.
Since Brown is literally up the road from me, I decided to click on Brown's PDF first, and then the others. I thought maybe there was a breaking story I could submit to the Providence Journal so they could get the whole state of Rhode Island up in arms.
The summary doesn't match the language of the PDFs in the least.
I don't have enough middle fingers for this summary. It's massive troll.
Does that sound like employers can avoid taxes by hiring foreign students? I don't think so, Bob.
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BMO
Read the PDF that is linked in the article. At no point does it advocate hiring international students over United States citizens. The document does mention that a company can conceivably save money since the majority of these students are exempt from Medicare and FICA tax requirements. Furthermore, the document is published by the university's international services department. It is their purpose to try to get the best deal for international students.
This article is trolling. Move on.
I came into the US education system starting from undergrad to grad school as a foreign student (F and H visas), and I have NEVER heard of anything this stupid. Every employer that hired me during this process paid for all required taxes, even the university themselves when I worked on campus with my F visa.
If you RTFA instead of the summary you'd see it was a very poor and biased summary. The actual article did not advocate any such position.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The real reason could be this: International students pay well for their studies. If they hav work, they stay on studying to the end of their courses and can pay their fees. More importantly, they also encourage other students to come and study in the USA.
sudo mount --milk --sugar
Wow, great spin job!
Its a fact that FICA and Medicare often don't have to be paid for international students. This is federal law, so it's not surprising that more than one university describes the same factual situation that applies across the country. This is not under the control of the universities.
Note that, due to the various issues with visas, paperwork, etc., international students often struggle to find employment, and so its not unreasonable for universities to advocate on their behalf. Universities also typically have an entire career services group that helps all the American students, so they are hardly neglected.
It takes a fair amount of cynicism (I know, I know, its /.) to spin a university's attempt to support their international students into an attack on their American students.
If you really care about this issue, you should just aggitate against the tax law itself.
The pdf comes from the office of international services. It lists the statement about hiring international students as being cheaper, only as an answer to "Isn't it more expensive to hire foreigners?"
Come to think of it, this is more like a specific part of the university trying to encourage companies to hire foreign students. Given that it is the office of international services that is doing so, I would think this is not surprising at all, maybe even expected. After all the whole point of such groups is to sell their foreign students. This is like each department pitching that they are the best.
The document is not saying that the companies should not be hiring americans, rather that if they are not hiring foreigners it should not be because it is more expensive to hire them; it is not.
Mountain out of a molehill if you ask me. Had I been an american, I would have ignored this story.
IIRC the only reason they get "more" money from out of state students is because the state funding doesn't pickup part of the tab on them. Whether the money comes from the state or the student's pocket though makes no real difference.
Also, many private colleges were on that list, and virtually no private college charges different rates for in and out of state students.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
Seriously, I looked ad the PDF, and the languages used in the summary, is no where to be found in the provided links. I vote to mod this story off the front page. In fact, I think the "editors" should be able to be moderated.
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
Did Lou Dobbs submit that? Please preserve /. from this nonsense; I thought this website was supposed to post "Stuff that matters". All this post offers is an outlet for outrage, self-righteousness, and ugly xenophobia -- natural human traits, but not healthy or helpful ones that we benefit from encouraging. How many people have those websites affected? Isn't there something more consequential going on, that we can put on the front page of /.?
If you expect me to read or understand the topic before I form an opinion, then I str...
HEY LOOK! A PENNY!
I steal signatures. This one used to be yours.
BTW, USC is "one of the world's leading private research universities." It's not a public university like the others listed.
Here is a radical option, drop FICA and Medicare taxes, seeing that College age students will never benefit from the programs because they will be long broke by the time the students reach retirement. Combined that with dropping the aggregate (State + Federal) Corporate tax rate to less than 10% and you will see Companies rushing into the US, bye bye 10% unemployment.
Unfortunately, we are headed in the exact opposite direction with a Government take over of health care. Taxes are going to go through the roof to support all of the spending going on and the US will still not be able to reach it's obligations. Combined that with Cap and Tax, and other countries are starting to look a lot better then the US, especially India and China (sense they don't have the same emissions requirements under Kyoto because they are "developing" countries)
So no, raising taxes in the middle of a recession is not the answer, We are already why to the right on the Laffer Curve and going further to the right is just going to push up unemployment more.
not sure that usc belongs in that first list ...
You'll find identical pitches made by the University of Delaware, the University of Cincinnati, Kansas State University, the University of Southern California, the University of Wisconsin, Iowa State University, and other public colleges and universities. The same messsage is also echoed by private schools ...
My blog
This story should be tagged as a troll story.
First, the documents to which the article links were not written with the intention of convincing U.S. employers to hire students who are non-residents of the United States in place of students who are citizens. Non-resident students are likely no different than any other student in college and need supplemental income to pay for their education. The documents purpose is to enlighten employers about the facts about hiring non-resident students who are in the country on a student visa. Perhaps the author would like to take it one step further and see if they can incite hatred in legal aliens who are here working under a green card as these pamphlets surely must be convincing U.S. employers to hire foreign students studying under a visa in place of legal immigrant workers. Or perhaps not.
Second, if the author bothered to read IRS Publication 519, as the pamphlets suggest, they would have realized that any foreign student studying under a visa in the united states will fall under Social Security and FICA taxes if they are determined to have a substantial presence in the United States.
If a foreign student spends any more time in the U.S. than is necessary to attend school then it is likely they will fall under the substantial presence test and an employer will be required to pay Social Security and FICA taxes for the student they hired. A foreign student who is only available to work a fraction of each year is not a threat to the resident work force or the social services systems paid for by that work force.
As a member of the unemployed I understand the difficulties many people are going through but we can maintain a semblance of intelligence and become informed before making poorly researched rants.
The fact that the U.S. workplace law system has devolved to a point where there are significant disadvantages to hiring a citizen is a problem with the system, not with the universities who point out this fact.
That's misleading. If you're a tiny company, and want to hire a foreigner, there's a lot of paperwork to do. What the documents are saying is that if you hire them only temporarily (i.e. they don't need to apply for a green card and will leave in 6 years), then there is little work. But if you want to keep that employee, you need to sponsor him. And that takes money and paperwork and can be a headache compared to simply hiring an American.
Furthermore, if they hire for a job that simply requires a BS, they run the risk of the H1-B cap (FYI, if they hire a student, they apply for an H1 after hiring). Two years ago, roughly half of those who applied didn't get it. So now they lose the relatively new hire and have to go through the headache of finding another person.
Beetle B.
Sales tax sucks because it slows down the velocity of money. You pay sales tax whenever the dollar circulates which could be many times in a year.
The income tax (while it has the really annoying forms and loss of privacy problems) is assessed on your net profit and once per year. Sales tax is on total sales revenue.
You could do a value added tax (VAT) which is not as bad as straight sales, but it still clobbers commerce and especially high volume business.
As far as fairness goes, the higher the income, the lower the percentage people pay in sales taxes. It's just empirically the way it works out (although there are solid reasons for it).
I hate the sales tax. It's my least favorite kind.
Yoghurt
both F-1 and J-1 are exempt.
http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/international/article/0,,id=131635,00.html
F-visas, J-visas, M-visas, Q-visas. Nonresident alien students, scholars, professors, teachers, trainees, researchers, and other aliens temporarily present in the United States in F-1,J-1,M-1, or Q-1/Q-2 nonimmigrant status are exempt from Social Security / Medicare Taxes on wages paid to them for services performed within the United States as long as such services are allowed by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for these nonimmigrant statuses, and such services are performed to carry out the purposes for which they were admitted into the United States.
* Exempt Employment includes:
o On-campus student employment up to 20 hours a week (40 hrs during summer vacations)
o Off-campus student employment allowed by USCIS
o Practical Training student employment on or off campus
o On-campus employment as professor, teacher or researcher
* Limitations on exemption:
o The exemption does not apply to spouses and children in F-2, J-2, M-2, or Q-3 nonimmigrant status.
o The exemption does not apply to employment not allowed by USCIS or to employment not closely connected to the purpose for which they were admitted into the United States.
o The exemption does not apply to nonimmigrants in F-1,J-1,M-1,or Q-1/Q-2 status who change nonimmigrant status to a status which is not exempt or to a special protected status.
o The exemption does not apply to nonimmigrants in F-1,J-1,M-1, or Q-1/Q-2 status who become resident aliens for tax purposes.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
One problem with taxes is that there is no accountability for the money. Where do they go? Many people have a big problem with that. And they are right, because it seems governments become more and more bureaucratic, and more bureaucracy requires more money. It seems a big amount of money is lost in corruption as well.
The solution is to pay directly for the public works. Do you want roads? pay for each road. schools? the same. Police? give money to the police. National TV? give money to the TV station. National Health Care System? give money to hospitals directly, separately for each hospital. Do you want to support unemployed people? give the money directly to them. Do you want an army? pay for the army.
In any case, a huge organization like a government is not required. The only thing a huge government achieves with great efficiency is to suck resources up. It's not that, in the past, governments of the world had not achieved great things, but they did so when they were smaller and easier to operate.
While this comment is not directly related to the topic at hand, it is high taxation that leads to saying that hiring US students is a bad deal. Find a cure for the high taxation and then hiring US students may not be such a bad deal after all.
...drop FICA and Medicare taxes, seeing that College age students will never benefit from the programs because they will be long broke by the time the students reach retirement.
Nice sound bite but it is only true if the funding for those programs remains like it is today. I think the odds of that happening is a pretty good approximation of zero. Social Security and Medicare are the largest and most popular government programs out there. It is unlikely Congress will act quickly absent a fiscal emergency but sooner or later they'll have to address the funding of those programs.
Combined that with dropping the aggregate (State + Federal) Corporate tax rate to less than 10% and you will see Companies rushing into the US, bye bye 10% unemployment.
With the additional effect of causing millions of senior citizens who lose their primary income and health care. Which would have a devastating effect on their economic well being. There is no free lunch. Those programs serve a very real and very important purpose in spite of their problems.
We are already why to the right on the Laffer Curve and going further to the right is just going to push up unemployment more.
Sounds to me like you don't actually understand the Laffer Curve. The Laffer Curve hypotheses that there is an optimum tax rate - it might be necessary to raise OR cut taxes to reach that optimum. It does NOT tell you where you are on the Laffer curve, nor does it tell you what that optimum actually is. The Laffer curve does not prescribe or predict - it merely is a theory that an optimum exists. This makes it of limited value. The only way to find out for certain is to change the tax rate and see what happens but it is entirely possible we have a tax rate that is too low. That's the dirty little secret of those who constantly push for lowering taxes claiming that it will increase revenue based on the Laffer curve. You cannot possibly know where you are on that curve so you cannot use the Laffer curve as evidence that cutting taxes (or raising them) will be good policy.
Sales tax sucks because it slows down the velocity of money. You pay sales tax whenever the dollar circulates which could be many times in a year.
And an income tax is taken off every time the dollar circulates to the company you bought your item when it pays it's employees... what's the difference?
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
"If you RTFA instead of the summary you'd see it was a very poor and biased summary. The actual article did not advocate any such position."
Exactly. While the article is correct that the University of Pittsburgh pdf does say:
"In fact, a company may save money by hiring international students because the majority of them are exempt from Social Security (FICA) and Medicare tax requirements."
Which sounds awful, it goes on to say:
"How long can international students work in the United States with their student visa?
F-1 students are eligible for curricular practical training before completing their studies, as well as an additional 12 months of optional practical training, either before or following graduation, or a combination of the two. However, if they work full-time for one year or more of curricular practical training, they are not eligible for Optional Practical Training. Students with a J-1 visa are usually eligible to work up to 18 months following graduation. They may also be eligible to work part-time during their program of study. The Responsible Officer (RO) or Alternate Responsible Officer (ARO) will evaluate each studentâ(TM)s situation to determine the length of time for which they are eligible to work."
Unless they're hiring McD's employees, no one wants to hire someone that is guaranteed to leave in 18 months. If you hire someone and trained them two weeks you have thousands of dollars wrapped up in them already, with the cost of their salary and the salary of their trainer, plus any additional training expenses, even after that it'll take many weeks before they catch up with the rest of the team and they'll take co-workers away from their work to answer questions, which is more money lost.
That is why it has always shocked me at how easily a single manager can decide to fire someone because they got a hair up their ass because it's equivalent to stealing many thousands of dollars from the company. If you're going to fire them do it in the first month, don't do it 6 months after they're hired, when all that time and money has been invested in them. Every job should be a 1 to 3 month "contract to hire" position with weekly evaluations, so you can sit down with the employee every week and say "Gee, I have seen you do that lately. At XYZ, we do not do that, we do this" and have them sign it and keep it so they understand they need to improve and if they don't shape up, fire them next week. Oh, and have a open door policy that employees know exist (hang it in the bathroom or something), so if an employee feels a manager is targeting them unfairly there's someone to talk to because I think we've all seen managers going after people for the wrong reasons.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
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An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.
Robert A. Heinlein
The Bush's administration's recent Emergency rule change extended the post grad employment period for F-1 visa holders from 12 to 29 months.. This so called emergency rule change has been the subject of a lawsuit by US citizens who are the victims of wholesale discrimination.
This rule change potentially added another 400,000 workers to the US tech employment pool, which US citizens must compete against. Universities pointing out tax advantages of foreign grad hiring increases the suffering US citizens and GC holders must endure at the hands of the globalists.
The document from the University of Delaware linked in the summary makes no "pitch" at all whatsoever. ... you guessed it, information that employers may like to know about hiring international students.
In fact, the document which is entitled "What Employers Should Know About Hiring International Students" really only speaks to
How did this make it to the front page? It's clearly flamebait.
I'm a 2000 man.
so why the hell are you bitching and not reporting them and their "doctors" for fraud like a responsible citizen.
fuck dude, take some responsibility.
If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!