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How the 'Tech Worker Visa' Is Remaking IT In America
theodp writes "Back in 2008, the Department of Homeland Security enacted a controversial 'emergency' rule to allow foreign students earning tech-related degrees in the US to work for American employers for 29 months after graduation without a work visa. The program would allow US companies to recruit and retain the 'best' science and tech students educated at the top US universities, explained Microsoft. But two-and-a-half years later, it turns out the top US universities are getting schooled by less-renowned institutions. Computerworld reports the DHS program is dominated by little-known, for-profit Stratford University, whose 727 approved requests for post-graduate Optional Practical Training (OPT) STEM extensions tops all schools and is more than twice the combined total of the entire Ivy League — Brown (26), Columbia (105), Cornell (90), Dartmouth (18), Harvard (27), Princeton (16), Penn (50), and Yale (9). In second place, with 533 approved requests, is the University of Bridgeport. In another twist, the program's employers include IT outsourcing and offshoring 'body shops' like Kelly Services, whose entities snagged about 50 approvals, more than twice the combined total of tech stalwarts Google (15), Amazon.com (2), Yahoo (2), and Facebook (3)."
The University of Bridgeport is pretty much run by the Unification Church and its leader, Sun Myung Moon. For years now they have heavily recruited international members of the church to come to the United States and attend the University.
The Unification Church uses the University as a means of extending their empire further into the United States and the extended visa program works exceptionally well for this. I'm not one to say if this is a good or bad thing.
Sapere aude!
Cornell, Princeton, Columbia, Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, and Brown are all top 20 for Comp Sci.
how about starting by moving the manufacturing sector back to the USA, it will definitely create millions of more jobs
US manufacturing output reached an all-time high in 2008, despite having a very small number of employees. US manufacturing is highly automated and productive, it will never employ very many people any more.
This happened to agriculture in the early 1900's as well when it became mechanized - US agricultural employment went from 80% of all workers to 3% of all workers in around 75 years, despite increasing total amount of food grown.
(Unless you lower the US minimum wage to the point where you can afford to have people and not robots doing the work, but it would have to be extremely low pay).
We went to Disney in Florida a couple of years ago, and as an experiment, I tried to buy an American made product/toy for my daughter inside the parks. I just couldn't do it. Cheap seems to be the focus of corporate America.