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)."

Comments

Re:Consider this:

[Ethanol-fueled]

Both are made from horsemeat. *Ba-DUM PISH!*

Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week.

Re:...because they'll work for even less than wome

[wagadog]

Sorry, I used to work there too, as a postdoc, and it was made *very* clear to me that there was NO woman who had a permanent job there in a technical position was not either married to, formerly married to or otherwise romantically connected to some senior male BSD there (in fact, when I pressed my "faculty mentor" to name *ONE* that was *NOT* he was TOTALLY contemptuous and was like, "oh, yeah, there's ONE, but she's a *NUN*").

The rule there is "put out, or get out." Yah, there are plenty of opportunities there -- for WHORES. Sexual harassment is *RIFE* there -- try asking around about Sterling Colgate, who was like *proud* of the fact that he kept naked pictures of *all* of his ex-wives under glass on his office desk.

Yes, the salaries are fixed wrt to academic age (years since PhD) and since I was three years out, one of the guys I worked with was utterly outraged that I made more than him, he being only a year out of graduate school.

However, because most of the postdocs at CNLS were funded by other departments, the administrator, Frankie Whatshername, used to regularly "forget" to have the money transferred for the female PhD's salaries -- and then tell them that their grants had "run out." So you'd spend a week trying to figure out what the heck happened, and guess what -- if Frankie had neglected to put the request through and you just happened to not get paid, well, rules you know: can't be fixed retroactively. While she strutted around in her fricking skin-tight latex outfits and big hair and barely-an-associates-degree-in-secretarial-work.

So the women PhDs there wound up getting paid less -- a LOT less -- since she would pull this shit like every other month or so.

Re:...because they'll work for even less than wome

[wagadog]

Oh look at the statistics. What secrets have been compromised by American nationals?

Now look at how many have been compromised by non-nationals.

And no, when I was there, as a postdoc, I could not find ONE woman PhD with a permanent job there who was not romantically connected in some way to a senior scientist -- either married to, the ex-wife of, or the mistress of. I finally pressed my faculty advisor to name ONE, and he could not, except for one, whom he dismissed (contemptuously) as "A Nun."

I thought the place was disgusting. Mid-90's, CNLS.