The young entrepreneurs heading back to Indian homeland (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Rajini Vaidyanathan
BBC News, Mumbai

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It is a stark contrast to a study conducted in the 1960s of Indian students who had left for America.

India's weak infrastructure, corruption and red tape were all cited as reasons why the 6,000 students studying in America back then did not want to return to their homeland, according to the 1964 study by Mehdi Kizilbash for the Comparative Education Review.

The return of highly skilled and educated graduates might be seen as a boost for India, but it is also a concern to America. Some 52% of Silicon Valley's startups were founded by immigrants, according to research conducted by researchers from Harvard and Duke universities, and retaining this kind of brainpower is a priority for President Obama.
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"Today, we provide students from around the world with visas to get engineering and computer science degrees at our top universities.

"But then our laws discourage them from using those skills to start a business or a new industry here in the United States. Instead of training entrepreneurs to stay here, we train them to create jobs for our competition."
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13595196




Mexicans, Nigerians, Caribbeans, Indians now all choosing not to stay in America ... finding greener pastures at home. We'll finally have succeeded in outsourcing even consumers, and there will be nothing left.

[exboyfil]

1. Scrap the H1-B Visa process

It is a sham. Set an annual fee for the ability to work, start businesses, etc in this country. I would suggest something like $50K/yr. (I could be convinced of a lower number as well). If our professionals cannot compete at that rate, then they need to be thinking about doing something else. The most frustrating thing is answering these employment ads in which the jobs are wired to a particular H1-B candidate. Lawyers are making fortunes helping companies navigate this process.

Another issue which needs to be resolved is how to attract more of the U.S. students into engineering/science/IT graduate school. Right now many engineers can come out with a B.S. and begin making $60K/yr. Many employers then encourage those students to get M.S. degrees while working full-time. I really think that engineering universities should work towards getting these type of candidates (U.S. citizens with five years of experience and an online M.S.) into doctoral programs. It should be a priority. My experience has been that universities prefer to get candidates straight out of B.S. programs (many of them foreign) over the type of candidate which I described. Sometimes employers encourage their employees and give them some concessions to allow them to return for the PhD. program. These folks usually remain "captive" employees to their employer so they won't be starting new business, but they are developing technologies/processes which strengthen their employer (otherwise why would the employer encourage it?). Those strenghtened employers continue to build and sell products in this country.

Could a more formalized process be established between employers and universities? How about capturing those U.S. engineers which can be entrepreneurs as well? How about getting more engineers at the undergraduate level as well?



The article presupposes that we don't have underutilized entrepreneur talent native to this country. I think that we do.


I find your last comment interesting. It should be noted that none of those countries/regions which you listed have a social safety net like we see in the U.S. We talk about income disparity and condemn it, but our floor for those in the U.S. is much higher than those listed countries/regions. Would an unemployed single parent with three children rather live in the U.S. or in one of those listed countries? How about an elderly person without support from their family?

Many on this board want to see marginal tax rates approaching 90%. Does anyone think that would improve the situation with business start ups in this country? While I think we can see some tinkering with the tax code, anything north of a marginal rate of 60% (including all taxes) is going to drive folks away.

[LiberalEsto]

2. +10000

The H1-B and other visa programs exist for no other reasons than to destroy middle-class jobs for American citizens, increase corporate profits and drive down prevailing wages in certain industries such as IT.

[exboyfil]

3. Technology jobs are not fungible

I agree the program is abused extensively, but keeping many of these PhDs in this country is a very good thing. I know of many start up businesses done by foreign PhD engineers who are now employing U.S. citizens. I know of cases at my employer in which the foreign H1-B Visa worker has a skill set not easily obtainable with a U.S. citizen, and, if the work that person is doing does not get done, then we will not have product to sell.

That is why I set the bar at $50K without the administrative overhead. I think it will flush out many of the employers who are only interested in paying exploitive salaries (actually the situation is the same as bringing in undocumented workers). For a true entrepenuer the $50K is something of a hardship, but not necessarily a barrier.

[LiberalEsto]

4. I know quite a few unemployed American IT workers

with excellent "skill sets" who are languishing at part time McJobs, including my brother-in-law.

And I'm sure that American graduates from college computer science programs would be equally able to attend graduate school and attain PhDs on the computer sciencesd, IF:

1. Their graduate education was free, like that of the foreigners who are taking their jobs,

2. They weren't saddled with huge student loans for their undergraduate degrees, unlike their foreign rivals,

3. They were able to find entry-level IT jobs to pay off their student loans, gain experience in the field, and learn new skills on the job.

The deck is completely and deliberately stacked against Americans in the IT industry, which is the only one I'm somewhat familiar with. But I'm sure these factors apply in other tech fields in which we've been losing jobs to cheap foreign labor imported by corporations.

[exboyfil]

5. My area is in engineering

so I will address your points from that experience.

1. In general engineering graduate school is free (actually partially paid) by being a Research or Teaching Assistant. Lots of foreigners have these assistantships (kind of the point of my post - affirmative action in that area might be appropriate. Something like only making grants available to professors with a certain number/percentage of U.S. born engineers for example. Also lots of schools declare TAs and RAs in state students for tuition so that the departments have to pay less than they would otherwise for foreign (and out of state) students.

2. Where is the money coming from to educate foreign nationals at the B.S. level? I am not sure that their undergraduate is necessarily free or that a comparably qualified undergradate might not end up with the same level of support. Maybe we should be expending less resources on certain majors that have limited employment opportunities to help support engineering, science, and IT majors (could be an interesting discussion on this board - what majors should be axed). At our state universities they are charging $2K more per year for engineering over most other majors. Kind of going in the wrong direction.

3. Not so much a stacked deck in engineering. We have a strong foreign representation in our profession but it is not dominated at this point.

Would your brother-in-law have a better chance at a job if the H1-B Visa types (either as an individual or from the corporation) have to pay $50K/yr to work in this country? If not, then you are in the wrong profession.

Could the work your brother-in-law do be done effectively in a foreign country? If the answer to that question is yes, then he has a problem (as I do). You can live like a king on $50K/yr in India. How do you keep the work product from these Indians out of this country to preserve your brother-in-law's job? It is actually harder to consider than an assembler's job for example.

I think a proposal like $50K/yr would flush alot of the current abuses out. An employer that really needs a particular skill set will be willing to pay, but, in general, they may be more likely to work towards retraining or being more aggressive in domestic recruitment.

[HipChick]

8. The IT industry in India is booming...quite a number of bought American companies

and/or competing in the same marketspace..I know because they often bid against us, so it's not so black and white anymore...

[Matariki]

7. Ask yourself - WHY aren't those skill sets easily obtainable with US citizens?

I'd argue that point, but it's irrelevant. The problem is education both the increasing defunding of public schools and the insane price of college. That and the pure greed of companies that would rather pay someone on an H1-B visa much less than market rate.

[Matariki]

6. Oh, or here's an idea. Make college affordable for our kids.

So US citizens can get *engineering and computer science degrees at our top universities* without taking on a lifetime of crushing debt.