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Chinese Workers Abandon Silicon Valley for Riches Back Home

(www.bloomberg.com)
219 points thisisit | 5 comments | 11 Jan 18 16:55 UTC | HN request time: 0.906s | source
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ryanianian ◴[11 Jan 18 19:09 UTC] No.16126766[source]▶
It is understandable why somebody would want to return to their home-country. The "Bamboo Ceiling" the article discusses is incredibly concerning. It's America's loss for sure.

I'm curious (1) how much of these people's education or experience was subsidized by the American economy and (2) how common the same situation is in China (i.e. US expats training up in China and taking that expertise back to the US).

If (1) and (2) aren't aligned, it could be one of the factors contributing to the growing sense that we pour a bunch of money into higher-ed without seeing much return.

I don't mean this from a US nationalist or political perspective - I'm merely speculating on the economics. Are the incentives for coming to the country aligned for both the person and the country? Many companies will pay for employees to go to grad-school but demand repayment if the employee isn't still with the company N years later. Would such a system for college/work visas make any sense to help keep talent?

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1. dawhizkid ◴[11 Jan 18 19:15 UTC] No.16126829[source]▶
I don’t think foreign Chinese would qualify for federal subsidies. Maybe the Chinese gov’t subsidizes their education.

In grad school I knew of several Singaporeans who had their tuition here in the US convered by the govt with repayment in form of returning to a govt job, which in Singapore is a highly prestigious job.

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2. seanmcdirmid ◴[11 Jan 18 19:19 UTC] No.16126866[source]▶
At the graduate level, in computer science, they are funded via research grants but work as RAs. They aren’t exactly subsidized by the federal government, and they do work in return, but they are still majority tax payer funded.
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3. dawhizkid ◴[11 Jan 18 19:25 UTC] No.16126937[source]▶
Sure maybe PhDs at public universities. That is a small sliver of total Chinese that come here for undergrad or masters programs...
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4. seanmcdirmid ◴[11 Jan 18 19:26 UTC] No.16126952{3}[source]▶
Also private universities (Stanford).

Grads are a large portion of the Chinese that work in SV.

Many of the Chinese who come to the states and pay for their education out of pocket couldn’t get into a good school back home and are going back after their education finishes. The others are rich, here for the experience, and will still go basic home because of their family expectations and connections.

5. walshemj ◴[11 Jan 18 20:23 UTC] No.16127461[source]▶
They certainly used to I worked on an elite campus at my first job early 80's and there was one Chinese exchange student doing a masters or phd of course in those day he did wear the mao uniform and had a flying pigeon bike.