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Chinese Workers Abandon Silicon Valley for Riches Back Home

(www.bloomberg.com)
219 points thisisit | 3 comments | 11 Jan 18 16:55 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | 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. friedButter ◴[11 Jan 18 19:52 UTC] No.16127202[source]▶
>(1) how much of these people's education or experience was subsidized by the American economy

I suspect that US actually profits off of foreign students, atleast thats what I've heard informally (since we have to pay much higher fees than natives), but I've never checked the fees to be honest.

In a profitable system, its a fair assumption that those who pay the most make atleast some contribution to profits right?

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2. ryanianian ◴[11 Jan 18 20:00 UTC] No.16127267[source]▶
Absolutely - if the cost you pay offsets your cost to the economy it's win-win. My question/concern is primarily around the students who receive some form of net subsidy from the US economy.
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3. friedButter ◴[11 Jan 18 20:17 UTC] No.16127408[source]▶
TBH, another factor to be kept in mind is that most foreign students are doing a MS in US only for the work visa.. if the possibility of working in US went away (say OPT extension gets terminated and everything else remains the same, or Trump pushes through with making H1B's much tougher\impossible to extend beyond 6 years ), a lot fewer foreign students would come to US which would result in fewer profits..