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<@stackskipton> And the usual: home country situation may be fine but US professor pay is better than any/professor pay in home country.

+ most countries don’t crush their graduates with nearly the same debt

+ PhDs abroad can be quicker to get making lower pay acceptable

<@stackskipton> Even if you pay foreign workers the same, which I doubt is true, it’s still a form of labor suppression. These workers have completely different expectations than native born workers. My dad grew up in a village in Bangladesh. My aunts and uncles were college educated professionals from affluent families, but their apartments (in the 1990s) were like NYC housing projects. So my tolerance for grinding for my job is completely different than that of most native born Americans. And I got my citizenship in high school. I can’t imagine what it’d be like if I was trying to keep my H1B. How hard could you get Americans to work if getting fired meant they had to move to Bangladesh?

Look at it this way. Except at the tippy top, employers aren’t looking to hire “the best.” They decide what the role is worth, and then select from the pool of people willing to work for that level of pay. A de facto path to U.S. citizenship for someone and their kids is basically a form of non-cash compensation for H1Bs. So even if the cash pay is the same, the foreigner worker is getting more value than the American worker. The effect is the same as if the government kicked in an extra $50,000 a year (or whatever) to the paycheck of foreign workers but not American workers. So if the role pays $100,000, it will draw a pool of foreign workers as if it pays $150,000 a year. So, at every level of job, the American worker is competing with more qualified and motivated foreign workers, because the job simply is worth more to those workers.

For a long time, I faulted Americans who didn’t teach their kids to “learn to work 16 hours a day” like my dad taught me. But I have kids of my own now, and they don’t have the mentality of someone who is a generation away from having to take a boat to school during monsoon season. And that’s probably a good thing that we should want as a society.

<@toomuchtodo> This. There is rarely a shortage of qualified people.

It's usually companies who hide behind 'we use data from HR to ensure we pay market rate'.

Paying market rate doesn't make people change jobs.

<@gedy> I was going to post the same comment. The old 'no one wants to work' complaint which almost always translates to 'no one wants to work for super low pay'

<@gedy> I don't know what the pay structure was. I can't even begin to guess at what sort of salary band a college instructor would be in, in any state.

But I am guessing that Florida is, in general, not the most desirable place for academics to be.

<@gedy> Probably enough to live amongst the lower middle class till carpetbagger real estate speculation and the general clown economy push you back to the rust belt shithole from which you came.

<@light_hue_1> This is absolutely a factor; New College lost half its teaching staff when DeSantis took a wrecking ball to it over ideological disagreements, Florida is not a great place to be in the field right now.

I’d add that Florida higher education pays below average vs. nationally and the state is dealing with some serious cost of living issues at the moment (e.g. insurance).

<@light_hue_1> Exact same thing happened in Indiana after they instituted tenure review and ideological standards for teaching.

It’s kinda like it’s the purpose of these laws to dismantle public higher education.

<@rayiner> Nope, he's just corrupt and had enough dinners with tech leaders to be convinced to put aside his anti-immigrant stance on this issue. Funny response, though.

<@itqwertz> > The emergence of AI is at least proof that "deep engineering knowledge" can be easily summoned by a prompt.

Gee, I wonder what the academic backgrounds of the theorists and engineers who made that possible is. Probably no advanced degrees and no people on sponsorships right?

<@toomuchtodo> What? Somehow I think you’re overthinking this. There is no conspiracy. International students have helped to get us to where we are. Could we use some course corrections, sure, but you’re throwing the baby out with the bath water. Don’t believe me, ask the CEO of your company, or any Fortune 500, or your stock portfolio about the need to have the best talent in the U.S.

<@Spivak> It may surprise you to learn that there are other fields besides tech.

<@happytoexplain> > Many of us have had to suffer through college lectures of dubious real-world application and near-incomprehensible accents.

From here; the implication seems to be that it's only in college lectures that people are faced with strong accents.

<@dmix> I actually disagree that just because something is a popular issue necessarily means there's need for reform, people are perfectly capable of driving themselves into a frenzy over something that, when actually examined, is functioning appropriately.

<@dmix> I recognize that it's an issue elsewhere and that there are abuses and there is need for reform. But my point stands. The modern Republican party, especially in Florida, is generally not interested in reform to make citizen's lives better. Nearly every time they are given the benefit of the doubt, it's a benefit that should not be given them.

<@brandonmenc> Many big tech CEOs financed Trump's inauguration. Many donated to his ball room. Those MAGA hat wearers paying millions for access/behind the scenes policy creation are.

Adding to OPs point, Trump did a major immigration push, yet a major push to punish companies/employees who create the demand that immigrants were filling was not part of that. Imagine launching a 50+ billion dollar drug war, but only going after drug users.