The Collapse of the Computer Science Degree in the U.S. via H-1B.

Following up my article on the Governors trying to revive the H-1B bill, on the off chance you thought I was alone in my crusade against the H-1B process, I suggest you look at a couple articles that tackle the same issue from different view points. First, Half Sigma has a post called Why a career in computer programming sucks he describes:

The foreignization of computer programming

I’m sorry about using a word that doesn’t exist in the dictionary, but foreignization best explains what’s happening in the computer programming industry.

First of all, there is the familiar outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries, mostly India. Because of this, the computer programming industry within the United States is an industry with a shrinking number of jobs, although as a worldwide phenomenon I’m sure computer programming will grow at a brisk rate. Would outsourcing of computer programming and other IT jobs be such a big trend if the industry were more prestigious? I think not. You don’t see lawyers being outsourced. In fact, by law, only members of the bar are allowed to practice law, so it would be illegal for foreigners to do American legal work.

The other half of foreignization is the near abandonment of the domestic IT market to foreigners. This is a trend that is accelerated by the issuance of special H1-B visas that allow extra computer programmers to come here and take jobs away from American programmers. Computer programming (along with nursing) has been specially targeted by our government for foreignization.

Foreignization creates a vicious circle effect with the low prestige of the profession. Because the profession has low prestige, employers balk at the idea of having to pay high salaries (while it seems perfectly appropriate if a lawyer or investment banker is making a lot of money). Thus the demand for more H1-B visas so that salaries can be decreased. In turn, Americans see an industry full of brown people speaking barely intelligible English, and this further lowers the industry’s prestige. Computer programming and IT in general is now seen as the foreigner’s industry and not a proper profession for upwardly mobile white Americans. [The Indian and Asian people I've known in the IT industry are nice people, and normally I don't pay attention to their different appearance, so this should not be taken as a racist dislike of non-white people. I am only accurately describing the fact that the typical white American thinks negatively of a profession that's predominately non-white. And I stand by my belief that people born in this country have more rights to the money being created here than foreigners. Asian countries feel the same way about foreigners. Asian countries are, typically, a lot less open to foreign worker immigrants than is the U.S.]

Because there is no reason to think that the trend of foreignization will reverse, this will ensure that the future of the industry will be lower salaries.

And Bill Gates himself has noticed the problem within the Computer Science programs within the United States, though he places the blame not on the H-1B process, of which he is a strong supporter but upon the Computer Science programs themselves. In a article from the American called Revenge of the Frosh-Seeking Robots, Bill is quoted when asked who is his greatest competitor:

“Goldman Sachs,” was Gates’s surprising reply.

Gates went on to explain that he was in the “IQ business.” Microsoft needed the best brains available to make top-shelf software. His primary rivals for the smartest kids in America were elite investment banks such as Goldman or Morgan Stanley.

“Microsoft must win the IQ war,” Gates said, “or we won’t have a future.”

The article continues on discussing the current trends in U.S. Universities:

Recent enrollment figures are ominous. The number of smart kids studying computer science peaked a few years ago and has dropped dramatically since. The number of new computer science majors today has fallen by half since 2000, according to the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. Merrilea Mayo, director of the Government-University-Industry Research Roundtable at the National Academies, says the drop-off was particularly pronounced among women.

Meanwhile, elite schools are reporting that the number of economics majors is exploding. For the 2003–2004 academic year, the number of economics degrees granted by U.S. colleges and universities increased 40 percent from five years previously. Economics is seen by bright undergraduates as the path to a high-paying job on Wall Street or at a major corporation.

To respond to the fall-off in computer science interest, the brass in Redmond, Washington, turned to Microsoft’s research division. Modeled on the great industrial R&D facilities in business history, such as Bell Labs and Xerox PARC, Microsoft Research is a 700-person division within the company. Comprising a series of laboratories around the world, it labors to push the frontiers of computer science. That goal is jeopardized if it can’t attract the brightest young men and women.

The Research staff first puzzled over what was driving the decline in interest in computer science. Many students choose a major based on perceptions of how helpful it will be in finding a well-paying job after graduation.

Clearly the believe that choosing a Computer Science Major won't lead to a well-paying job, is directly related to both the Off Shoring process as well as the H-1B process that the I.T. industry is employing, the direct opposite was true just 7 years ago, prior to the implementation of these processes, and enrollments then were booming.

Business has worshiped at the idol of the MBA far too long, which has created this problem by proposing this H-1B process to begin with.

All in order to boost the company bottom line and therefore the stock price a few percent by reducing wages paid to techs.

Now they have killed the technology education process in our country, and it won't be fixed until they scrap the H-1B process as well as the Off Shoring process and let wages and demand resume their natural levels.

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