Bye to some of the 40 odd Billion dollars which flows into the economy from these students. While the US closes their borders, other countries will be willing to take these students in.
The universities are doing more economic damage to our youth than they are bringing in to our current account. The universities need major reform, we should possibly be confiscating their endowments. Demand from wealthy international students abroad is one factor driving up tuition, which puts our middle class deeper and deeper in debt.
This doesn't help. Not everyone has access to the same infrastructure in their home town/country. Let alone the fact that a class at $X AM/PM in the US may be in the late evenings, late nights in their home country.
> Expect universities to fight this hard. Fees from international students make up a huge portion of their budget.
And so begins the inevitable death spiral of Academia as we know it.
I'm a big proponent of an International Work force and recognize that is what made California what it is today and that includes bringing in International students, the problem lies with the administration who abuses this system while taking Local/State/Federal taxes and does everything in its power to skew this, and inevitably restrict access to the domestic student's to basic things like lectures/labs, by overwhelming the system to accommodate the higher paying International cohort and making ever grander Campus Life amenities to attract them. Eric Weienstein has discussed in detail that its been a systematic effort to drive the cost of labour ever lower and is systemic and includes the higher tier Universities where he was an alumni: MIT and Harvard.
After University I was one of 3 US based workers in a Lab department of ~20 including the CLS who was from Germany but a US citizen by marriage, the rest of the techs and associates were from Vietnam, India, and China and I knew we all worked those crazy 60+ hour weeks back then in the shaky post-financial crises situation to earn our keep as we all had debt to pay off, so we all shared a collective trauma but seldom spoke outside of work, as the buyout from Novartis was happening.
They started staggering the US worker's breaks and lunch hours in an effort to prevent us from talking about the abysmal work environment we found ourselves in and what we'd do about it. I'm not pro-union, and would never agree to one, but even I thought that was an overt act on their behalf, especially since so much of Swiss Corporate culture is in fact Union based.
And even though it was never discussed a part of me knew the non-US workers were not being paid the same as us as they all required work visas and their tax rates were horrible as well.
I knew in my Junior/Senior year during the 2008 crises it was typical for the Indian students in our health sciences department to rent a house and have like 15+ people in a 3 bedroom off campus just to make ends-meet. Chances are they were doing that bed hot-swap I heard about in the Valley where roommates are prioritized by work schedules in such a way that they could have 4 beds in each bedroom and have it each serve 8 people when fully optimized.
I rented a room on airbnb in Palo Alto while I was looking for a place in Sunnyvale that had that this model, they called it a 'long term' hostel, but whatever it was it was f'ing sad.
Jesus Christ, we need to move away from this horrible system, and as painful as it may seem in the short term I'm glad its happening. This isn't 'paying your dues' its outright exploitation and the creation of a perpetual underclass.
Paying your dues would be waiting tables, or cleaning floors, or painting houses in the Summer: this is a total loss of Human dignity so that Universities can pay its administration obscene amounts of money in what is supposed to be a Public Good that's subsidized by the People, instead its State financed, vulture capitalism at it's worst and I'm glad its finally getting disrupted!
How will they fight this? Republicans in Congress are against legal immigration so nothing will pass Congress. The right wing hates colleges and universities because they're primarily made up of liberals, look at any Fox News and Brietbart articles.
If the reason for the Visa in the first place is to allow students to attend classes, and there are no classes to attend, what is the problem with this?
Seems if a University has no in person classes, most all students will stay home, avoid high priced dorms, dining plans, etc., and campus will be empty anyway.
As far as I understand, the original purpose of the rule is to prevent people from entering the US with a student visa without actually studying on site. It doesn't make sense in the context of Covid for people who are already living and studying in the US. They didn't choose an online course, why should they have to leave the country? It doesn't help anybody, it only causes unnecessary harm. I have several friends who currently do their PhDs in the US. They are not amused.
Not all students are from countries with great internet access. If you're a Chinese student, you might not have access to many apps professors might assume you'd have access to. The living situation you go back to might not be conducive to studying. Time zone changes will pose a challenge for keeping jobs, maintaining friendships, and doing job networking.
> If the reason for the Visa in the first place is to allow students to attend classes, and there are no classes to attend, what is the problem with this?
If this had been announced in March, I'd feel very differently. College usually starts in September, about two months away.
Sure, two months isn't an unreasonable time for finding new housing - but usually when you're moving you've got a lot more warning than that.
Add the complication that they need to relocate to another country, which will include international airfare. If any of them own anything that doesn't fit in a carry-on, they now have to look in to international shipping or replacing it.
And, again, they only have two months to do this. I usually start planning international travel 3-6 months in advance so that I can get a good price on tickets.
Note that this FORCES Int students to come back to the US and attend at least some in person classes. Having your student visa revoked doesn't just mean you can't be in the US, you just can't be a student at a US institution without that visa.
What about students that want to avoid crowded lecture halls but have in person study groups with a few friends? This authoritarian action is extremely heavy handed and forecloses the possibilities that genuine students might have to protect themselves, educate themselves and others, and help protect society.
From what I heard Canada is one of the countries, where it is difficult to immigrate. I heard, that you need to prove, that you are doing a job, which could not be done by a Canadian, who is seeking a job, for example.
Is any of that true? How is it for students? Can they simply go to Canada without such requirements?
To be clear even before Trump students have not been eligible for a visa for online study.
Not an opinion on if students who were going to study in person the fall should get to come/stay just a clarification.
Online school some students will mean having to sleep in day and do school at night, though for some it will mean vastly cheaper living costs.
Painful for some, maybe sorta of beneficial for others.
In the US, in college areas, bad for those renting out apartments, good for renters who will now see a reduction in rent.
> To be clear even before Trump students have not been eligible for a visa for online study.
There have been concessions made throughout the pandemic, to alleviate its impact on citizens and businesses. It's true that this was forbidden before, but there's a choice made in every enforcement action.
International students are a boon to the country. It costs good money to provide their education, and keeping them around afterward brings value not just in rent, but their very contributions to our society.
Well, before this year there wasn't a global pandemic. That's really meaningless. This wouldnt be an issue if it had happened last year, or the year before, or the year before...1918.
The point is that any functional government would have accounted for the fact that there is a global pandemic, which if nothing else, might actually make it impossible for some students to even leave the US, before publishing this guidance.
Edit: Also, this is a deliberate undoing of a temporary allowance they had already made. From the first sentence of the linked document:
> Temporary procedural adaptations related to online courses permitted by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) during the height of the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)crisis will be modified for the fall 2020 semester.
They must still take an in person class, and risk having their visa revoked if not. That's just not about being in the US, you can't be a foreign student at a US university without a visa. You'd have to take academic leave until you can have it reapproved.
They can take more than usual, but even if the school's not open 100% they cannot take "an entirely online course load". Some schools have already announced all instruction will be online and a lot more are probably going to.
So imagine a monkey is driving a truck, and it's headed straight for you. You're like, "What fools would let a monkey drive a truck??". The crowd scatters, cursing the stupid monkey, and those who would let it drive the truck. Someone eventually jumps on the truck and tosses the monkey out of the driver's seat. Or maybe the monkey bails out.
You put a sensible obedient human driving the truck, and say "Thank goodness we're safe again.", and go back to your business. The weird thing is, it seems like a common problem that has been happening for years, this monkeys getting into trucks and careening into the human population in various places around the world.
Of course it's not the monkey. Monkey's can't even drive trucks. The truck was being operated by remote control. The monkey is just a ruse to hide the truth. And when you carefully observe this pattern of monkeys and trucks, you can discern that it is some complex pattern of herding humans or human effects around the earth.
One could say the monkey was put there by "nationalists" but that's just a label of psychological manipulation, since everyone wants to have pride in their nation and wants their nation to prosper. You could say those secretly herding people with trucks are "globalists", but that doesn't adequately describe the situation, since who wouldn't want the world acting together solving problems with harmonious purposes?
If you think there may be some truth to this, I suggest we start by making darn sure trucks don't have remote controls in them. Of course this is figuratively and literally exactly the opposite of what many, perhaps unsuspecting, people are working towards. Also better for the long term, find those operating the trucks (which isn't exactly people, given the trans-generational nature) and figure out what's going on, and have them realize that such artificial systems of control are not beneficial and are doomed to failure.
[+] [-] HeyZuess|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cheezegrayter|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devilsenigma|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] black_puppydog|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] actuator|5 years ago|reply
@dang can you merge this?
[+] [-] laretluval|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Melting_Harps|5 years ago|reply
And so begins the inevitable death spiral of Academia as we know it.
I'm a big proponent of an International Work force and recognize that is what made California what it is today and that includes bringing in International students, the problem lies with the administration who abuses this system while taking Local/State/Federal taxes and does everything in its power to skew this, and inevitably restrict access to the domestic student's to basic things like lectures/labs, by overwhelming the system to accommodate the higher paying International cohort and making ever grander Campus Life amenities to attract them. Eric Weienstein has discussed in detail that its been a systematic effort to drive the cost of labour ever lower and is systemic and includes the higher tier Universities where he was an alumni: MIT and Harvard.
After University I was one of 3 US based workers in a Lab department of ~20 including the CLS who was from Germany but a US citizen by marriage, the rest of the techs and associates were from Vietnam, India, and China and I knew we all worked those crazy 60+ hour weeks back then in the shaky post-financial crises situation to earn our keep as we all had debt to pay off, so we all shared a collective trauma but seldom spoke outside of work, as the buyout from Novartis was happening.
They started staggering the US worker's breaks and lunch hours in an effort to prevent us from talking about the abysmal work environment we found ourselves in and what we'd do about it. I'm not pro-union, and would never agree to one, but even I thought that was an overt act on their behalf, especially since so much of Swiss Corporate culture is in fact Union based.
And even though it was never discussed a part of me knew the non-US workers were not being paid the same as us as they all required work visas and their tax rates were horrible as well.
I knew in my Junior/Senior year during the 2008 crises it was typical for the Indian students in our health sciences department to rent a house and have like 15+ people in a 3 bedroom off campus just to make ends-meet. Chances are they were doing that bed hot-swap I heard about in the Valley where roommates are prioritized by work schedules in such a way that they could have 4 beds in each bedroom and have it each serve 8 people when fully optimized.
I rented a room on airbnb in Palo Alto while I was looking for a place in Sunnyvale that had that this model, they called it a 'long term' hostel, but whatever it was it was f'ing sad.
Jesus Christ, we need to move away from this horrible system, and as painful as it may seem in the short term I'm glad its happening. This isn't 'paying your dues' its outright exploitation and the creation of a perpetual underclass.
Paying your dues would be waiting tables, or cleaning floors, or painting houses in the Summer: this is a total loss of Human dignity so that Universities can pay its administration obscene amounts of money in what is supposed to be a Public Good that's subsidized by the People, instead its State financed, vulture capitalism at it's worst and I'm glad its finally getting disrupted!
[+] [-] belltaco|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paul_f|5 years ago|reply
Seems if a University has no in person classes, most all students will stay home, avoid high priced dorms, dining plans, etc., and campus will be empty anyway.
[+] [-] spacechild1|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] k8si|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] handoflixue|5 years ago|reply
If this had been announced in March, I'd feel very differently. College usually starts in September, about two months away.
Sure, two months isn't an unreasonable time for finding new housing - but usually when you're moving you've got a lot more warning than that.
Add the complication that they need to relocate to another country, which will include international airfare. If any of them own anything that doesn't fit in a carry-on, they now have to look in to international shipping or replacing it.
And, again, they only have two months to do this. I usually start planning international travel 3-6 months in advance so that I can get a good price on tickets.
[+] [-] stu2b50|5 years ago|reply
So it's more than just bad time zones.
[+] [-] unishark|5 years ago|reply
They don't need a visa to take online classes from overseas.
[+] [-] tehjoker|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sukilot|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] foxyv|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pl0x|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zelphirkalt|5 years ago|reply
Is any of that true? How is it for students? Can they simply go to Canada without such requirements?
[+] [-] arcticbull|5 years ago|reply
[1] https://mgalligan.com/post/52327738889/canada-h1b
[+] [-] Teever|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bruceb|5 years ago|reply
Not an opinion on if students who were going to study in person the fall should get to come/stay just a clarification.
Online school some students will mean having to sleep in day and do school at night, though for some it will mean vastly cheaper living costs. Painful for some, maybe sorta of beneficial for others.
In the US, in college areas, bad for those renting out apartments, good for renters who will now see a reduction in rent.
[+] [-] klyrs|5 years ago|reply
There have been concessions made throughout the pandemic, to alleviate its impact on citizens and businesses. It's true that this was forbidden before, but there's a choice made in every enforcement action.
International students are a boon to the country. It costs good money to provide their education, and keeping them around afterward brings value not just in rent, but their very contributions to our society.
[+] [-] addicted44|5 years ago|reply
The point is that any functional government would have accounted for the fact that there is a global pandemic, which if nothing else, might actually make it impossible for some students to even leave the US, before publishing this guidance.
Edit: Also, this is a deliberate undoing of a temporary allowance they had already made. From the first sentence of the linked document:
> Temporary procedural adaptations related to online courses permitted by the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) during the height of the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)crisis will be modified for the fall 2020 semester.
[+] [-] WaitWaitWha|5 years ago|reply
https://www.ice.gov/doclib/sevis/pdf/bcm2007-01.pdf
[+] [-] stu2b50|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SpicyLemonZest|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stuupid|5 years ago|reply
You put a sensible obedient human driving the truck, and say "Thank goodness we're safe again.", and go back to your business. The weird thing is, it seems like a common problem that has been happening for years, this monkeys getting into trucks and careening into the human population in various places around the world.
Of course it's not the monkey. Monkey's can't even drive trucks. The truck was being operated by remote control. The monkey is just a ruse to hide the truth. And when you carefully observe this pattern of monkeys and trucks, you can discern that it is some complex pattern of herding humans or human effects around the earth.
One could say the monkey was put there by "nationalists" but that's just a label of psychological manipulation, since everyone wants to have pride in their nation and wants their nation to prosper. You could say those secretly herding people with trucks are "globalists", but that doesn't adequately describe the situation, since who wouldn't want the world acting together solving problems with harmonious purposes?
If you think there may be some truth to this, I suggest we start by making darn sure trucks don't have remote controls in them. Of course this is figuratively and literally exactly the opposite of what many, perhaps unsuspecting, people are working towards. Also better for the long term, find those operating the trucks (which isn't exactly people, given the trans-generational nature) and figure out what's going on, and have them realize that such artificial systems of control are not beneficial and are doomed to failure.