[xiaoma]

Money opens those doors even wider. Once you hit a certain level of financial independence, not only is it easy to visit wherever you choose, but permanent residency and even citizenship often become much more straightforward as well.

[volaski]

No one is saying go to college and forget about money. I don't know if you're saying this based on what you heard over the shoulder but I actually do know a thing or two about buying citizenship and green card with money. It is FAAAAAAAR easier to just go to college than become rich enough not to care about these things. Most college grads will never accumulate enough money in their youth to buy green card from countries they aspire to move to. Also buying green card is also not as easy as it sounds.

[xiaoma]

>I don't know if you're saying this based on what you heard over the shoulder

I've spent half my adult life living abroad and have met many people foreigners in many countries including the US who have gotten great visas without a college degree. And money isn't even the only way.

Becoming an expert at one's field is also a great route to a visa, and it pays a whole lot better than being just another person with a degree. For certain fields, a college degree is required and the gatekeepers are inflexible. For those in fields where success is more easily observable—sales, direct response marketing, entrepreneurship, novel writing, programming, pop music, etc—it's better to save the money and spend the time on actually mastering the craft and its business rather than on collecting credentials.

@eshvk: I know multiple foreign nationals without degrees who have held engineering or even engineering leadership positions at YC companies.

[volaski]

> I know multiple foreign nationals without degrees who have held engineering or even engineering leadership positions at YC companies.

You may be either talking about an O visa case (or H1B with all kinds of evidence that the person has irreplaceable qualities, which is difficult on its own right, basically you need to prove that you are as worthy as college graduates). Neither of them are easy. Sometimes even if you are covered on The New York Times you don't make it.

Don't just throw these things online as if it's easy to do this just because you saw some YC company do it. If you look around there are tons of other much more talented but unfortunate people who couldn't make it and had to go back to their countries.

These types of misinformation literally hurt people who are not knowledgeable about the matter. I can sense you have no idea about this just based on how you write about it. Are you a foreigner who have gone through the US visa application process? If not, don't say it's easy.

[eshvk]

Agree.

- Most (all?) work visas in the United States require a degree in the field of specialization.

- The "buying green card" program requires one to invest at least a million dollars and create at least ten jobs for two years before you get one. [1]

[1] http://www.uscis.gov/eb-5