[CPLX]

> There should be no cap for people who have received higher education degrees in the US.

This has the effect of delegating decisions about who enters the country to an unelected and unaccountable group of admissions officers working at private institutions.

[kelnos]

Private and public; don't forget that there are many, many public colleges and universities in the US. And presumably this would be limited to accredited higher-education institutions; you couldn't just stand up Butts University, start issuing degrees in Flatulence and Cheekiness, and have met the criteria. And maybe it's not just anyone who graduates from a US institution; maybe limit it to certain levels of achievement, and/or certain fields that the US has interest in developing or maintaining competence or dominance in.

I get your objection about unelected/unaccountable, but this happens all the time, and is normal, expected, and unavoidable. The government very often reaches outside itself for expert opinions on things that it cannot or should not develop its own expertise in.

The current system is stupid. Educating foreigners in the US and then kicking them out (absent something with the intentions of a Fullbright, for example) is just bad policy.

[NovemberWhiskey]

No; they're already in the country, that's really the whole point. They'd still need to meet the requirements for H-1B visa.

Say you're a STEM graduate; you first got an F-1 visa to study, then you spend four years at school in the U.S. You find a job with a great firm for your OPT, and that firm immediately starts to enter the H-1B lottery on your behalf.

Based on the amount of oversubscription, there's a significant number of people who are just not going to get selected before they time out on their OPT and have no option but to leave the U.S. after seven years living here, amounting to perhaps their entire adult lives.

The fact that such people have no preference in a random lottery with others that have no investment in the U.S. at all is utterly perplexing.

[bubblethink]

That's something that the state and federal govt. can easily regulate through the Dept. of Education. The converse is more absurd. If I want to study X, and university Y wants me, why does a third party dictate anything here ?

[cscurmudgeon]

Y is located in country Z and benefits from Z's public resources. Z can dictate here.

[dheera]

No, Z invested resources in Y and Y is now a talent and economic asset to Z.

[ra7]

Students only get a visa after getting interviewed by a visa officer at a U.S. embassy/consulate. So they've already been vetted by a government official.

[jedberg]

Only if the student can graduate. And you can easily fix that by requiring a government review after school admission.

[CPLX]

We already have the OPT program. The idea of a limitless uncapped program for graduates is a different thing entirely.