[pmorici]

The US government does the same thing to the American students they give "CyberCorps" scholarships to. They have an obligation to remain in government jobs for the same number of years that they received the scholarship for and if they want to leave early they have to repay the scholarship.

https://www.sfs.opm.gov/

[ghaff]

For private companies in the US, I've never encountered having to repay training expenses. (Though it wouldn't surprise me if there were obligations around getting a degree program paid for and that sort of thing; I've never been in that sort of situation.) However, I have seen a company go after relocation expenses from someone who was moved cross-country and, shortly thereafter, quit.

[acveilleux]

Sort of... But not the same, especially when the training is glorified or nonexistent in the case of the body shops. In the go ernment case, there's a formula to calculate balance owed which is for a recognized form of education that is marketable and tangible.

[judk]

In that case, they repay the scholarship, not the salary.

[pmorici]

For an entry level government job the scholarship probably is equivalent to a year of salary. Point being this sort of service requirement for scholarship is pretty common and isn't some practice relegated to shady companies on the other side of the world.

[hga]

Same is true for ROTC scholarships and service academy (e.g. West Point) enrollment.

[leroy_masochist]

Not really. If one drops out of a service academy or ROTC before the beginning of junior (3rd) year, one owes nothing. Also, the rules about this are spelled out in explicit detail, not just in the fine print in a caveat-emptor kind of way, but to one's face in a way that is impossible to misinterpret. I very highly doubt the same is true for people coming to the US on H1-B visas.

Charging people for company-specific training is exploitative. It's not a charitable act on the company's part; it's necessary to create, maintain, and grow a competent workforce. Also, training is often marketed as compensation, and companies can't have it two ways: it's either compensation or it's not, and if you market it as such then clawing back the "value" of training is as unethical as clawing back the cash you paid the employee for the time they were there.

I've had a few experiences interviewing South Asian guys on H1-B visas where they were trying to game the interview really hard and it was awkward at the time and I was angry after the fact that this person had made it past a phone screen. Reading what life is like for these guys, I'll have a little more empathy next time.