Sunday, July 14, 2013

American Education and The H1B Visa


       Immigration and Unemployment Rates have been on top of America’s biggest political debates. With the Obama administration being constantly criticized over more and more job loss, it’s no wonder why Americans are furious with immigration work visas. Americans however, and to no surprise, seem to misunderstand the real connection between these two issues, the failed American education system. Through looking at the H1B visa, we can see that many professions that require higher specialized education can no longer be filled with American workers, because the American education system cannot create enough workers with the proper educational background to do so. So what is the H1B Visa and what exactly does it have to do with the education system? The H1B Visa is a Visa designed to help immigrants to come to America and placed into job markets such as the Medical and Research fields. Although this sounds great at first, and maybe it is, only 50% of people in these professional fields are American citizens. This means that the other 50% are foreign. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 51,474 students will graduate with a bachelor’s degree in computer science this year, while 122,300 jobs are open in this field that require this degree. That means that the rest of the jobs are open for and taken by foreigners. This also means that America cannot produce enough workers to even fill these jobs. We’ve been rated as a 3rd world country in terms of our education. We are hiring foreign works as a solution to our education problem. Although the solution is in a grey area, we cannot simply hide the problem by sending in more foreign workers. The American dream is built on hard working American’s backed by a good education. Now more than ever we need to tackle our education problem. The American education system needs a drastic change. Until improvement happens, our education system cannot produce workers to fill our own industries and job markets, and we will continue to outsource to countries like China. Americans need to wake up and see that the economy, immigration and unemployment all tie into our education system succeeding to produce quality workers.

"H1B Visa | H1B Visa Application." H1B Visa | H1B Visa Application. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 July 2013. <http://www.h1bvisa.org>.

            "H-1B visa." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 July 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa>.

Kirven, Michael. "Short-Term Solution to America's Talent Gap: H1B Visas." Industry Week. N.p., 20 June 2013. Web. 12 July 2013. < http://www.industryweek.com/h1b >.