Education... Immigration... Some Policy Ideas [Part II]

In my last post, I talked to problems in our k-12 schooling systems; I think we have other ground to cover in our secondary education systems. The costs are exceeding our own ability to pay and we are increasingly failing to create the local workforce we need.

State schools are failing to cater to local students enough. In a self-serving way, they seek to become "world-class", which really means they wish to become recognized internationally so that they can make money off foreign tuition. I think it reasonable ultimately - after local students are supported. State schools should cater to state citizens - that is why we are paying for them; They can make money still with foreign tuition - but they need to charge more and contain foreign student numbers... Or they need to figure out how to sustain a larger overall student body.

And they need to get costs under control. I worked my way through school, but todays costs are an order of magnitude out of proportion to costs then - these costs have outpaced inflation perhaps more than anything else on the market. There is little hope of return-on-investment in a world market at today's costs. Universities need to look more to industry research and providing real value beyond the classroom again. And they also need to take more of their efforts online. Professors need to look outside of tuition for part of their income; How can they serve their industry by failing to connect with it? The costs of buildings, transportation, and dorms are putting education out of reach - we do not send our children to school for the fine buildings; Like primary schools, much can be done online to reach a larger student body and to reduce costs. Periodic group work, campus testing, and access to certain resources needs to exist - but most classwork is not dependent on the campus setting anymore. Universities need to recognize the new realities or they will soon be replaced by more affordable solutions. [I am looking at products and services in this realm myself - I know I can reach a broad audience more cheaply]

And we need to promote the important disciplines of math and science again. The space program propelled the US forward in a very real capacity to innovate and produce, but that lead no longer remains. As our education efforts falter, other countries take up the slack. The US and western world will not be making the market rules much longer; The question now is whether we will even remain an important producer. Computers, technology breakthroughs, automation, and process improvements continue to provide breakthroughs; But Japan is taking the auto market... India is grabbing much of customer service and software development... everything that can move overseas at a savings likely will, unless policy or other forces manage the containment. National pride and hope do nothing for the bottom line... Being competitive means education and effort.

That said, the H1B visa system is broken. We are importing cheap labor at the expense of US citizens and imposing servitude on those hired from overseas. The technology was largely created here - the skills exist here - or we need to start producing them again. A huge number of IT workers[a huge money machine and key to ongoing productivity breakthroughs] have simply left the business here - their skills were current, but government made it possible to displace them with overseas workers. Hiring anyone outside the US should include a 30% fee ongoing, pipelined directly to the educations systems that fail to produce the necessary workers. Sending money overseas and providing opportunity and economic prosperity to others at our own expense needs to be contained. Corporations have no borders - but our citizens are suffering and our politicians need to start recognizing their responsibilities again.

Am I wrong? What do you think?