Opinion
America Is About to Hand Its Best Founders to Its Rivals.
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By Deepak Hegde
As seen in: Real Clear Markets
On June 17, the White House cleared the final regulatory checkpoint for a Department of Homeland Security rule that would cap F-1 student visas at four years, shorten the post-graduation grace period from 60 days to 30, and replace 30 years of “duration of status” admission with discretionary federal review. Federal Register publication is imminent. The effective date will follow 60 days later — putting the rule on track for early fall.
The press has framed it as a question about students. It is not. It is a question about whether the federal government should override one of the most productive talent markets the world has ever known — and hand a competitive edge it took 50 years to build to Beijing, Ottawa, and Brussels.
Consider Jan Koum, a Ukrainian immigrant who arrived in the United States at 16 and worked as a janitor while attending San Jose State. He applied for jobs at Twitter and Facebook; both rejected him. A résumé without a degree did not impress recruiters. So he started his own company. Five years later, Facebook bought it — WhatsApp — for $19 billion.
Read the full Real Clear Markets article.
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Deepak Hegde is Seymour Milstein Professor of Strategy, Professor of Management, and Founder and Andrew Hamilton Director, Endless Frontier Labs at NYU Stern.