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With friends like these who needs enemies?  The IEEE-USA issued a statement supporting turning our University system into a glorified green card machine. They also have literally teamed up with a corporate lobbyist organization, the SIA, to issue their policy position.  The IEEE-USA claims to be concerned about career and labor issues for it’s United States citizens, American members.  Why would they betray their own members and issue policy that is a notorious and obvious method to flood the US labor supply and cause further erosion of U.S. engineers’ careers?

The Center for Immigration Studies gives some hints as to why.

The “free green card” proposals also comprise a response to the academic lobby, as U.S. universities have seen their foreign applicant pools for graduate programs shrink in recent years. Students in other countries are less interested in study here these days because the U.S. job market is poor while opportunities back home are burgeoning.   This is causing academics to panic, since their lucrative federal research funding depends on having the “bodies” to work in the labs. Graduate study at the PhD level is unattractive to American students because the graduate assistant stipend is so low, as is the salary premium paid to PhDs in industry.   Thus the universities view the drop in foreign applicants with great alarm

So, what is the current state of affairs within our American university system with respect to opportunities for American students?

At the University of San Diego, there is even a waiting list to even get in to try to study these fields.

What is the acceptance rate?  Below are the top 50 engineering graduate schools in the United States.  Look at these absurdly low acceptance rates , reported by U.S. News and World Report, 2005 statistics. Imagine just how many Americans who probably could complete many of these programs are simply never even given an opportunity to try by those numbers.  It is one thing to obtain a Masters degree but it is certainly another to not even be allowed to try.
1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 25.4%
2 Stanford University (CA) 35.8%
3 University of California — Berkeley 17.5%
4 Georgia Institute of Technology 33.8%
5 University of Illinois — Urbana-Champaign 19.9%
6 Purdue University — West Lafayette (IN) 36.5%
7 University of Michigan — Ann Arbor 42.3%
8 Carnegie Mellon University (PA) 24.8%
9 University of Southern California (Viterbi) 48.5%
10 California Institute of Technology 10.9%
11 Cornell University (NY) 22.4%
12 University of California — San Diego 21.8%
13 University of Texas — Austin 28.6%
14 Texas A&M University — College Station 44.4%
15 University of California — Los Angeles 34.6%
16 University of Maryland — College Park 24.0%
17 University of Wisconsin — Madison 21.2%
18 Princeton University (NJ) 17.0%
19 Pennsylvania State University 34.1%
20 Columbia University 37.8%
21 Harvard University 12.8%
22 Johns Hopkins University 18.4%
23 Northwestern University 25.1%
24 University of California — Santa Barbara 20.8%
25 University of Washington 34.5%
26 Ohio State University 25.4%
27 University of Florida 53.6%
28 University of Minnesota 40.3%
29 Rice University 21.7%
30 Duke University 26.6%
31 Virginia Tech 26.7%
32 University of Pennsylvania 31.4%
33 North Carolina State University 25.7%
34 Washington University in St. Louis 32.5%
35 University of California — Davis 31.5%
36 University of Rochester 15.7%
37 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 31.5%
38 University of Virginia 20.5%
39 University of Colorado — Boulder 63.5%
40 Yale University (CT) 13.6%
41 University of California — Irvine 24.1%
42 Boston University 26.7%
43 Case Western Reserve University 28.0%
44 Dartmouth College 14.7%
45 Iowa State University 18.7%
46 University of Delaware 26.3%
47 Arizona State University 45.2%
48 Lehigh University (Rossin) (PA) 31.6%
49 Rutgers State University 23.5%
50 Vanderbilt University (TN) 13.5%

Since the IEEE-USA claims that 51% of Masters degrees are awarded to foreigners in the United States the above figures are even more alarming. How many US citizens, Americans are being denied even the opportunity to study for a Masters degree?

Are United States universities expanding any of these programs? Well, in India they sure are. In the United States, not that I am aware of.

From the Forbes article, Worst Jobs for the 21st Century:

Like computer programmers. Despite all the advances–and expected job growth–in the computer industry, expect the number of programmers to increase by about 2% between 2004-2014. Why? Outsourcing. Americans who want a career in this field should find a specialization, like cybersecurity.

So, we have a career already under attack to be offshore outsourced, labor arbitraged, an absurd level of rejection in our universities, very low support and stipends in graduate schools themselves, longer times to obtain a PhD and here we are. An engineering professional organization joins with corporate lobbyists, not to fix our very broken Academic system but instead to turn it into a glorified immigration service!

The Programmer’s Guild has created a Petition to express your opposition to the outrageous joining with Corporate lobbyists to advance the cheap labor agenda.   If you are a Science, Technology, Engineering or Mathematics Professional, especially consider signing this document and let the IEEE-USA know your outrage.

Why the dramatic insults against the IEEE-USA?    The IEEE-USA has previously claimed to be fighting for US engineers and their careers.  Hence this sort of “policy” agenda is particular odious to me.  I expect it from our Corporate Cheap Labor Lobby but do not expect a Professional society to exhibit such a level of corruption.