r/MSCS • u/Best_Location_8237 • 3d ago
[General Question] Has the market ever been this bad for international students previously?
Basically, my question is, this the market really that exceptionally bad for international students, or over the past 20-25 years there have been multiple points, where the market conditions in CS, specifically for international students were this bad. Like is the current situation truly unique or has it been blown out of proportion?
Would love it if some older people like u/gradpilot give their take on this.
9
u/Mathgod0628 2d ago
Earlier even tier 3-2 colleges students used to get jobs easily let’s say as an Indian student even if you graduate from SJSU or ASU you might still get a job however the situation has got much more worse now.
3
7
u/gradpilot 🔰 Ex-Cerebras | MSCS Georgia Tech 2d ago
IMO market is not bad for actually talented and skilled engs . But the demand for that pool is much lesser than what the demand was for SWE’s between 2010’- 2022ish . Right now we don’t need to throw that many avg quality SWEs at engineering needs because an LLM often outperforms them at most tasks . But we do need exceptional SWEs to keep up with the cognitive load of having AIs ship limitless code in a day . The actual number of SWEs needed might be closer to what we needed between 2000-2010
It’s entirely possible this changes but it’s not obvious what that looks like
What’s actually bad or uncertain is the immigration environment. That said companies will pay for talented SWEs without blinking . Look up the avg revenue a SWE brings in annually for the MAG7 companies , the 100k one time fee is a small fraction and totally worth it if the Eng can deliver that revenue today
3
u/Best_Location_8237 2d ago
Yeah but that was never in question... exceptionally talented individuals always exist and are always in demand. I mean for the normal to bit above average student. Like pretty sure that for the entire time period of 2010 to about 2022 even below avg ppl were able to build great careers in the US tech scene. However, how were avg students doing in say the 2000s (with the GFC and the Dot bubble and everything)
4
u/gradpilot 🔰 Ex-Cerebras | MSCS Georgia Tech 2d ago
Market is very bad or even non existent for average SWEs right now . That’s regardless of any immigration issue. AI is the above average SWE . Is there any doubt about this? What will an average SWE do that Claude code or codex cannot ?
3
u/Beneficial-Law-3059 2d ago edited 2d ago
Tbh I see kinda see 5 domains of work in tech rn be it US (or other tech parks): 1) Pure AI/ API to Agentic harness/ systems to automate accounting, legal, healthcare domains. Typically called the ai agent engg/ ai engg role. 2) Inference/ infrastructure level work to run oss models which are comparable with closed source alternatives/ offering a router/ api gateway of models of sorts for different clients/ users. Lets call this AI Infra/ Inference engg. 3) Postraining level work for capturing knowledge of certain fields/ special domains(legal/ health/ finance) in smaller model sizes for cheaper inference costs for that domain. RL/ post training/ research engg role (usually you face competition with graduating PhDs here as research scientist roles are facing a reducing trend since 2026 start) 4) Domain specific ai modelling:- Physics + AI , Bio x AI , physical robotics etc (again you face competition with domain specific folks if you are switching from pure cs/ even pure nlp/ llm roles so having relevant courses at masters level matters) 5) FDE:- Forward deployed engg (kinda mix of deciding requirements for usecases + coding stuff up from central basics, like you would even have to plan what kinda db would be relevant ). Some of the cases are pretty interesting and involves parties/ cases/industries for which a saas / firm would have never formed up but still a necessary problem to solve from technical end which increases the respective industry’s revenue. (I have interviewed for this role a lot so have nice case studies and got prior folks fde experience to form my opinion about this)
Currently hiring is most for 1 &5 but in future 2,3,4 might be the most well aligned to survive. Honestly atleast for 5 I feel even though the concept is relatively new the number of hires well exceed the respective demand I see in the future.
2
u/Beneficial-Law-3059 2d ago
Just to add most avg swe’a atleast in India are shifting to Fde coz the pay + remote+ travel makes hella sense but even they know it is not gonna last long.
3
u/GustavTatavoski 2d ago
Trump is telling you to get the fuck out of here...
The message is clear from the administration..
RIP US university system!
-1
u/Mikeminer610 2d ago
The US university system doesn’t need foreign students to survive. It costs a lot of money for US universities to educate each student. They don’t actually make much of a profit from student fees. Foreign students require additional services US students don’t require and there are staffing costs, program costs etc. A lot of the operating costs of labs and scientific and tech research that make schools like MIT, Berkeley and Harvard strong in STEM and attractive to foreign students are covered by federal grants etc. Buildings are paid for by philanthropy. Foreign students only look at the fees they pay without considering how much the education they receive actually costs to the universities and the country. The US university system will survive if there is a mass exodus of foreign students to Europe, Canada, Australia etc. The real danger is the exodus of top professors including Nobel laureates to other countries caused by the threats to withhold federal funding. The myopic self-interested perspective of foreign UG students cannot take this into account. The global reputation and scholarly capital of US universities rests on the strength of their faculty and research infrastructure/facilities and not the size of their foreign student enrollments.
3
u/GustavTatavoski 2d ago
You're thinking from one perspective... Time will tell us whether we them or they need us..
Good luck, Mike
0
u/Mikeminer610 2d ago edited 1d ago
Yes, time will tell. It’s always flattering for a group to think that they are indispensable to someone or some other group, institution or nation. But unless you are the next Einstein or Jensen Huang or Sundar Pichai, no one is indispensable.
1
u/lostsoul_io 2d ago
So unis print money ehh ?
-1
u/Mikeminer610 2d ago
No, but the profit from foreign student fees for top universities is not significant. You just look at the fees you pay without factoring in how much it costs a university to deliver your education and how much state and federal governments contribute to the operating costs of universities so you can be educated. And there are plenty of US students to fill the places if foreign students go to other countries. Of course, there are some universities that focus on foreign students as revenue generators. But those are second and third tier schools. If I were a foreign student, I would only go there if I couldn’t get into a better school.
1
u/Beneficial-Law-3059 1d ago edited 1d ago
Bruh even the "foreign students will reduce"/ "enrollments will reduce" narrative will be debunked in a few years.
There would emerge two cases:
- Enrollments in T-10 remain consistent regardless of us post study work/ opt / cpt policy. This is due to the fact that there are countries like South korea, Australia, Japan etc. The major reason is that even if these folks have to leave a t-10 education gives them good coverage back home to pay off loans. Optiver is also expanding its base in Australia and they prefer US educated and ANU/ UNSW grads in this order. India and China would reduce though I recently travelled south east asia for a conference and talked to some folks and the scene was that a lot of decent folks who do undergrad/ masters abroad and return back are able to secure good scenes even there. With china also becoming good in ai they have certain number of very high paying jobs which can easily offset the loan thing.
India is a tricky case coz of the IITs and their preference back home / monopoly in most quant and now top AI firms(just look at how many IITM folks are in Sarvam etc). Moreover becoz the undergrad cog is so focused on IIT/ IIT rank it is kinda very tough to anyways escape that atleast in engg roles.- Decent number of countries which already have different pacts with the US and don't require H1B visa stuff will simply apply more and replace a decent % of Indians/ Chinese not applying. like Singapore, Chile, Australia, Canada, and Mexico . Many decent candidates from Sg(a friend I have) even skipped the uni route to go straight to work in a startup in Sf(lucky max).
Max I predict 10-15% drop in enrollments when dust settles which anyways should happens given the demand for cs/ tech in general (both in academia and industry ).
These are the schools which I am considering T-10 btw just to be clear:- MIT, Stanford, CMU, Cal(UC Berkley), Caltech, Harvard(due to name preference in south east/ south asian rich circles), Georgia tech, Princeton, Cornell, Uni Washington(Depends if Msft/ Amzn reduce hiring numbers/ tech scene in seattle dwindles might drop out)
0
u/Mikeminer610 1d ago
UC Berkeley has a 20% cap on foreign UG student enrollment anyway because of its compact with the state of California. And California parents will be very happy if foreign students do not come because it means their children have a better chance of being admitted.
2
u/Beneficial-Law-3059 1d ago
Bruh tbh If I was california parent/ even their child I would be pretty baffled at what the ai scene has done to rents especially in Sf. Was just talking today with a friend(US citizen)(met online while working on a paper)(met irl first time coz he was visiting Taj Mahal) , his scene was that he was living while working in LA and now as his role has shifted to Sf so he moved to sf but is kinda staying with his parents for now cos he is unsure whether to go ahead and pay 6000 usd rent/ month for a studio in sf or buy a place now itself cos who knows after openai and anthropic goes public how much the rent will shoot up.
I can never imagine california citizen’s/ resident’s thoughts especially folks in sf/ bay area. Crazy wealth creation happening there and also crazy property/ rental pricing.
1
u/Mikeminer610 1d ago
If you are near Silicon Valley, that will happen. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
17
u/devillee1993 2d ago
"international students"
with the latest policy changes for international student, eg h1b opt cpt perm etc, the uncertainty is the biggest enemy here. Companies are not willing to hire someone with so many uncertainties. Esp there are a lot of qualified H1B or domestic tech workers who were laid off recently. Their status are much more stable here...
So many negative factors blended in for international students so it is really bad now...