“Why the hell should any of these kids let us force them into such a nightmare?”
You shouldn’t force your kid into any career path. If they hate it, they definitely aren’t going to succeed. But if you have a kid who really gets a personal joy out of developing game apps or whatever, and that kid is willing to move to find a job, then that kid is probably going to turn out OK.
And where exactly is all that redistributable money coming from? You expect your targets (the ultra-rich … because your plan devastated the majority of the global 5%, the American middle class, by exporting their jobs to the other 95% of the world) to simply stay put and bow to your taxes? Unbelievable.
droppedit, If there is no appetite for taxation, then how do toy expect that there will be an appetite for onshoring for those that benefit from it? If the govt can’t do what the citizens need, then there is no point in having this discussion. My main point was that the Govt should do what the citizens need in the right way, through redistribution of taxes, and not through trade barriers. That’s what trade theory says anyway. If you don’t agree, perhaps you should do the research and publish the papers that provide an alternative, better approach.
icbihitsu, While life as a STEM major will not be one of fun and frolicking, it will still be better than the life of a musical theater major, financially speaking. So it is not bad advice to push kids into STEM. It’s the lesser of two evils, financial reward wise. As for how kids will pay back their college debt if they relocate, college tuition is insane in the USA. It is up to the citizens to do something about it through caps and subsidies. College is a public utility. It’s time we treat it as such. There needs to be price controls. Also, we need to make 100% free education at all levels, college, grad school, what have you, a national priority. Many other developed nations can do this, so why can’t we?
Otherwise, STEM kids should think about going to college in Russia and China and India where it is far cheaper and the education just as good.
@droppedit is probaby skeptical that, even if what you propose is the most economically efficient way, it may not be politically likely, since the top 0.1% that would pay the added taxes in this scheme would lobby politicians hard to prevent such taxes from being enacted, or leave enough loopholes that will avoid much of the taxes for them.
ucbalumnus, I get that. But I am skeptical that you can convince corporations to pay more for onshoring.
Couple of other advice for STEM majors.
@tutumom2001 - I dunno, all this attention on anything STEM-related seems to be happening at the neglect of other areas of interest. I don’t see kids being exposed (through non-parental means) to athletic or artistic/creative or socially-oriented “camps” nearly as much as I see Hackathon-this and Coding-Camp-that everywhere, stuff like Hour of Code, etc. When’s the last time every single child in the U.S. was told, “Go kick a soccer ball for an hour.” Maybe never? But “Go code for an hour” was a reality for every current (public) school kid within the past 4 or 5 years. It’s hard to spit without hitting at least 2 kids learning Python. So how could all of this possibly NOT pressure a 12 or 13 or 14 year old? I mean, isn’t that exactly the intent of such programs? It’s just a bit much, is what I’m saying. And for those kids who don’t fall for it, good for them!!
icbihtsu, There is not a single kid in my son’s HS who is not required to do 2 hours of sports each day in school, so let’s not exaggerate. Sports remains the front and center EC in American schools. It should come down tremendously. IT’s pretty much useless for the average kid who will never play sports as an adult, as evidenced by the incidence of obesity in the USA.
@1Wife1Kid - Honestly, I really like suggestion (1)! I think that makes a lot of sense.
Well, a lot of STEM kids are not business types. They really like to code, so I suggest that they code for the front office and show a direct impact on trading profits than for the back office which will all be outsourced and offshored sooner or later. Always be associated with a profit center and not a cost center.
There’s a lot of useless argument here that isn’t really representative of the current job market.
Again, there are plenty of CS jobs in the US, and plenty very well paying. Tons of companies, not just powerhouse names.
Ask your local CS student - not people arguing over economic and business practices on CC. They are the ones being offered the jobs and are seeing the market firsthand.
“Ask your local CS student - not people arguing over economic and business practices on CC. They are the ones being offered the jobs and are seeing the market firsthand.”
I love the youth with their self belief, lack of long term focus, refusal to learn from the wisdom of the old, and endless positivity.
Re: #87 – Is that a public school? Not a publicly-funded charter or magnet school, but a real, honest-to-goodness, straight-up, traditionally-understood public high school attended by children living within that school’s zone?
It’s private school.
Please don’t be so condescending. You can take your “profit is the only thing that matters” stance, but it doesn’t change the reality. The industry has plenty of problems, from pretentiousness, ageism, startup bubbles caused by overvaluations and VC investments, H1B visas, and yes, some offshore work, but it is not going to take over the entire industry. Every company I have worked at has been in line with what @intparent said. There’s no reason why it would change now.
Name me a city with a decent population, and you’ll find plenty of developer jobs out there. That’s not even touching the surface of IT.
Again, in software development, communication is one of the most important things. Offshore work causes so many hurdles that it becomes cost ineffective. The companies where offshore works are the ones that have a large core of developers in the US as well. Any code from overseas is tested again, and even more time is spent. I have seen firsthand times where poor program design from overseas has caused millions of dollars of software to be rewritten.
@1Wife1Kid - Then you don’t know what I’m talking about. I mean, you just aren’t being exposed to this phenomenon that I’m trying to describe. Out in the public schools, where there’s a sense of desperation to offer kids some path to follow or dream to lift them, the adults seem to have latched on with feverish intensity to this magical concept of … STEM … the solution to today’s and tomorrow’s problems. Except, again, per what I’ve read in this thread, it exactly is NOT that. But we are selling it with gusto to “our” kids (where “our” plurality rests on “e pluribus unum” which sort of by definition is NOT talking about private school kids). So we are suckering them into what? This thread is depressing, and makes me feel sorry for our kids. That’s pretty much what my point has been here.
If that is the case in public schools then the kids are being sold a lie. Now, that lie will still lead to a better life on average than a humanities education, but there will be a LOT of mid life stress and end life dissatisfaction and financial insecurity. The main issue is that salaries in the USA are too high and US workers are pricing themselves out of a global job market.
My D18’s public HS has zero required sports ECs. She had one semester of PE in 9th grade and nothing since. There are also zero required computer classes. D18 is taking AP CS Principles as a gentle introduction to the topic. So far, so good.
@icbihtsu – The market for CS people in the USA is good, despite what certain know-it-alls say on forums. If you’re good at it, software is the most fun and exciting job out there.
@1Wife1Kid – Super curious to find out: Have your kids done the Hour of Code? Ask them if they are aware of having participated in The Hour of Code at any point in their lives/academic careers. When I asked this question, I was amazed at the ubiquity of “yes” answers from every kid in every direction! Even my own kid. SHE knew she’d done it (participated in The Hour of Code), but as her parent, I had no idea that she had! This stuff is pervasive, surprisingly so. Which is not altogether a bad thing. But still. Took me by surprise. Ask yours. See if they know about it. Sociologically, the answer could prove interesting.
No, my son has done no programming at all. Nor it is pushed by the school. The school has the regular courses, and for ECs it has compulsory sports, 3 seasons, 2 hours each day, and weekend and evening competitions. I would say the kids do at least 15 hours of sports each week, which to me is simply excessive. They lose in every single game too but they are very proud to put in an effort regardless of the result. 
There’s really no push for other ECs in the school. For arts, it is part of graduation requirements, so kids have to take 2.5 years of that anyway as part of the degree curriculum. Kids can use their individual arts EC to get a sports waiver for one season, but that means that season they are doing 2 hours of arts every day in school instead, plus they have to do another 5 hours of arts EC outside of school (and prove that they are indeed doing it), plus be part of an arts team outside of school (like conservatory orchestra, say).
It’s not a STEM school at all. It’s a classic liberal arts school. I am told that some kids do code, but they are in the minority. There’s no big STEM clubs in the school either. There’s a math team, sure, but it’s really an afterthought. The big clubs are the social justice ones. Also, the school journals are big, “uuuuuuge” in fact, and there are two, one for general school news and the other exclusively focusing on politics. Both are award winning and positions in both are coveted.