According to tech entrepreneur and academic Vivek Wadhwa, a prohibitive U.S. immigration policy will lead to increased global competition in higher education, and render American universities obsolete.
Wadhwa spoke at the annual meeting of the Association of International Education Administrators on Tuesday, reports the Chronicle of Higher Education. Talking to the conference's theme -- Competition and Collaboration in the Global Transformation of Higher Education -- Wadhwa explained that 25 percent of patent applications are filed by immigrants, and that between 1995 and 2005, 25 percent of start-up companies had at least one immigrant founder.
Wadhwa added that the limited amount of H1-B visas (which grant employment status to international workers in high-tech and other like industries) and green cards given to those seeking U.S. residency is causing an outflow which is "happening too fast to be good for the United States."
Many states have adopted hostile policies related to immigrant students, especially those of illegal nature. Last year, Georgia went so far as to ban illegal immigrants from some of the state's colleges.
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