We portray ourselves as the greatest nation on earth, yet we cannot graduate a sizeable fraction our high school students. Many of these students drop out just from lack of perceived relevancy of their school work. “When will we need to use math or chemistry?” they ask. The microchip represents the most complex thing that is manufactured on the face of the earth. 75% of Intel’s revenue is from overseas, yet the majority of their workforce is here in the USA. Intel has a workforce challenge not at the technical and technician level, but they have the challenge at the Masters and Ph.D. level. We know that many foreign nationals who obtain their advanced degree have immediately returned home. Should we not attach an employment “permit” to their visa that allowed the student to obtain their degree here? Why not keep that talent here working after their degree completion instead of sending it away to compete against us? I am certainly not the first one to voice this idea.

Mike Lesiecki