Why Does America Import Coders When It Has CS Grads?
The broken promise of computer science degrees in the age of visa lotteries.
Every spring, tens of thousands of foreign engineers throw their names into the H-1B lottery. The winners get a ticket into the U.S. tech economy. The losers wait another year - or head to Canada.
Meanwhile, thousands of American CS grads are underemployed, applying for jobs that ghost them, or settling into “IT support” roles they never imagined when they signed that FAFSA form.
Why does this contradiction exist?
The Original Story of H-1B
The H-1B visa was sold as a “talent shortage fix.”
Big Tech and Washington framed it as a way to import brilliant minds — PhDs in AI, chip engineers, biotech researchers.
And in part, it worked. The U.S. stayed the global magnet for elite technical talent. Google, Nvidia, OpenAI - all have immigrant brains at the core.
But the program didn’t stay pristine. Outsourcing consultancies and Fortune 500s learned to use H-1B not just to “fill gaps” but to reshape the labor market itself.
The Contradiction
So here we are:
Unemployed CS grads - U.S. computer science graduates face a 6.1% unemployment rate as of 2025.1
Imported H-1B workers - often with 5–10 years of applied experience, certifications, and a willingness to accept immobility (tied to one employer).
Employers - who enjoy leverage when workers can’t easily leave for better pay.
It’s less about “talent shortage” and more about labor strategy.
Why the Market Feels Broken
Skill mismatch – U.S. CS education leans academic. Employers want cloud infra, DevOps, ML in production.2
Wage arbitrage – Some firms openly prefer H-1Bs because the power dynamic keeps costs predictable.
Education bubble – Universities flood the market with CS degrees because demand for tuition is endless, not because jobs scale linearly.3
Prestige pipeline – H-1Bs flow into specialized, high-prestige roles (quant finance, advanced AI), while domestic grads cluster in “entry-level dev” purgatory.
Who Actually Needs H-1Bs?
If we tier it:
S-Tier (legit shortages): advanced AI researchers, semiconductor engineers, biotech PhDs.
A-Tier: cloud security experts, HFT quants, robotics engineers.
C/D-Tier (questionable): generic frontend/backend devs. The U.S. has plenty of grads.
F-Tier (abuse): outsourcing shops using H-1B to replace American staff 1:1.
The Hard Truth
The U.S. likes to play both sides:
“We support our domestic grads” (while encouraging them into $200k CS degrees).
“We need foreign talent” (while lobbying to keep labor flexible).
The result? A generation of American CS grads feel cheated, while immigrants ride a high-stakes lottery just for the chance to contribute.
What Should Change?
Universities should be honest: not every CS degree leads to FAANG.
Employers should sponsor H-1B primarily for true skill gaps, not wage games.
Policy should match reality: streamline green cards for elite talent, cap outsourcing abuse.
The irony is that America has both an oversupply of juniors and an undersupply of seniors. The system produces frustrated grads and trapped visa-holders, when it could be producing world-class teams.
Maybe the fix isn’t just immigration reform. Maybe it’s rethinking the entire funnel of how we train, deploy, and value technical talent.
✍️ If you’ve navigated this system — as a domestic grad, an H-1B hopeful, or an employer — I’d love to hear your story in the comments.