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  • Hacker News
  • Cruelty is the point.
  • > Cruelty is the point.

    Tell that to immigrants being cruel to other immigrants, even in America.

    Couple of countries people are famous for this.

  • What is cruel about this?
  • Some comtext 36% of Berkeley students now from PRC (China), another 11% India. Big growth in last 15 years:

    https://internationaloffice.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files...

  • The majority of these kids go back home after getting accused of being CCP agents and are then accused of being puppets of the west back home.

    They mostly are loyal to the USA and that's why they come here.

    It's colossally stupid to spit in their faces like this.

  • Totally embarrassing
  • 36% of international students. International students are the biggest source of profit for the UC's. They pay much much more than in-state and (in-nation?) students. UC Irvine is the most infamous of the UC's for prioritizing international students for the profit motive.

    Not that I'm against international students. But I think it's misleading to parade them around to show how "diverse" your student body is. The truth is that these international students are almost all the upper crust of the various countries they come from. Not much diversity in "rich kids" around the world.

    by culi
  • Of the international students at Berkeley, 36% are from China and 11% from India. Very big difference.
    by m681
  • So, this is not about OPT, but CPT. Many from various schools have abused CPT; so, they want to put to close that loophole. Some real ones get affected by this because of others' actions.
  • I have used the services of this great hacker Bruce (prohackerspy.me@gmail.com) who has helped a lot of students to conquer their fears as a result of poor grades, a lot of students have issues but don’t know who or whom to turn to. Before now i was in this same situation but when i hired bruce i was able to navigate the crazy grading of my college academic score. ask about imap for british students and Imat for italian students i can only encourage you to make use of their service to help you with your school grades or any other hacking services.
  • When I did my CPT more than a decade ago in an age before the current admissions policies, I had to ensure that the place I was going to work at was a good fit for what I was studying, and there needed to be a written explanation of why it would directly benefit my studies. And it was no joke, I couldn't do an internship for a role not directly in my field of study.

    Either Berkeley isn't doing things right, or this is a shakedown. International students are the biggest money-spinners for universities (to the detriment of everything else at this point, from what I hear), and ICE is going for the jugular.

  • > International students are the biggest money-spinners for universities

    That is exactly the problem.

    Stanford University owns 7 private jets for “administrative use”. The fuck?

    Perhaps cut the free money from international students, then universities can finally focus on producing research, or god forbid, educating students.

  • As someone that went to community college...

    I'm pretty sure that the kids getting admitted to Berkeley actually are the best and the brightest. we should absolutely be welcoming them.

    what are we even doing here?

  • > I'm pretty sure that the kids getting admitted to Berkeley actually are the best and the brightest.

    Are they?

    * UC-Berkeley math prof says she has to teach fractions to calculus students because standards have fallen so far. [1] [2] [3] [4]

    * "I teach calculus at Berkeley. Some of my students can’t do middle school math" [1] [2] [3] [4]

    * Bay Area high school grad rejected by 16 colleges hired by Google -- Zhong had a 3.97 unweighted and 4.42 weighted GPA, scored 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT's [5]

    * Star California student rejected by 16 colleges, hired by Google, gets legal win in racial discrimination suit [6]

    Seems like the best and the brightest are being rejected and suing over it, with receipts...

    [1] https://nypost.com/2026/08/16/us-news/uc-berkeley-math-prof-...

    [2] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2026-05-27/uc-math-...

    [3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizdoestone/2026/08/24/when-str...

    [4] https://sfstandard.com/opinion/2026/08/15/uc-berkeley-sat-te...

    [5] https://abc7news.com/post/stanley-zhong-college-rejected-tee...

    [6] https://nypost.com/2026/08/30/us-news/california-student-sta...

  • Funnily enough if you go to community college in California, you can do something called the Transfer Admission Guarantee (TAG) that guarantees you admission into any UC except for LA and Berkeley. The UC system is required to increase the amount of in-state low-income students they accept due to agreements with the state and programs like these are crucial to that.

    TAG is usually quite simple to qualify for. You just need 30 semester credits and to maintain a GPA ranging from 2.0 to 3.5 depending on the program you're applying for.

    by culi
  • How is this related to being "welcome" or not? Of course they are very welcome to study. They are simply not encouraged to circumvent their program of study and go to work under the guise of "CPT."
    by tgma
  • Is this headline misleading? From reading the article, Berkeley is pausing authorizations for Course Credit CPT, which enables international students on visas to work in exchange for credits to complete their degree programs. It doesn’t outright ban work experience if it is an “integral part of an established curriculum”.

    The headline reads like Berkeley is suspending authorization of international student workers in general, but this actually seems like a relatively narrow restriction?

  • We wouldn’t want someone to work in the US under the guise of a student visa, after all. It’s not like the current richest man in the world didn’t start his journey that way.

    https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/28/us/elon-musk-immigration-wash...

  • The new directive requires that the course requires the internship. Most programs (especially CS/economics etc) dont. This effectively removed any pathway for international cs students interning. It’s far from a narrow restriction
  • (Speaking as a former international student in the US) I don't know about other fields, but most CS (and STEM) graduate programs I know don't require internships. So students use CPT for summer internships.

    The other option, pre-completion OPT, requires USCIS approval (in contrast, CPT is totally authorized by the school). This can take 2 months or even longer. It also deducts the 12-month post-graduation OPT, leaving students less time to switch to another worker status.

    Many people abused CPT for employment by attending so-called day-1 CPT programs. Ironically, working is the entirety of such programs, so literally the new rule doesn't forbid using CPT under such programs.

    I also fully sympathize with those who choose day-1 CPT. International students have to secure a worker status before running out of OPT (1yr standard + 2yr for STEM). For many, this isn't easy. H-1B requires a lottery so one can be unlucky -- it's also increasingly restricted by the admin. O-1's bar is much higher. For Indian and Chinese, even if they qualify for a green card, they have to wait for the national backlog that can be several years.

    by cvhc