For all his criticism and condemnation of higher education, Texas Governor Greg Abbott is proud of his state’s institutions. He earmarked billions in public funds to fund them. Abbott addressed 400 higher education leaders at the 2023 Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Leadership Conference, praising attendees for putting the state “on a trajectory for higher education excellence.”
There are many components to high-quality higher education, he said, but one of the most important elements “is having top-notch research universities that educate the next generation of innovative leaders that the state’s employers need.”
He told the crowd the reason CEOs choose to call Texas home is because universities are creating a “best-in-class workforce.”
It is puzzling, then, that while he champions the nation’s research strength, he makes it harder for institutions to attract the best academic talent in the world. Last week, Abbott froze until the end of next May the period for public universities to issue new H-1B visas without first obtaining written permission from the Texas Workforce Commission.
For nearly 40 years, universities have used H-1B visas to attract the best and brightest to their institutions. Texas is home to 12 public R-1 research universities and ranks second in the nation for the number of H-1B visa holders, behind only universities in California. Lawmakers are allowing universities to waive national annual caps on H-1B visas as they recognize the importance of foreign academic talent to the innovative economy and training the next generation of workers.
When Abbott announced the freeze, he cited reports of abuse of the H-1B visa program and said he wanted to ensure “American jobs flow to American workers.” But higher education does not use cheap foreign labor to avoid hiring U.S. citizens. Instead, institutions are competing in the global marketplace with China and the English-speaking world of Britain, Canada and Australia to bring the best mathematicians, epidemiologists, economists and others to their campuses. China launched its own H-1B visa last year.
Abbott understands the importance of academic research to the Texas economy. In 2023, he signed into law the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund, which is intended to encourage the expansion of the state’s semiconductor industry and “further develop the expertise and capabilities of Texas higher education institutions” to maintain the state’s position as “the leader in semiconductor manufacturing in the United States.”
In December, Abbott awarded $4.8 million from this fund to the Texas Quantum Institute (TQI) at the University of Texas at Austin to establish the QLab, a quantum-enhanced semiconductor metrology facility.
TQI co-director Elaine Li is a physicist from China. She came to the United States after professors at Beijing Normal University encouraged her to expand her horizons, according to her resume at the University of Texas at Austin. She thought “What the hell? This could be fun,” so she enrolled at the University of Michigan to get her Ph.D. She has been attending UT Austin since 2007.
I don’t know if Lee ever came to this country on an H-1B visa, but her story is typical of many other international researchers who come here—she’s smart, eager, and passionate about working with the best minds in the world to solve complex problems. These talents help develop Abbott’s best-in-class workforce in Texas. Fewer H-1B visa holders means fewer physicists driving Texas’ semiconductor economy, fewer biomedical researchers in health centers and fewer top professors in the classroom inspiring the next generation of innovative leaders.
In September, Trump raised the cost of H-1B visas to $100,000, making it difficult for many universities to recruit talented researchers. Behind the decision, economists have lowered their forecasts for the country’s economic growth due to the loss of foreign talent. Texas doubling down on restrictions by freezing new applications is short-sighted and carries financial risks. Abbott, who is up for re-election in November, may have scored a political victory by preventing universities from recruiting foreign academics, but the long-term impact on the state’s innovation economy is likely to last beyond his tenure.
