It does impact H1B abuse. How the pipeline works:

#1. Young, eager tech employee from India enrolls in Masters program at US mid-tier university.

#2. Completes course work with 90% other students from India in Florida, Texas, or California.

#3. Gets internship job as part of OPT. (Optional Practical Training)

#4. After 1 (or 2 years for STEM), employer puts in for H1B.

#5. After a round or two of H1B, employer starts the PERM process for a green card.(Tough journey for someone from India... I agree)

Young techie is now 32 years old. Perhaps they marry a US Citizen, and a different pathway opens up. Perhaps they transition to a "genius visa" and then have a different pathway. Perhaps the US government changes policy. It takes a long time but you are living and working in the US during the whole experience.

Stopping this path breaks the chain. If there is no path to citizenship, even a long one, then H1B will stop being so attractive.

Note the pathway for foreign students has been closed. Check on the MS program enrollments at most mid tier schools. Down 50%, 70%, 95%....

> Young techie is now 32 years old. Perhaps they marry a US Citizen, and a different pathway opens up.

I mean, one of the reason the green card line is so long for Indians is that they have one of the lowest intermarriage rates for immigrants (not just for Americans, other immigrants as well, if you look at the census data for children it’s very obvious): you can “pick” which country your green card falls under based on either person in your household. If Indians married immigrants from any other countries their own line would not be as long

> If there is no path to citizenship, even a long one, then H1B will stop being so attractive.

Not really, the backlog for a greencard is so huge that no one seriously plans for one when they go for a H1-B. They can hope of course, but the other pathways you mentioned are more likely at this point.

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H1-B demand will remain high since people here in india that aren't able to land a target job with high salary use US employment as a resume patching tool. It just happens that the masters is the safest path to that employment. And then they return and become an engineering manager at some company here, as an "ex-MTS 3, Nutanix" demanding a salary that they never would have been able to demand with their pre-US resume.

> Down 50%, 70%, 95%....

Many other factors, one of which is that target companies across the comp band now hire much more in india. More quants/big tech, as well as more mid-comp GCCs. For example, walmart's tech team pays 35L INR to my friend in a city where this salary lands an extremely comfy life. This did not exist even 10 years ago and my friend's resume would have necessitated migrating to the US to get the same QoL. Of course, at the extreme top end people keep going e.g bay area founders/AI unicorns. But that was always a minority. So unless you are aiming for and have a good chance at a unicorn/FAANG-level payout, OR on the other of the spectrum you want resume-patching, there is no reason to migrate anymore.

For reference, at 0YE quant TCs reach 2cr in the top colleges, and stripe/databricks almost 1cr. At a tier-2 university, local unicorns like zomato pay 60L. The former is slightly lesser than a bay area salary and the latter two are europe-level salaries even without any PPP adjustment, so you can imagine why there is less migration.