The headline reads like Berkeley is suspending authorization of international students workers in general, but this actually seems like a relatively narrow restriction?
UC Berkeley indefinitely suspends international student work authorizations (dailycal.org)
55 pointsby cbzbcan hour ago42 comments
biotechbio 25 minutes ago
Is this headline misleading? From reading the article, Berkeley is pausing authorizations for Course Credit CPT, which enables international students on visa’s to work in exchange for credits to complete their degree program. It doesn’t outright ban work experience if it is an “integral part of an established curriculum”.
Bnjoroge 19 minutes ago
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
tgma 7 minutes ago
That is not true. It does not restrict anyone from applying for OPT and pursue one or more internships. Given your other comment, it is pretty obvious you are not super familiar with the details of CPT vs OPT.
schaefer 34 minutes ago
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?
dmitrygr 32 minutes ago
> 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...
DANmode 31 minutes ago
“Some students are five to eight years behind in mathematics. Office hours that should be spent discussing integrals instead become lessons on fractions and basic algebra you would expect students to learn in middle school,” wrote Zvezdelina Stankova, of UC Berkeley, in an op-ed piece on Saturday for the San Francisco Standard.
Stankova — who rose through the mathematics world to earn a PhD from Harvard after being born in communist Bulgaria — described the admissions process as “less like careful evaluation and more like chance.”
rtpg 18 minutes ago
University objectives of making a diverse student body (an objective I basically agree with!) make this tricky and futzy (but not impossible IMO! You can always do something a bit hybrid), but I really feel like if some US university just decided to go to an entrance exam model they'd probably instantly have a cohort of students that would be _much_ easier to onboard into university materials.
Biggest problem is you'd need to make the entrance exams _actually tough_. Like "basically nobody who takes it gets an A". The objective is to rank students between each other, after all! It doesn't matter if the top scorer only has a 70% or something.
Every argument against standardized testing in this kind of thing seems to boil down to "test results are heavily correlated to socio-economic status". But... every other form of university entrance criteria process is even more correlated, right? All those extracurriculars aren't free after all.
dmitrygr 13 minutes ago
I would support this wholeheartedly. In fact, make the exams blind. No name or info on the exam. Completely fair and level ground for all!
Bnjoroge 17 minutes ago
I can make any point by cherrypicking whatever data I want.
dmitrygr 14 minutes ago
Please do.
snapetom 11 minutes ago
Coincidentally, I just checked law school rankings in CA. In my day (mid 90's), Boalt Hall was at the very top, and most kids were told don't even bother trying for it. Now it's not in the top 15 in the nation and latest USNR has it third in CA behind Stanford and UCLA.
raegis 10 minutes ago
Concerning [5], the article says he was rejected at UC Santa Barbara. Haven't checked in a while, but I believe UCSB historically accepts 40-50% of first time applicants. The schools were not using SAT scores at the time, and UC has banned race considerations in admissions for nearly 30 years. Surely there's more to this story.
tgma 31 minutes ago
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."
stickfigure 25 minutes ago
How prevalent is that kind of abuse? Quantify it. I am sketpical.
tgma 18 minutes ago
Not sure what you mean by "abuse" or what you are skeptical of? Please clarify what stats are you looking for?
Bnjoroge 18 minutes ago
How is using CPT for a summer internship circumventing program pf study? To get CPT, the experience has to related to your degree, not just a random job. And you can only do it in over school breaks
tgma 16 minutes ago
Reading the article it explicitly says if CPT is designed as part of your program of study that you need to complete to satisfy the degree requirements, they are fine. They just won't approve it for optional internships. That's what Optional Practical Training is explicitly intended for, Optional.
And no, to be clear, you are totally mistaken about "school break" thing. In fact, you have to be enrolled in credits to get CPT, not on a full break (this is in no way a new rule.)
southbound 22 minutes ago
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.
cheonc720 20 minutes ago
> 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, and educating students.
raincom 27 minutes ago
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.
cheema33 32 minutes ago
Cruelty is the point.
potentdream 29 minutes ago
This is sad.
cheonc720 27 minutes ago
> This is sad.
Why?
International students are still allowed to study in America.
They just need to return to India after graduation.
If they wish to immigrate to America, there are different visa pathways for that.
a2ff6eeb0 26 minutes ago
Why are Americans so focused on helping other companies get ahead, rather than trying to brain drain their best and brightest?
auntienomen 26 minutes ago
This comment misrepresents what the cancelled program does.
cheonc720 24 minutes ago
> This comment misrepresents what the cancelled programs does.
It prevents international students from internships at companies while still enrolled in university.
Unless you have a different definition of the word “student visa”?
Perhaps you meant “F-1 green card” visa?
snvzz 16 minutes ago
Can you elaborate?
How do you think it is being misrepresented?
behnamoh 26 minutes ago
Sad for the rest of us immigrants, not so much for the thousands who ruined it for everyone by bringing their whole families through H1B loop holes.
wetwater 17 minutes ago
Reading such comments here is just re-enforcing the fact that hackernews has infact gone down in the quality of discussions. Its borderline redditsque now.
tequila_shot 15 minutes ago
Yep, the same user started a thread that got flagged for being really bad. I long for the old Hackernews.
userbinator 14 minutes ago
WTF are you complaining about? That is definitely not a "redditsque" comment.