"the experience 'required' for entry-level will grow to 5 years"

"Those who have the higher math education he desires are out of reach because they are heavily recruited by Apple and Google types with salaries of $200K plus a year."

This is nonsense. Google/Apple are barely paying much more than half of that for top grads out of the universities (go look at the salary surveys). And they ignore a large chunk of the talent pool that applies simply because they're overwhelmed with resumes. Last I heard, the Google applicant to hire ratio for software engineers was 1 in 2000. With that kind of ratio, it is certain a huge amount of talent is slipping through the cracks.

Additionally, $200k/year isn't even enough for basic home ownership (ie: 3X income) in the locale where Apple is located. Another huge issue, especially for students who expect to at least live a middle class lifestyle with their allegedly superior skills.

There is a computer consulting firm on the floor above him and he said they have gone through 200 plus resumes with no luck finding someone that is even remotely qualified for any of the positions they are looking to fill.

Sounds like a problem with how the company is looking for people, more than a lack of talent available in the marketplace. I personally know of quite a few programmers, scientists, and engineers who submit their resumes to firms not even to receive so much as the courtesy of a response even though they are otherwise fully qualified. Getting 200 resumes for an advertised job and finding them all unsuitable is an indication that something is seriously broken in the firm's recruiting process.

The reason they don't do it is because they make much more money in Industry, or in pursuing Law/Medical/Business school route. With that in mind, OPT program is not all that bad, although extending it to 5 years, corrupts its purpose and converts it to backdoor H1 with even less regulatory control.

My experience is quite a bit different than yours. Americans don't go to grad school because they can't find jobs with the undergrad degree in CS, EE, IT, etc., are heavily up to their eyeballs in debt, and don't feel like throwing more years of their life down the proverbial mudhole.

Additionally the OPT creates a giant problem in that, the foreign graduates are hired straight out of school in preference to the domestic grads, on these "internship" schemes. A few years later on OPT post-graduation, the foreign nationals have 3 year of "experience" -- which, ironically is what seems to be 'required' for entry-level these days. With OPT growing to 60 months, invariably the experience 'required' for entry-level will grow to 5 years. Mark my words.

In short, the US citizen who takes a 4-year engineering or CS degree program, works a summer job, graduates, and sends his resume to most of these employers has no chance whatsoever. Arbitrarily excluded from consideration by HR clerks who are looking either for a foreigner to hire on a cheap OPT scheme, or excluded because they don't have the required 'experience' for an 'entry-level' position.