My Seattle Times colleague Lornet Turnbull wrote a story today about a "Microsoft subsidy bill" that the Washington state legislature passed granting in-state tuition rates for children of foreign professionals.

It was dubbed the Microsoft subsidy bill because most of the beneficiaries are children of Microsoft workers who came to Washington state under H-1B visas.

According to the story, the bill was passed during the state budget crisis, while higher education suffered hundreds of millions in cuts, and is projected to result in revenue loss to the University of Washington of $430,000 and to Washington State University of $215,000.

Click here for the full story.

New research sheds light on the reasons high-skilled Chinese and Indian workers are returning to their home countries. The researchers cite anecdotal evidence that suggests immigrants are returning home in greater numbers.

InformationWeek, citing an internal document, reports that IBM is helping recently laid off workers find positions with the company overseas. From the document:

"IBM has established Project Match to help you locate potential job opportunities in growth markets where your skills are in demand. Should you accept a position in one of these countries, IBM offers financial assistance to offset moving costs, provides immigration support, such as visa assistance, and other support to help ease the transition of an international move."

Roughly 40 percent of Microsoft's 96,000 employees work outside the United States. The company has subsidiaries in countries from Albania to Zimbabwe. How are the layoffs announced last week impacting Microsoft's employees around the globe?

It's hard to say exactly. The company is "not sharing specific figures that break out US vs. outside of the US," a spokeswoman said via e-mail. But she did confirm earlier reports that Microsoft's India operations had no layoffs during the initial round of cuts that came down Thursday. China, another important research and development hub for the company, was "minimally impacted." The company declined to provide employment numbers for its India and China operations.