THE JOKE WILL BE ON THEM WHEN STUDENTS START SIGNING UP FOR ONLINE COURSES BASED IN INDIA: The University of California is laying off a group of IT workers at its San Francisco campus as part of a plan to move work offshore. “The layoffs will happen at the end of February, but before the final day arrives the IT employees expect to train foreign replacements from India-based IT services firm HCL. The firm is working under a university contract valued at $50 million over five years.”

Plus: “UCSF employees say the training of the HCL staff has not begun, so they don’t know yet if they will be training visa-holding replacements. But HCL, along with many other offshore firms, is considered H-1B dependent under law, meaning 15% or more of their U.S. workers are here on an H-1B visa. HCL and Cognizant were sued earlier this year by laid-off Disney IT employees, who allege the law was broken when they were replaced by visa workers.”

It’s just the beginning.