The percentage of foreign students who received doctorates in science and engineering in the United States and who chose to stay in the country after graduation has dipped slightly in recent years, according to a study released on Monday by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education and financed by the National Science Foundation.
Using tax records, the study found that 66 percent of foreign students who received their doctorates in 2003 were still in the United States as of 2005. The “stay rate,” as it’s called, peaked at 71 percent just a few years earlier. The findings appear in a report on the study, “Stay Rates of Foreign Doctorate Recipients From U.S. Universities, 2005.”
Students in the fields of computer, electrical, and electronic engineering were most likely to stay, the study found. Those in agricultural sciences, economics, and the other social sciences were the least likely to stay. —Beth McMurtrie
