At a time when global student mobility is expanding exponentially, the best graduate students around the world continue flocking to the United States, and foreign-born university grads contribute disproportionately to innovative, high-growth U.S. firms. Yet anxieties persist about the potential downside of international academic globetrotting, both in the United States and in these students’ countries of origin. Are American students who might aspire to graduate studies, particularly in the sciences, being crowded out by international competitors? What about skilled foreign workers who receive H-1B temporary work visas – could their entrance into the U.S. labor force be discouraging native-born young people from entering the so-called STEM fields? And, turning from the United States to the countries foreign students come from, might the U.S. help poorer nations reverse brain drain by doing more to ensure that foreign grads of U.S. universities return to their countries of origin?
No, no, and no, says a new article in the September/October 2010 issue of International Educator, the magazine of Nafsa: Association of International Educators. In “Debunking Myths About International Students and Highly Skilled Immigrants,” author Stuart Anderson, executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy and author of the recent book Immigration, nicely rebuts each of the three concerns cited above. He begins with the uneasy perception that the heavy representation of foreign-born students in certain fields (they make up 65 percent, 64 percent, and 56 percent, respectively, of PhDs in computer science, engineering, and physics) means that American students are being squeezed out. In fact, Anderson notes, citing research by Mark Regets of the National Science Foundation (NSF), growth in international student numbers in recent decades has been accompanied by higher enrollment of U.S. students. This observation, which is consistent with other findings (including those in the excellent edited volume on campus globalization that I reviewed recently), is a good reminder that it’s a mistake to view student enrollment as a zero-sum game. This is true, incidentally, for women and minority applicants, whose enrollment patterns in STEM fields have been the source of much concern; NSF data cited by Anderson show that the share of blacks and women in science and engineering occupations increased significantly during the same period that saw a sharp rise in the percentage of foreign-born college grads in those occupations.
Discussing H-1B visa numbers, Anderson notes that there is no evidence at all to support the notion that American high-school or college students are somehow discouraged from entering high-tech fields by the presence in those professions of temporary visa holders from other nations. In fact, he writes, “Given the innovations and productivity increases that can come from skilled professionals, foreign-born scientists and engineers are likely to complement the skills of Americans and increase employment opportunities. It is easy to forget that many of the jobs some argue should now be protected did not even exist 30 years ago.”
As for the question of brain drain, it is certainly an ongoing worry for many developing countries – and even for advanced Western nations like France and Canada. Yet Anderson contends that, while there is nothing wrong with international students voluntarily returning home immediately after earning a U.S. degree, in some cases they may face limited opportunities in their home nations in the near term, particularly in countries plagued by corruption or simply misguided economic policies. He suggests that foreign-born grads of U.S. universities well be able to make a larger impact at home if they stay on in the United States and achieve professional success before returning to invest in a business or establish export ties.
Anderson might have added that old patterns of mobility from poorer to wealthier nations have already begun to change, with the term “brain circulation” beginning to replace brain drain to describe the increased tendency of students to hop from one country to another in pursuit of advanced degrees and then – particularly in fast-growing economies like India’s and China’s – to return home when they see better opportunities than in the past to use their education to get ahead. But whatever decisions about post-graduation mobility make the most sense to international students, the United States and other Western nations, which themselves are huge beneficiaries of foreign talent, would certainly be doing no favors to students from poor countries by presuming to alleviate brain drain with less hospitable work and immigration policies.
It’s great to find a fairly short and straightforward article that provides lots of intellectual ammunition in a key debate; this one is well worth reading.
14 Responses to Why Foreign Students Don’t Crowd Out Americans
22286593 - September 13, 2010 at 4:27 pm
International students at U.S. universities is one of the best examples of virtuous circles (as opposed to vicious circles) in internationalization. However, Americans are ill-equipped to understand the nuances of these dynamics, and they tend to view international issues in zero-sum ways. Part of this is the lack of basic understanding of economics–if one of the outcomes of the Great Recession is a high school requirement for a course in economics/business, we would all be better off.
softwareengineer - September 13, 2010 at 7:18 pm
So, let me make sure I understand what the author is saying here.-Indian companies like Wipro, Tata, Infosys,…, can import so called software developers from India, on H-1B and L1 visas, with Indian degrees from Indian institutions, with documented huge percentages of fake degrees, and diploma mills type Indian engineering schools, and pay them India based salaries, meaning a small fraction of the cost of a US engineer… and this fact would not discourage US students from pursuing technical degrees while accumulating hundreds of thousands in student loans…-I have witnessed H-1Bs and L1 visa holders working over 12 hour days + weekends while only billing a maximum of 8 hour days and 40 hour weeks…, and this fact would not discourage US students from pursuing technical degrees, knowing full well that they would be competing against indentured servants type coworkers…-Software Engineering is now a project based profession, so no job security whatsoever, because of outsourcing to India and insourcing from India, and this fact would not discourage US students from pursuing technical degrees-Engineering wages and contract hourly rates going down in the 10 years, while having to compete against third world type salaries, and this fact would not discourage US students from pursuing technical degrees-IT departments where multiculturalism was na advantage, no longer exist in most cases.., since, now most IT departments, at least the ones i worked for, in the last 8 years are made up of a majority of India based outsourced and originated insourced staff, and this fact would not discourage US students from pursuing technical degrees……Interesting article… . In my opinion, either the writer has no clue, and never been into IT and engineering departments in the few years which is very bad and means this author has no business writing this article, or even worse like having some type of ulterior motives behind writing this article…
rebuttal - September 13, 2010 at 7:53 pm
Testing
rebuttal - September 13, 2010 at 7:56 pm
Mr. Wildavsky of the entrepreneurship-oriented Kauffman Foundation states that lobbyist Stuart Anderson “nicely rebuts each of the three concerns cited above”. I disagree. I find at least the latter two of his “rebuttals” to be unconvincing and little more than typical one-sided lobbying material.
rebuttal - September 13, 2010 at 8:00 pm
Most H-1B non-immigrants come specifically for technical software and engineering jobs. The number of H-1B visa workers would more appropriately be compared against the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ numbers for computer and mathematical science occupations: 2008: Computer and mathematical science occupations:Total employment, all workers: 3,540,400ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/ep/ind-occ.matrix/occ_pdf/occ_15-0000.pdfThere are somewhere between 1/2 million and 1 million H-1B non-immigrants currently working in the U.S… and this is not even counting another population of L-1 intra-company transferred foreign non-immigrant workers.If you want to have an overview of the current picture for U.S. high-tech workers, please read the recent New York Times articles at the links below:http://bayarea.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/02/silicon-valleys-high-tech-jobs-and-wages-declinehttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/business/economy/07jobs.htmlThank you.
a_voice - September 13, 2010 at 8:25 pm
I agree totally with this article, but I can see how some would disagree. Some people only believe in free markets as long as they benefit more than others. Mediocrity hates competition.
raymond_j_ritchie - September 14, 2010 at 1:50 am
Wildavsky’s article is very soothing and reassuring but a little too good to be true. He sounds like a “suit” and we all know how divorced from reality “suits” are. He says what the PC addicts want to hear.I agree with him that “crowding out” of american-born students is not the problem some imagine it is. The students take one look and voluntarily walk away and so my reason why I think “crowding out” is not real is definitely not a reason Wildavsky would like to hear. The chilling effects of feeling an unwelcome cultural outsider in the labs is a very real, but unacknowledged, reason why there is a recruiting problem amongst both American and Australian-born students. Very much an elephant in the living-room. The isolating effects of closing laboratories behind swipecards makes things even worse. #2 softwareengineer is speaking from personal experience in software and electrical engineering but what softwareengineer says applies equally to all the STEM subjects.
_weaver_ - September 14, 2010 at 6:21 am
Looking at the NSF educational data, the number of Doctorate degrees conferred to Temporary visa holders was 15,246. This is well below the 22,500 visas set aside in the Employment Based Preference (permanent residency) for PhD holders (EB-1). I fail to see the relevance of the H-1B visa for these candidates with the exception being the H-1B creates a “dryfoot alien” backlog in the PERM program.Comparing PhDs with H-1B visa is comparing apples to oranges and implies the author promotes endentured labor. We have the O-1 unlimited temporary, and the EB-1 permanent, visa for PhD holders.There is some evidence of crowding-out where I would least expect in the data. From 1998, to 2008, the PhDs awarded to Asian Americans/Perm residents has fallen from 2,729 to 2,443. On the other hand, PhDs conferred to Temporary visa holders of Asian ethinicity has risen from 5,809 to 10,063 in the same period.Source Data NSF – NCEShttp://www.nsf.gov/statistics/nsf10309/pdf/tab48.pdfFunny how a quick look at the underlying data will expose a lobbying shill. Did Wildavsky swallow the bait and hook, published by Stuart Anderson’s NFAP, without doing his homework? Or, is he publishing this opinion to keep the Education bubble inflated with an ever growing percentage of foreign students?
dank48 - September 14, 2010 at 8:15 am
So the USA benefits from, so to speak, a brain transplant (well, supplement) when educated foreigners remain here after getting advanced degrees. Well, no kidding. The thing about this country is and has always been that we are open to new talent. God knows that the home-grown product seems to be getting fatter, dumber, lazier, and happier all the time. Good thing there’s a source of new talent.
latino - September 14, 2010 at 11:10 am
But, if they return home, who is going to teach our college and graduate students?
accuracyit - September 15, 2010 at 10:09 am
The topic of a need for foreign workers and students keeps cropping up. Its time to stop mincing works and just come out and speak the truth without hidden agendas.I have 2 questions for everyone commenting on this topic: this goes straight to the heart of the matter of foreign students taking or not taking space from Americans at universities here in the United States. Please respond to 2 simple questions, prefaced with a deductive reasoning exercise. And please have the integrity to go straight to your answers without spin. FACT 1: Many kids don’t get accepted at the University of Illinois at Champaign/Urbana, my nephew being one.FACT 2: My son’s dorm at Univ of ILL especially his floor was filled with foreign students. When I picked him up from college last spring I witnessed it for myself.QUESTION One:What can one deduce from that? A) Americans are inferior.B) Americans are equally competent.C) Americans are more competent.QUESTION Two:Are you an American citizen or foreign national?No spin here please. Lets show your intelligence with a simple, clear, concise response with a latter (A, B, or C) followed by a YES or NO. Sample response 1: A, NOSample response 2: A, YESSample response 3: B, YES
americanprogrammer - September 15, 2010 at 11:47 am
Anderson wrote: “Discussing H-1B visa numbers, Anderson notes that there is no evidence at all to support the notion that American high-school or college students are somehow discouraged from entering high-tech fields by the presence in those professions of temporary visa holders from other nations. “You got to be kidding or not well informed! H1-Bs have lowered the salaries for all American programmers because they take dramatically less pay and benefits to work here. Thus, U.S. businesses give the lower salary candidates MORE consideration than their American counterparts. NO COLLEGE GRAD WILL ENTER THE FIELD OF COMPUTER SCIENCE OR ENGINEERING FOR SUBSTANDARD PAY! IT IS NOT WORTH THE PRICE OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE EDUCATION.Also, since U.S. Companies are outsourcing computer programming and its related jobs to cheaper labor overseas, there are NOT MANY programming jobs left here in the states. SO NO INTELLIGENT U.S. STUDENT WOULD GET A DEGREE IN A FIELD WHERE THERE IS NO WORK AT HOME!Rich Foreign students are accepted more at a U.S. University over Americans because they pay more for tutition! Its all about the money folks, and colleges are no different. It is not fair (patriotic!) for Americans in their own country to be denied an education because of money.Foreign graduates at U.S. Universities will take away opportunites for American graduates in the local job market too. Because of our bad econlmy, we need the U.S. jobs for these young upcoming Americans so they can start their careers, pay back their student loans, and pay taxes here in the U.S.. For this reason alone, we need to send the graduating foreign students back to their country of origin until the U.S. economy improves.
svengineer - September 16, 2010 at 11:23 pm
The idea is that foreign students don’t discourage American students from pursuing a STEM career is hogwash. Professor Phillip Martin, a labor expert at the University of California remarks:’For one thing, in a bid to get more, the definition of quality often slips. For another, just because you have a college degree does not mean you are skilled. In India, you can buy a degree pretty cheap, there are many ways to get around the system,’ .Then, there are also unintended consequences that lead to long-term labour market distortions.For example, young and hungry foreign students, mostly from India and China, now form the majority of graduate students enrolled in science, engineering and technology faculties in US universities.Desperate to get sponsored for legal immigrant visas, they go on to serve as relatively poorly paid post-doctoral researchers for five to 10 years, holding down wages and, at the same time, discouraging Americans from studying and working in science and engineering.This trend started during the 1990s IT boom, when Congress raised the limit for H-1B visas (given to foreigners with degrees filling degree-level jobs) several times, from 65,000 to 195,000 a year.Many employers, such as former Intel chairman Craig Barrett, even chimed in to suggest that the US ‘staple a green card’ to the diplomas of foreigners graduating from American universities with science and engineering degrees.But Prof Martin asks: ‘Is what is good for Intel good for the US? We have crafted immigration law in the national interest. But since most immigrants now enter through the side door, they are being picked to come in by universities or employers. How does that square with the national interest?’
timewaster123 - September 27, 2010 at 2:56 pm
To response #11:I’m a white American who went to school for a while in Asia.The answers boil down to high school preparation and hard work. They aren’t as simple as you’d like, but here you go. In response to your questions1. American kids are no better or worse (on average) but they probably don’t work as hard. My Chinese roommates would study until midnight every night. I’m probably just as smart, but did they get better grades than me? Well of course. No mystery there. (Did I learn better study skills after that? I sure did.)However, if foreign national students in American universities want any funding, they have to be even better than their average countrymen and women, because funding for foreign nationals is scarce.2. My Asian classmates who did science specialized in high school as either science or humanities. So compared to me, they had multiple years of physics, biology, calculus etc. in high school, and better preparation made them better students in those subjects in college, for the most part. (Which certainly was discouraging for me when I was in the same classes.) But that’s easy to fix – at the top tier engineering school I attended, my US friends in CS who went to math and science high schools were usually just as competitive. One friend finished in 3 years because he found it so easy. So yes, the inference that I think you can draw is that if you want to make the US more competitive in STEM fields, then we should put more money towards advanced math, science and CS-prep high schools. Math gets easier with practice!(The whole underpaid lab assistants problem is a whole other thing, however, and I do not see ready solutions there.) And to change subjects – this visa debate overlooks the incentive structure: controlling visas might help in the short run, but it is likely to be damaging in the long run, as companies that are run on bottom line principles will just end up outsourcing whole divisions, instead of just some of the jobs. That’s pure finance and I’m not sure what can be done about that. (Although in the long long run, the cost of workers in advanced emerging economies like India and China should rise high enough that we’ll be at wage parity. But as they say, anything’s possible in the long run.)