April 9, 2008

Fewer Foreign Ph.D. Recipients in Science Stay in U.S. After Graduation, Study Finds

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

Comments

1. We should be using the money NOW BEING invested in training and subsidizing foreign PhDs to reduce the undergraduate tuition and reduce the class sizes. It is a scandal that our top universities would prefer foreign undergraduates than our own. What does that tell us of the undergraduate education at many of our so-called flag ship public universities? China, India and Eastern Europe (most countries have now joined the EU) can now afford to have the students they send to the States to pay full out of country tuition. The American undergraduate tuition should be used to subsidize and reduce the tuition for the foreign PhD students, who are using and have access to the state of art research equipment while the undergraduates use the old hand me downs. It is no wonder we are falling further and further behind India, China and Eastern Europe. Time to totally revamp the undergraduate and graduate education and have the foreign graduate students pay the same kind of tuition that our American students pay to go to medical and law school. The foreign graduate students, who are getting the better jobs and staying, should be the ones with 6 figure student loans, and not our undergraduates. In many European countries, like Denmark, 90-95 percent of the research fellowships and research assistants go to Europeans. The foreign PhD students and postdocs get NO health insurance and NO retirement (in Germany, but do in Denmark). We need to not provide the foreign graduate students in the USA any better benefits than our American PhD students get in their countries. Same with postdocs. If they do not provide medical insurance and retirement for our postdocs, then we should not for theirs. Otherwise their postdocs benefit from our good benefits for acadmics and our do not, since in many European countries and Australia the national health plans ONLY covers Permanent Residents. Hence our PhD students and postdocs in Australila and in Germany have no medical insurance coverage, and are left to get very expensive and poor coverage. It is no wonder why we have so few American students getting PhD overseas and doing postdocs, and so many coming to the States. Either that, or the American Government with NSF and NIH, needs to provide private medical insurance for our undergraduate, PhD and postdocs when then go overseas (and find out aht they are doing and bring home some IP and technology, like the Indians, Chinese and Eastern Europeans are doing. They are setting up companies back home and outsourcing a lot of jobs, and worse yet, our undergraduate tuition increases have been paying/subsidizing them to do it!!

   — Karl    Apr 9, 04:35 PM    #

2. Karl’s comments stem clearly from his total ignorance of the facts and realities of academic life. For starters, East Europeans almost NEVER come to study in the U.S. as undergraduates, and generally do not come here at graduate students either. Why should they, if as EU citizens they can go to Oxford or Cambridge, or Sorbonne, at almost no cost? Also, there is no tuition in any of the academic schools in Germany, except for those very few recently being set up for foreigners from non-EU states who do not speak German.

   Foreign Ph.D. students in the
   U.S. are doing us a favor wanting to study in this country. Without them, there would be no doctoral programs in science and engineering in any research intense American university. Americans graduating with their BS degrees want to get a paying job as fast as they can, get a car, a house with a mortgage, and indulge in instant self-gratification. This is why they are generally not interested in studying for a Ph.D. in science or engineering while toiling at a lab all day and night, seven days a week for several years, for $1,500 a month. In contrast, foreign students invest in their own advanced education and delay self-gratification well into the future.

   — Globetrotter    Apr 9, 05:31 PM    #

3. All foreign graduate students pay out-of-state tuition at state universities. Those in science and engineering are usually awarded a RA appointment, and some are employed as TA’s to cover their cost of living and tuition. Only a few come with any form of their home country government support. In all cases I have ever seen, preference is always given to U.S. born citizens who are native speakers and otherwise qualified to serve in these appointments, but in most cases U.S. citizens or even only permanent residents with U.S. employment rights are simply not there to be even considered. The lure of better money in the non-academic jobs is simply too strong to resist. Another problem exists with the so-called “under-represented minorities,” an outdated and ill-defined category coined by the federal government for political reasons, who are in extremely short supply and often spoiled by multiple offers from competing universities that strive to excel in political correctness and brag to the NSF and other research sponsors about how many they have. Most of the resources spent on promoting special programs for these categories of students are wasted on dubious practices that yield little or no result in the end. For example, many years of promoting advanced degree programs in science and engineering to U.S. born blacks and spending huge sums of money for this purpose over the years at NSF, NIH and in other funding agencies, yielded no visible results at the national level. The money would be better spent on attracting more top flight students from the best schools in East Europe, China or India who can stay in this country after graduation and produce the cadre of future scientists and engineers for our economy.

   — Professor    Apr 9, 06:06 PM    #

4. I agree 100% with Karl.
   I am currently a college professor and am American born. I have been married for 15 years to an Ecuadorean and when she came to this country, she received more aid and benefits than us real Americans ever received. The whole middle class taxation and foreign students/foreign visa thing is out of control.

   — Edward    Apr 9, 08:04 PM    #

5. Edward, are you saying she received her benefits because she came to a U.S. graduate school as a foreign graduate student, or because she immediately got her green card as your wife? I suspect whatever benefits she received had nothing to do with graduate school.

   — Professor    Apr 9, 11:16 PM    #

6. I’m just glad I’m not Edward’s wife!

   — International Grad Student    Apr 10, 04:36 AM    #

7. And I’m glad I’m not Karl’s father and wasted a lot of money on an education that produced such a stunning lack of knowledge, logic, and reasoning.

   — Pontificus    Apr 10, 08:09 AM    #

8. I agree with the most recent posts – Karl and Edward’s claims constitute the worst imaginable kind of xenophobic rubbish.

   I’m English, and am studying for a PhD at an Ivy League university. I could be at Oxbridge, the Sorbonne, Sciences Po or any one of a number of places. I wouldn’t have to teach, and I’d be done with the whole thing in three years or so. Instead, I’ve been teaching ‘the cream of American youth’ as a TA for year upon year. The university spends no more money on me than on any of my American peers, and as a TA, my US keeps almost all of the tax that the university withholds from my stipend at 14%, even though as a non-US citizen I’ll never have access to most of the things those taxes fund. My students, funnily enough, seem to feel that they benefit by being taught by someone who has studied all over the world, and has two degrees each from Oxbridge and the Ivy League.

   None of this would have been possible without my university funding me just like it does my American peers. And it seems to be working out fairly well for all involved…

   — Stephen    Apr 10, 08:45 AM    #

9. If our policy decisions in relation to graduate education are influenced by the the likes of Karl or Edward – God help us; there is no hope for our future science or engineering. I am sure they are oblivious to the fact that if the current trends continue, there will be no U.S. born educators left in engineering in about a decade. U.S. born alumni of undergraduate programs are not stepping up to the plate to change that, and the gap between their intellectual and educational ambitions and those of incoming foreign graduate students is too large to ignore.

   — Mike    Apr 10, 08:45 AM    #

10. What this report doesn’t mention, nor any of the above comments is that student visas are only issued on a temporary basis. The whole idea behind this is that these students intend to return to their home countries. Yes, they can apply for work visa or permanent residency when they complete their education, but the intent is NOT to have them stay, but to learn and to return home. If the government doesn’t believe that is the individual’s intent, they won’t issue the F-1 visa that allows them to come and study in the US in the first place.

    We also need to remember the VALUE of these international students in providing diversity to our student population. We cannot ignore the importance of exposing our students to other cultures – their success in a global economy depends on this.

    — Tracy G    Apr 10, 09:48 AM    #

11. The lack of a US-based undergrad source for the grad program-based science pipeline is only going to get worse.

    The US is built on a melting pot history. I, for one, would prefer our new immigrants to be some of the world’s smartest scientists who have been trained to our highest quality of standards.

    — Stephen    Apr 10, 10:23 AM    #

12. Well, thank you American universities for accepting me as an international student, for letting me educate your undergraduates during my graduate career, and for finally offering me a job as tenure-track faculty member. This is especially nice, since my country is still not so sure whether a Ph.D. received in this country would actually count back home. I appreciate the equal opportunities I have received as a female young scholar here, which I most likely would not have received in my own country.
    On the other hand, I have to disagree with the sentiment that international graduate students receive more funding. That is simply not true. For most grant or student loan applications you have to be a US citizen or at least a permanent resident. Therefore international graduate students in my field pay for their expenses in two forms: (1) money from their home country (government funds and more likely private funds) and (2) research or teaching assistantships. I have never seen any preference given to international students in the application process for assistantships at the four institutions I experienced. In contrast to the US citizen or permanent resident graduate students, international students are usually prohibited from working off campus or for more than a certain amount of hours on campus. Due to those restrictions they are often more limited in their ability to fund their own graduate work with “American” money. Additionally, when they do not receive a tuition waiver or only a partial waiver, the universities make lots of money. International tuition at the institution that trained me was even higher than out-of-state tuition which of course was higher than in-state tuition. International undergraduate students bring in lots of money to the university. International students bring in more money and receive less money.
    On a different note, at least in my field, it has been very challenging to recruit domestic students. The vast majority of students in my field that apply for graduate schools are from Asian countries and not from the US. And yes, many of them go home afterwards. But in the meantime, in many cases they paid at least partial tuition, they paid income and in most states sales tax, they spent their money here. So, if you do not believe in the value of cultural exchange and the value of experiencing people with different native languages, and you do not believe in recruiting and educating the most qualified and most promising students, then maybe the financial argument can convince the Karl’s and Edward’s of the world.
    In addition to the direct financial contribution of international students to the economy, there are also some indirect benefits. International students not only pay taxes, but in most states pay all the other deductions, too. However, as Stephen pointed out, most of them will never be eligible to collect social security or any of those other monies. Your retirement, Karl and Edward, may just be saved by those international students. In addition, international students very often have to apply for renewal of their visa annually. We pay the SEVIS fee, the visa application fee, and all the other fees that the Department of Homeland Security has come up with (I approaching $10,000). Considering that my current paper work has been sitting in a California office for two years untouched, makes you wonder how effectively that money from international students is used. But we do provide job security to many sectors of the Department of Homeland Security.
    Furthermore, the American government has rediscovered languages as a critical goal in order to protect America’s national security. Those international students are one way to help American’s learn about other languages and cultures.
    Of course I do not speak any of the languages that the federal government has identified as critical languages for national security and economic competitiveness, so I was not offered amazing financial packages. My repeated claims that there are terrorists in my country, too, has still not resulted in receiving multi million dollar grants. Moreover, I could have studied in my home country for free, and instead I came here, paid in part for my education and spent lots of money in this country. In addition, for the last 11 years I have helped educate American students on the undergraduate and the graduate level. And in the meantime I got myself one of those American men and an American baby, which after much paper work, lots of wait time, and various fees may one day result in an unconditional permanent residence card. One day I might even apply for American citizenship myself. If the Karls and Edwards in the world will let me.
    I appreciate having been given the opportunity to be an international student here, and to be an international scholar in this country. Furthermore, I appreciate having the opportunity to educate and exchange ideas with American as well as international students in this country. And if the education system in my country would allow me to pursue my career goals, I would go back. After all that is where my family is.

    — German    Apr 10, 10:40 AM    #

13. Well said, Globetrotter (post # 2). In the Pharmaceutical Sciences (drug formulation and drug design), almost all PhD students are from foreign countries and they invest the good part of their young lives working day and night.

    — Naushad    Apr 10, 11:12 AM    #

14. The report does not say anything about the main reason why many foreign PhDs choose not to stay and work here. The government visa regulations have made it harder for these brilliant academics to adjust their status to the work place. Countries such as China and India, which feed our PhD programs with their brightest college graduates, have stronger economies now and can offer lucrative opportunities for the returning people, too. Either way, the foreign graduates in the US are a blessing for America in the long run: if they stay, they contribute to the national economy and to the higher standards of life for all of us; if they return to their home counttries, they take the American values and ideals and contribute to social and economic change there. We gain both ways.

    — sprath    Apr 10, 11:23 AM    #

15. At least half of our Doctoral students were from other countries. The problem is simple; concentrate on U.S. born students. Further, create better opportunities for them to prosper after graduation. Try a guaranteed job program. They can work while studying and then take a permanent position.

    — bill    Apr 10, 11:30 AM    #

16. Part of the issue here is that graduate students fulfill two functions— they are students and learners, but they are equally employees and workers. Without grad students in the sciences, research would grind to a halt. As an American, I made the silly choice of going to grad school, but I’m clearly in the minority. If we want science to go along at its current pace, we need international students to do the research.

    Now, why do we care if they stay? Well, the US economy for the past 60 years worked because we were THE destination for international talent. We took European Jewish scientists in the 30’s and 40’s, we took Russian scientists when they were persecuted. Being a magnet for the brightest minds on the planet made our economy the envy of the world. With such a track record, it makes sense that we would be concerned if the number of bright people want to come work here starts to drop.

    — Current Post-Doc    Apr 10, 11:36 AM    #

17. I believe that no one from their graves would claim to be Karl’s (and the likes’) grandfather either (or the grt GF !!) Because had some of the ppl in US govt. of that generation, after WW II, did NOT have the foresight to organize and execute the likes of the ‘Operation Overcast’ (aka ‘Opp. Paperclip’), USofA may be in a different technological footing today! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip)

    Having said that, and I being a foreign grad student, I do not believe that the cream and the brightest/smartest of the US u’grad and/or grad students had ever been nor will ever be in a disadvantageous position due to the presence of ‘foreigners’(aka Aliens !) , period. It is the negligent, the ignorant and the opportunists, who seek an easy way out, always cry foul ! If no one could make it the best out in this land of the free by hard work and sacrifice, they will do it in nowhere!

    I think ‘German’ pretty much has wasted a lot of her time to explain to the idiotic few this very point. Vast majority of Americans, in my view ,very much understand and aware of the facts and figures behind this issue. So I hope no one else would waste no more time doing the same !

    However let me add this too. I for one, will try to stay in USA after my studies and try to put in to good productive use my expertise for the mutual benefit of myself, my family and the US economy. But in the long run , though I can influence my kids not to fall prey to the Karl/Edwards likes’ mindset, I doubt very much the generations after that would follow and do it. That is why I am determined to retire back someday to my home country and to encourage my kids to do the same at their prime and raise their kids over there. The fact is, the young US citizenry generation of today, if they get influenced by the rhetoric of the ‘racist’ few elders around and have their way in the future, I guarantee a bleak future for this grt nation ! , need no rocket science expertise to predict that.
    I encourage the other foreign students here to ponder on this fact as well.
    Df/

    — Df/    Apr 10, 12:23 PM    #

18. Karl says: ‘It is a scandal that our top universities would prefer foreign undergraduates than our own.’
    Sir, in most cases, international students pay 100% more in tuition than local students. Some US universities have a goal of making profits.

    You say that US grads should not have loans to repay (as is the case in some parts of Europe), why blame a self-sponsored student from Burma at a US university for this?

    — eli    Apr 10, 12:27 PM    #

19. My two best professor in the States were Brits, one from Cambridge and one from Oxford (my PhD advisor). Many of our Nobel Prize winners left Europe after WWII to escape persecution. So all of the Tibetans, Taiwanese and lower caste people from India and China who want to come to the States we should welcome, so called political refugees. But America has always had a policy in recent times to refuse economic refugees. And many of these student are running away from commitments in India, China and Iran, where they got free educations. What would happen if all of our undergraduate moved in India, China and Russia with their PhD and worked at Harvard-China, Harvard-Russia, Harvard-India, … There are large number of Russians, Indians and Chinese who would love to get degrees at home from Harvard, MIT, USC, Stanford. There is a market of educating millions of Chinese and Indians medical doctors, dentists, lawyers, trade unionists, environmentalists, … To date India and China have not been receptive to opening their doors to British, American, Australian and Canadian offshore universities. Higher education is also a commodity and many Indians and Chinese would love to have a degree from a British, Canadian, American and Australian university and be educated by American, Canadian, British and Australian PhDs, professors and lecturers. So there is a large market in these countries, but the Chinese and Indian governments and academics have blocked these off shore universities. Singapore and many other Asian and even European countries have been very receptive to American, British, Canadian and Australian universities, with American, British, Canadian and Australian professors and local staff and technicians. They are actually very lucrative businesses in the local communities and currencies. It is much cheaper to educate Indians and Chinese in India and China at American, British, Australian and Canadians universities, than to bring them to the States. And since most of the high tech jobs are in these countries now, it really does not pay to educate them any longer in the States, where the cost to educate them is being subsidized by the very high undergraduate double digit tuition increases. Even the multinationals are realizing this, and setting up local schools and universities in India and China. Only the American public universities have not figured this out. The top British and Australian public universities and top American private universities have and in the negotiation process with government officials in both India and China.

    — Karl    Apr 10, 12:40 PM    #

20. Karl says: ‘It is a scandal that our top universities would prefer foreign undergraduates than our own.’
    Sir, in most cases, international students pay 100% more in tuition than local students. Some US universities have a goal of making profits.

    You say that US grads should not have loans to repay (as is the case in some parts of Europe), Why blame a self-sponsored student from Burma at a US university for this?

    I am certainly not. America has in the past been very receptive to educating the students of the WORLD from countries which cannot AFFORD to pay. But clearly the governments and businesses in India and China can now afford to pay. We have a lot of business students here in Australia from India, China, Singapore, South Korea, .. who are fully fee paying. Actually they are considered by some to be a CASH COWs, to be be milked. I for one, am against this policy. They should not be milked but should be educated at a competitive market value. But in Asia a business degree is worth much more than a PhD in chemistry, physics, … The Chinese and Indians are pretty smart. They have read Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Flood a market and you drive down the price. So they over educate in many fields and send a lot of them to the States. But the knowledge and innovation is developed in the States by American innovators and brought back India and China by Indian an Chinese PhD students and postdocs, The products are then produced there where they can pay much lower wages to the local PhDs, while those in the States who do the outsourcing are some of the richest people on the planet.

    Problem is that in India and China in many cases they have been guilty of replacing one chemical by a CHEAPER one, with detrimental and in some cases deadly consequences. Dog food recalls, pharmaceutical recalls, lead paint on children toy recalls, …

    They think they are very very smart. Let the American tax payers pay to educate their graduate students, do the research in the States, and even innovate. Then they send the plans and designs to India and China and set up the shops and factories in India and China. And many American academics, politicians and businessmen are even willing to go along, if you compensate them, give them paid vacations to India and China, and give them a piece of the action. But the system is now falling down since most state universities are facing serious budget problems as more and more jobs and work is being outsourced to India and China, even pharmaceuticals.

    But there is a lot of corruption in India and China, so the 5 to 10 percent of the pills, even antibiotics are placebos, or worse yet dangerous cheaper compounds which have substituted for the originals.

    So by outsourcing we are losing the quality control, and this has been documented by the large number of product recalls of goods, products and publications from India and China. But when you pay the workers in India and China (even those with PhDs), very low salaries and no benefits, what can you expect.

    The PhDs who are staying in the States are running the outsourcing businesses back home in India, China and Russia. But who is doing the quality control. No EPA, FDA, … It is ok to make cheap and low quality good in India and China, but to import the stuff to America, Australia, Britian and Canada and kill our children and patients, and even now famous people, Heath Ledger died from so-called normal levels of pharmaceutical in his body. It would be interesting to know if the pharmaceuticals were from India and China, and no longer produced in the States by America citizens educated by American pharmaceutical companies. We have had drug recalls here with Indian and Chinese pharmaceuticals. And there are a lot of counterfeit pharmaceuticals coming out of India and China.

    — Karl    Apr 10, 01:12 PM    #

21. Wow, so much ignorance and hate expressed on this topic. If we, as a developed economy, are to prosper and not fall behind, we need all of the foreign scientists we can get. Those people expressing ignorance here need to get real and live in the same country as the rest of us. When I see or hear terms like ‘us real Americans’ it greatly saddens me that so much ignorance exists in supposedly the most progressive segment of our society, higher education.

    — Sam    Apr 10, 01:44 PM    #

22. German said:
    Well, thank you American universities (did you go to more than one?) for accepting me as an international student, for letting me educate your undergraduates during my graduate career.

    Well said. They paid you your low PhD TA, charged the American and foreign undergraduate students a lot of money, and had you do the teaching, lecturing!! You probably got your PhD from a large state university.

    On the other hand I have a very good friend who was a German Professor in Berlin who got pinched by a top American private university where she now is a full professor. When she visited us at at top European university, she said she feels very responsible to give much much better lectures to her students who are paying HER hundreds of dollars an hour each for her lecturers than she ever did in Germany where the students did not have to pay tuition. They do not have foreign PhD students giving lecturers at her university. And these are the universities where the best American students are getting an educations,if they can get accepted.

    The top private American universities are very very selective in who they choose. Like I wrote in an earlier post, the top private universities turn way 9 out of 10 applicants who are stuck going to the large state universities and who are lectured to by foreign PhD students!! Guess where you get a better undergraduate education? So German should be very very happy.

    My friend who now lectures at a top private university has seen her research take a real hit, as she now realizes the responsibility of being an academic at a top private university and having a conscience. She in very similar to my two British professors from Cambridge and Oxford. So even though I am American and got an education at a top private American university, but also attended and worked at the large public universities, I have great respect for the professors at private universities who earn every dollar they are paid (and they are paid more than professors at most state flag ship public universities). But there is good reason for this in many cases, they do their own lectures and labs and do not pass them on to the foreign graduate students. If the foreign graduate student thinks he works hard, just try being professor at a top private university, which lives off of endowments from rich alumni. If you do not educate you undergraduates and PhD students, they do not make millions in the States and leave millions to the universities when they die.

    But the new model is to make millions by outsourcing to India and China. I for one favor taking the best academics in the wold, and not surprisingly, many are trained and educated in Europe by Americans working at Max Planck Institutes, EMBL, and universities, which blows away the Europeans’ (and Chinese’s and Indians’) idea that Americans are dumb and lazy, and that America NEEDS THEM to educate their students and to do their research and innovation.

    Most top private American universities do not need to have any foreign undergraduate and graduate students, as they have rejection rates of over 90 percents. It is the large state universities which claim to need large numbers of foreign graduate students to do their lecturing and labs, while they … Many of them, academics at large American and European universities (I know some German professors in this class) actually could not survive without their foreign graduate students (in German universities there a large numbers of Eastern European, Chinese and Indian graduate students also).

    On the other hand, every professor that I have seen at the top private American universities is worth their weight in gold (many from Germany, Russia, France and the UK). And of course the few that are at public universities get pinched very very quickly. Just like the top coaches going to the BCS universities where they are appropriately compensated, the same goes for the top professors, academics and researchers. Most, of course not all, end up at the top private universities in the States. So many of the foreign PhD students have never seen America’s finest since they are at the top private universities, where a very very large part of the world’s top research is being done, most of the patents and most of the real and true innovation (which is transferred to students, who then reward both the professors and universities very very nicely).

    — Karl    Apr 10, 01:58 PM    #

23. Dear Karl, first correct your facts. You have written so many different things that even don’t make sense and have no direct relation to the topic.

    — Naushad    Apr 10, 02:00 PM    #

24. Why can Canada have an immigration policy that allows anyone with a million dollars in the bank to come in and settle there, and we cannot? What would swapping the illiterate illegals for these kinds of immigrants(assuming their wealth was not amassed through criminal activity) do to our economy?

    — John    Apr 10, 02:04 PM    #

25. Karl’s incoherent ramblings lead me to question that he indeed holds a Ph.D. as he claims, unless it is from a diploma mill. No reputable institution would allow an individual with his type of reasoning skills conduct meaningful research and graduate with a graduate degree.

    — John    Apr 10, 02:09 PM    #

26. Karl,
    Only 1 of 2 students
    graduate high school in US cities: study

    Here are the facts.
    Please read this story carefully and provide your comments.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080401/lf_afp/useducationsociety

    — Naushad    Apr 10, 02:16 PM    #

27. Sam wrote:
    Wow, so much ignorance and hate expressed on this topic.

    You are over reacting. There is no heat. Americans say what they mean and mean what they say. This is the main difference between the American culture and the Asian and Old European culture. What you interpret as hate is making people defend their turf. Just watch Hillary and Obama and their supporters to at it. Those who play ice hockey understand. You smash each other in the board (intramural ice hockey in America and Canada, and then go to the pub and buy a drink for the guy who either you smashed or he smashed). It is much better than starting two world wars which the guys in Europe and Asia did, and dragged us Yanks into (:->)!! No to your other points. We Amis do not hate the foreign PhD students, postdocs and professors, just like most Europeans do not hate us American PhD students, postdoc and Max Plank heads and university professors (though I did feel a bit of envy and dislike from a few Europeans when I was a tenured American associate professor at a top European university with an American PhD and not a German Habilitation!!). I was warned by a British professor who had naturalized who told me he was treated the same way and he was European, but from Britain, and not the Continent.
    So I accepted it as the young Europeans not having a good upbringing (in German: nicht gut erzogen).

    If we, as a developed economy, are to prosper and not fall behind,

    We already have in the USA, big time.

    We need all of the foreign scientists we can get.

    I disagree. We need top, well educated and trained and mentored scientists. And they need to understand the American Culture and language. Just like when I lived and worked in Germany I had to learn German and the German culture, in Finland, the Finnish (and Swedish) language language and culture and finally in Denmark, the Danish language and culture (where I was an Associate Professor before moving to Australia,after the Danish cartoon incident and change in Europa’s openness to not only Muslims, but all non European Union Citizens. The expansion of the EU to 27 countries, has nationalism very very strong, and with it anti EU in many practices, and even now against American Max Plank directors!! So if you think America is bad against foreign PhD students, postdocs and professors, after you get your American citizenship, which we give out pretty easy compared to German and Danish citizenship, go back and try to get a position in Europe as and American academic and/or researcher. Must worse. And even my European Collegues who I met in the States, helped with taxes, to buy cars, … have told me that they were treated very very good in the States, in many cases, they admitted, better than American citizens.
    Same salaries, but 2 year no American Taxes. So a very very good salary. If they stay a third year they are supposed to back pay taxes with interest fo the first two years. The IRS does not go after these foreign postdocs who stay. If they did, it would be millions if not billions of dollars. The whole point of no tax for 2 years, was to encourage and help Europeans postdocs to come to the States, understand the American language and culture and to prevent another European caused world war. I think before the EU expanded to 27, a lot of Europeans got to know each other in American labs as either PhD students or postdocs. So America has done a lot for our foreign PhD students and postdocs, who were suppose to return after their PhDs or after their postdocs. But many have decided to stay. Indian, Chinese and Irans at rates over 90 percent stay. If you read the full report and check it out, you will see that only 4 percent from Saudi Arabia stay, while 92 percent from China, 90 percent from Iran (so is Iran really our enemy, when 90 percent who get of Iranians who get PhDs stay in the States) and 85 percent from India. From Israel, Mexico and
    Brazil only 33, 31 and 30 percent stay in the States. So the economies of Israel, Mexico and Brazil can offer competitive salaries and benefits and get their PhDs to return.

    Those people expressing ignorance here need to get real and live in the same country as the rest of us.

    They are real and just have different opinions and world views. Diversity makes the world great. And America is the most diverse country in the world. The more nations, languages and cultures represented in American universities the better.

    When I see or hear terms like ‘us real Americans’ it greatly saddens me that so much ignorance exists in supposedly the most progressive segment of our society, higher education.

    In the EU, you are a citizen of the EU country, an EU citizen. There are huge preferences for EU citizens. Many PhD positions, scholarships and research positions are only open to EU citizens, even is someone from the States, Russia or Australia is much more qualified, has a h-factor which is two to three times that of a EU academic. That is the way it NOW is in the EU. Hence I would recommend all American citizens who have European parents or grandparents from EU countries, to apply for dual citizenship, American and EU. Then you can apply for jobs in the EU. So a lot of what people are writing is not hate, but venting. Venting is good, since it lets people get things off of their chests. When I was in Denmark the Muslims were offended by the cartoons and the Danish and many EU authorities did not respond to the venting. It ended up becoming violent. Did the EU learn from it? Not really. In American most major newspapers are aware of cultural sensitivities and did not republish, what many later considered, as hate speech. The Danish (and other Scandinavian) embassies and companies were boycotted, Now there is the cultural genocide in Tibet and the Tibetans have used peaceful means and been venting to the work for almost 60 years. Finally now the young Tibetans are taking action, which is gradually getting more and more bold. So people need to listen and debate and not ignore the Tibetans. Angela Merkel has come out and said she will boycott the opening ceremony. Academics who believe in human rights need to support Angela Merkel, the Dalai Lama and all those who boycott the Chinese government and their cultural genocide in Tibet. As for hate speech here, No way. This is American discussion and debate and people saying how they feel and being honest and up front. We only wish that in China the government and Chinese people would be so open and not ignore each other and have an attitude of business as usual.

    — Karl    Apr 10, 02:37 PM    #

28. John wrote,:
    Why can Canada have an immigration policy that allows anyone with a million dollars in the bank to come in and settle there, and we cannot?

    Go to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty and you will know the answer. It is a place where all American citizens and immigrants need to go. It is a major part of being “American” and understanding why America is the great country it is and how it achieved it greatness. It was never about buying BSc, PhD, medical degrees and citizenship. That is the legacy from Europe monarchies, the Czar in Russia, … The Americans, Russians and French all threw off that yoke and are three of the top nations with respect to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. All have had their bad leaders, but the American, French and Russian PEOPLE are very similar in HEART and SOUL!! It is one of the reasons both the Americans and Russians were fighting to LIBERATE the French of Nazi Germany (of course with the help of the Brits and the Aussies). So the big alliance was Russia, the UK, the USA and Australia to liberate first Continental Europe and then Asia. But most young people in Europe, Asia and even the USA do not realize this.

    What would swapping the illiterate illegals for these kinds of immigrants(assuming their wealth was not amassed through criminal activity) do to our economy?

    Australia and America were both countries where the outcasts from the UK, China (Pro-Tibet and Pro-Taiwan), and Europe. They made America and Australia the great countries they are and now the Chinese and Europeans who stayed home want to join them by buying American and Australian citizenship with the money they have earned by exploiting the people in Europe and China. Clearly Europe has evolved, but China has not. America is not interested in letting Chinese and Indian billionaires and millionaires buying American citizenship. That is not what it means to be an American. Even Arnold S. paid his dues and now understands what it means to be an American. What surprised me the most is the many Europeans on the Continent had no idea of the idea of Paying Your Dues. They just asked how much I have to pay for my BSC, MSC, professorship,… Same with many Asians. Clearly these people, if given high positions, professorships, … in the States can bring our system down. The American system is a very fragile system. It only works if the people are honest, hard working and are willing to pay their dues, follow the rules and reward those for their hard work and the government and its institutions do not put up too many barriers. Ross Perot ran for President because he stood for old type American values which have gradually eroded. The new young Americans are responsible for bring America down. And unless Americans study history and realize how it got to be where it is now, and who actually got it there, it will fall. Same with Europe. The values and hard work of Europeans after WWII made Western Europe what it is, Whether it and the USA will raise or fall down, and be replaced by India and China and their cultures and ideals is the real question. This is a great place for such discussions to be held. And for those who think I am off on a tangent. In a complex coupled system, everything is related. So perturb a system, a protein in one place, and you see an effect distant and time and space!!

    — Karl    Apr 10, 03:04 PM    #

29. I’m rather embarrassed, as an American and as a European, to read many of the comments associated with this article—especially if they are being written by academics. They lack sensitivity first and foremost, and many of the assertions are far from grounded in any particular truth. According to the original Lisbon Strategy documents (intended to help stem the brain drain to the US and improve competition with the United States) there are more than 400,000 European scientists living and working in the US. These individuals have indeed contributed greatly to US R&D and they have been paid for their expertise in the same way as American researchers are paid. Undergraduate and master’s level students travelling either from the US to Europe or from Europe to the US participate in and pay for their educations according to the policies of individual universities. There are few countries or states that offer full rides to all students (including Germany). Sweden is one of the few countries left, in fact, where students are still receiving “free” HE.

    The majority of universities and colleges, in Europe, in the United States, and in other countries thoughout the world, promote programs abroad, international exchange, Fulbright and Rhodes scholars, and more—for the promotion of knowledge exchange, social and cultural development, and, in fact, to improve peace and prosperity on this Earth.

    I’ve nothing really more to add to this dialogue other than to encourage some thought and courtesy among those who share opinions—whether they are mature academic professionals, students, or outside readers from other backgrounds.

    — Mary Shepard    Apr 10, 05:47 PM    #

30. Mary Shepard wrote:
    I’ve nothing really more to add to this dialogue other than to encourage some thought and courtesy among those who share opinions—whether they are mature academic professionals, students, or outside readers from other backgrounds. — Mary Shepard

    I agree with Mary 100 percent. Just because you do not agree with someone’s opinions, world views, religion (Islam, Christianity, Judaism, ..), immigration policy, …. does not mean you have to make personal attacks, especially about people’s parents, heritage,race, ethnicity, … That is just what the Nazis did, and worse yet, interned all those in had opposing views in concentration camps. The Chinese are doing the same with the Tibetans, and would if they could to the Taiwanese people if it were not for the American and Russians, who fought with the Nationalists, Brits and Aussies to defeat the Japanese.

    If you are a non-American citizen, then leave you prejudices at the borders when you enter the States, and also ethnic cleansing tendencies (Balkans, Eastern Europeans who hold strong prejudices against ethnic Russians (who were our allies in WWII).

    Our great allies in WWII were the Russians, Brits, French (after we liberated France) and Aussies, lest we forget that. We TOGETHER liberated Continental Europe from Nazi Germany and Asia from Imperial Japan, along with the Nationalist army now on Taiwan, after they were attacked by Mao’s army, after being weakened by the Japanese. For those too young and who slept in your history lessons in school (or worse yet never had them), I would recommend you spend some of your spare time doing so. Since I have been here in Australia I have read a lot about the American-Aussie alliance which formed during WWII, when we fought together with the Brits, the Nationalist Army of China (now on Taiwan) and Russians to defeat the Japanese and liberate Asia (including large parts of China). The other major conflicts which followed were mostly political (Korea, Vietnam, Gulf 1 and even Gulf 2) and we have never faced enemies like Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan since. People need to chill out when they come to States and become Americans. And that means responsible Free Speech speech, and not the kind of free speech like the Danish Cartoons, which were reprinted in many European newspapers and caused huge problems in the Middle East for all countries in Europe, whose major irresponsible newspapers republished them. So there is a responsibility that come with freedom, which many Americans have learned, but which the foreign graduate students and immigrants must learn if they really want to be integrated and assimilated.

    Hence I advise them all to visit the State of Liberty (our gift from the French, who helped us defeat the Brits and taught us a lot about LIBERTY) and Ellis Island. Most of the immigrants from Europe in the USA (our parents, grandparents and great grandparents) were processed through Ellis Island and the first thing they saw was the Statue of Liberty when they came off the boats. Many of the current foreign graduate students and immigrants have not been to either the Statue of Liberty or Ellis Island, and that is one of the problems, which has prevented them from truly becoming Americans.

    — Karl    Apr 11, 01:16 AM    #

31. Karl & Edward are not serious. They are just enjoying an argument. However, if they are serious about their stand, then they need to know that the U.S.A. has INTERESTS. These interests, she will maintain, by “all means necessary”, including the granting of freedom of ignorant expressions to Edward and Karl and to the cautious wise expressions of the rest of the bloggers on this issue. United States’ Interest is far beyond the petty racist, antiforeigner phobia of the Karls and Edwards. American Interest is everywhere: Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Germany, China, Angola, Israel, Panama, England, Russia, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Chad, “Zaire”, Egypt, Mexico, Cuba, Cameroon, Philippians, Korea, Japan, India… the list goes on. Some of these names, I bet Karl & Edward have never heard, nor could they locate them on the map.

    Visas issued to foreign students are in the Interest of the United States first and hopefully to the foreign student and his/her country of origin. The United States opted out of isolationism many years ago.

    Karl and Edward, where were you – your ancestors- when “foreigners” were being processed through Ellis Island? Who processed your ancestors? It must be very rewarding, if your ancestors fall into the category of those who were dropped here as buccaneers, felons, serving their prison terms. Now you can claim you own the USA and must bar the door against “foreigners”, to whom the USA deems it is in her Interest to grant Visas.

    The Truth Is Slow, but It Does Arrive
    Lerhra

    — Konfor Masanje    Apr 12, 12:21 PM    #

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