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U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

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Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#51

Post by sanskritical »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #25
JuniperMesos wrote: post #22

The implicit assumption that this is a bad thing is grounded in the assumption that anyone who is a STEM PhD is automatically someone the US government should want to employ, which I don't think is true. Academia is a badly broken system, and many people with formal credentials like PhDs have wasted huge amounts of time and effort on producing what is ultimately low-quality scientific work. This is a pretty uncontrov…

Do you think that's what is going on here?

In my experience legitimately talented people are staying, and the guy whose impressive education credentials seem to train him mostly how to write very wordy excuses for his shortage of actual work product is going back home. Maybe you have a different experience, but my experience is something that seems to be echoed among a lot of people in my social circle.

My experience is that people with talent are both driven and valued. Someone who might disagree with the current administration politically but is doing exactly what they want to do with their life in a role that generates measurable utility for the taxpayer is not packing up and leaving, nor losing their job. But many pieces of gristle are getting trimmed off the American government.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#52

Post by ixtli »

retired wrote: post #40

We are seeing the same in The Netherlands: https://delta.tudelft.nl/en/article/fewer-phd-positions-and-... https://www.sciencelink.net/features/its-not-just-about-mone...

I believe the opposite is happening in China. I saw an article the other day ( https://fortune.com/2026/01/14/china-graduates-1-3-million-e... ) that showed how the amount of engineers being produced there is orders of magnitude greater than the US. Way above what you'd expect given the different sizes of population. Now, i realize an engineer isn't the same as a PhD but i think we're seeing a dramatic brain drain happening in the west.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#53

Post by hurfdurf »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #5
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, so that we can loose our innovation edge and loose the next Apple, Google or Nvidia. Amazing plan.

Could be the biggest own goal in human history.

Fairly certain 1930s Germany ranks higher in this regard by quite a margin.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#55

Post by recursive »

dtdynasty wrote: post #33
JuniperMesos wrote: post #22

The implicit assumption that this is a bad thing is grounded in the assumption that anyone who is a STEM PhD is automatically someone the US government should want to employ, which I don't think is true. Academia is a badly broken system, and many people with formal credentials like PhDs have wasted huge amounts of time and effort on producing what is ultimately low-quality scientific work. This is a pretty uncontrov…

Why wouldn't stem PhDs follow some bell curve of quality? I'm sure many PhDs that are leaving don't contribute but some of them do. I personally don't see a reason for it to be skewed for only PhDs which don't contribute to leave.

These things are not in conflict. It's possible that PhD quality has a regular distribution, and that most of them aren't contributing much.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#56

Post by convolvatron »

noncoml wrote: post #21
d4mi3n wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What problem are you hoping to fix by doing this? I think for any proposal to change policy that has serious impacts on the economics of the country, we should really be very clear on what problem we see, how we plan to solve it, and what specific trade-offs we're making with our solutions.

> What problem are you hoping to fix by doing this? He/she is saying the quiet part out loud. It was never about illegal immigration. Illegal immigration is just the start. The underlying theme is xenophobia, racism and bigotry.

lets be fair, there is also a heavy whiff of anti-intellectualism in the air

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#57

Post by gavin-1 »

robin_reala wrote: post #18
spankalee wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American is built on immigration, and nearly all of us are immigrants or very recent descendants of immigrants. How in the world has immigration harmed Americans?

Ask the indigenous Americans.

Not a fair comparison.

Immigrants are not killing Americans en masse nor taking the land by force.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#58

Post by imglorp »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #22

The implicit assumption that this is a bad thing is grounded in the assumption that anyone who is a STEM PhD is automatically someone the US government should want to employ, which I don't think is true. Academia is a badly broken system, and many people with formal credentials like PhDs have wasted huge amounts of time and effort on producing what is ultimately low-quality scientific work. This is a pretty uncontrov…

Can we agree academia is the worst system, except for all the others?

In the last century, the US led so many tech fields because of both academic and corporate research and the people to do it. Let's fix that system if needed and keep it well stocked.

The alternative is ignorance, leading to unskilled industries and an easily misled electorate.

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#59

Post by ausbah »

ccheney wrote: post #46
ixtli wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came here to see if the comments could explain to my why this obviously bad thing is actually good. Its somewhat comforting to see others worried about the implication. The fact is that governments (aka public funding) is really what drives the biggest most impactful sorts of scientific breakthroughs. Think: NASA spinoffs, the internet, rocketry, MRNA, etc. I know that the US has been failing to fund important thin…

Is it not a good thing that these folks could do something more productive in the private sector? Just on your Fusion example alone: https://techcrunch.com/2025/12/31/every-fusion-startup-that-... Wouldn't it be better if companies like these had a larger pool of PhDs to pull from? Private sector does some things better, see Rocket Lab, Blue Origin, SpaceX, et al. This _is_ a good thing.

citing rocket companies feels funny when most of the research and some non-trivial % of contracts comes (came?) from gov’t (mostly defense) spending

Re: U.S. government has lost more than 10k STEM PhDs since Trump took office

#60

Post by Braxton1980 »

JuniperMesos wrote: post #22

The implicit assumption that this is a bad thing is grounded in the assumption that anyone who is a STEM PhD is automatically someone the US government should want to employ, which I don't think is true. Academia is a badly broken system, and many people with formal credentials like PhDs have wasted huge amounts of time and effort on producing what is ultimately low-quality scientific work. This is a pretty uncontrov…

Do you believe that 100% of the people who left were useless?
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