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The Disappearing American Grad Student

nytimes.com

1–10 of 142 posts

Re: The Disappearing American Grad Student

#2
The article misses something I think makes part of it: grad school is a ticket to establishing some level of connection in the US for foreigners, and some use it as a spring board to getting a job in the US. They need this because a graduate degree actually is losing its value given the poor job market for PhDs. The prospects of a job after graduate school are diminishing the closer you get to a PhD; it just makes less sense to go to grad school when you can get good jobs with just a BS in CS for example...unless there is something else to make the ROI better.

Finally, the stats mentioned are merely fractions, not overall numbers. What could merely be happening is the growth is coming from international students, not that less Americans are headed to grad school.

Re: The Disappearing American Grad Student

#4

The article misses something I think makes part of it: grad school is a ticket to establishing some level of connection in the US for foreigners, and some use it as a spring board to getting a job in the US. They need this because a graduate degree actually is losing its value given the poor job market for PhDs. The prospects of a job after graduate school are diminishing the closer you get to a PhD; it just makes le…

Master's degree is good for H1-B lottery

Re: The Disappearing American Grad Student

#5
Do we have any numbers of how many of these foreign individuals stay in the country after graduation? When you think about how immigration works, immigrants are very disproportionately likely to be high-performing individuals, given the criteria for them to enter the country. If they stay in the country to contribute to the economy after graduation, then all I can say is that I'm glad they still think that this is a desirable country to come to.

Re: The Disappearing American Grad Student

#8
How's the gender balance there? Few male Americans + many female Americans + many male foreigners + few female foreigners in graduate school seems like a surefire way to very quickly shrink the gene pool of intelligent ethnic European Americans, seeing how they're already reducing in numbers and that women tend to prefer men who are more accomplished, including when they're very accomplished themselves.

Re: The Disappearing American Grad Student

#9
post #3

I'm an American, and I just started graduate school. Georgia Tech OMSCS. Very nice program.

It's interesting - when OMSCS started, there was so much speculation that it would be flooded with overseas students who would use it to get a cheap US degree that would ultimately help them to migrate.

Instead, OMSCS actually has a far, far higher proportion of American students than GATech's on-campus MSCS program...

Re: The Disappearing American Grad Student

#10

The article misses something I think makes part of it: grad school is a ticket to establishing some level of connection in the US for foreigners, and some use it as a spring board to getting a job in the US. They need this because a graduate degree actually is losing its value given the poor job market for PhDs. The prospects of a job after graduate school are diminishing the closer you get to a PhD; it just makes le…

Foreigners who went to grad school are very heavily represented in Silicon Valley. Perhaps going all the way for a PhD is not worth it (debatable, some of my CS PhD friends have done incredibly well) but a Masters is definitely a strong path to success.
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