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A quarter of US-trained scientists eventually leave

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Re: A quarter of US-trained scientists eventually leave

#141

Post by DustinEchoes »

maxglute wrote: post #115
DustinEchoes wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe in the defense industry. Elsewhere? Nah.

South Asian (Indian) / White / East Asian ceo gap something like 3 / 2 / 0.5 per million pop in US. Chinese long recognized this ceiling, and more are returning to PRC because of it. More and more, PRC getting Chinese returnees that are credentialled 40yro stuck at manager / director level who see greener PRC grass leaving after accumulating industry knowledge / experience taking their entire network / ip / tacit kno…

CEO gap mostly goes away when controlling for pop. age / cultural differences (less assertive), not nebulous racism like first comment. PRC still pays a lot to recruit through 1000 talents, USDOJ continues to uncover cases where $X00,000+ offered for IP / research. Meanwhile Chinese (m|b)illionaires make exit plans in case they get Jack Ma’d or worse.

Re: A quarter of US-trained scientists eventually leave

#142

Post by bobsmooth »

imgabe wrote: post #85
travisgriggs wrote: post #53

I wonder how much generational impacts there are here. My son is a PhD student at an ivy. The most lucrative tuition source for the university is foreign students (as in, they bring in far more tuition dollars for each foreign student than they do native). He has also observed that the payers of these tuitions are usually the parents, who tend to be people who rose through the ideal of "the dream of american educatio…

Why is it necessary to have a flood of foreign money to operate the university? Universities in the past operated without an influx of wealthy foreign students paying outrageous tuition. Today they are bloated with administration that is nothing but a cost center, meanwhile they eliminate tenured professorships and have classes taught by tenuous adjunct faculty who are paid poverty wages. Universities could easily ri…

>but the people who need to make the decision to do that are the ones who would be cut.

It's devastating when you learn so many of society's problems are due to this.

Re: A quarter of US-trained scientists eventually leave

#143

Post by neuah »

cavisne wrote: post #65

“40% move to China” This is the plan not a coincidence. China pays huge “grants” to their citizens to come to the US, get educated, work in big tech/science, then bring it all home.

The US could retain a lot of that talent if it put the same level of funding into science that China is, and remained welcoming to foreign nationals. The US has been brain-draining the rest of the world for decades with enormous benefits to us. We then led in most fields and the flywheel kept spinning. Now we are cutting research spending and closing the door, while China continues to increase its science funding year over year. The sclaes are tipping and talent will be drawn to the leading edge, wherever that is.

Re: A quarter of US-trained scientists eventually leave

#144

Post by neuah »

secondcoming wrote: post #104
materials4028 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this is true (I doubt it happens at scale), then the US got to benefit from some severely underpaid labor for a couple years at no cost to the taxpayer. What's there not to like?

It happens at scale. UK universities are also heavily subsidised by Chinese students. I also, where I am, I don't really see these students working in part-time jobs to pay the bills.

I assume the underpaid labor they were talking about was the PhD.

Re: A quarter of US-trained scientists eventually leave

#145

Post by neuah »

selimthegrim wrote: post #36
integralid wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is not "exporting" anything. PhDs are people, they pay for their education and they leave. Nevertheless responding to your question: >Contrary to common perceptions, US technology benefits from these graduates' work even if they leave: though the US share of global patent citations to graduates' science drops from 70% to 50% after migrating, it remains five times larger than the destination country share

STEM PhD students do not pay for their education

True, but I would say a large fraction of foreign nationals who do PhDs in the US were undergrad educated at least partially in the US.

Re: A quarter of US-trained scientists eventually leave

#146

Post by rr808 »

travisgriggs wrote: post #53

I wonder how much generational impacts there are here. My son is a PhD student at an ivy. The most lucrative tuition source for the university is foreign students (as in, they bring in far more tuition dollars for each foreign student than they do native). He has also observed that the payers of these tuitions are usually the parents, who tend to be people who rose through the ideal of "the dream of american educatio…

There is no shortage of US families who would pay the $100k/yr for top 10 university education.

Re: A quarter of US-trained scientists eventually leave

#147

Post by cs_throwaway »

imgabe wrote: post #85
travisgriggs wrote: post #53

I wonder how much generational impacts there are here. My son is a PhD student at an ivy. The most lucrative tuition source for the university is foreign students (as in, they bring in far more tuition dollars for each foreign student than they do native). He has also observed that the payers of these tuitions are usually the parents, who tend to be people who rose through the ideal of "the dream of american educatio…

Why is it necessary to have a flood of foreign money to operate the university? Universities in the past operated without an influx of wealthy foreign students paying outrageous tuition. Today they are bloated with administration that is nothing but a cost center, meanwhile they eliminate tenured professorships and have classes taught by tenuous adjunct faculty who are paid poverty wages. Universities could easily ri…

More money, more income. That's why flood of foreign money is good for a university. But, it is a fallacy to think that this has no cost.

In my experience, the large influx of foreign students are typically at the masters level. MS classes are typically (not always lol!) more advanced than undergraduate classes. So, you need more qualified instructors, such as your tenured/tenure track faculty to teach them. When you take T/TT faculty out of undergraduate classes and replace them with teaching faculty, you lose a lot. (Let me know if you need what's lost to be spelled out.)

Re: A quarter of US-trained scientists eventually leave

#148

Post by vannevar »

kragen wrote: post #84
vannevar wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is manifestly not true. What leads you to believe this? Certainly there are some who don't, just as with undergraduate education. But there's no blanket program in the US to pay for all STEM PhDs.

All of the dozens of US STEM PhDs I know from recent decades had to pay their tuition by working as TAs, RAs, or usually both. They didn't walk in the door with a trust fund, work through the coursework, and then write up a dissertation. I'm not sure that's even a possibility in most STEM fields: you need access to millions of dollars of ultra-specialized equipment which you can realistically only get by working in a…

Right, they work a job to pay for their tuition. But they still pay, even if it's bartered.

Re: A quarter of US-trained scientists eventually leave

#149

Post by rr808 »

cavisne wrote: post #65

“40% move to China” This is the plan not a coincidence. China pays huge “grants” to their citizens to come to the US, get educated, work in big tech/science, then bring it all home.

There might be a plan but more likely Chinese salaries have grown a lot in the last 20 years. 20 years ago US salaries were much higher - it makes sense to get a US degree and work here. Now you might as well go home again, it isn't better to be in the US any more.

Re: A quarter of US-trained scientists eventually leave

#150

Post by SauciestGNU »

Fomite wrote: post #131
MostlyStable wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the culture normalized such that a much larger proportion of research was conducted by permanent, non-faculty, research employees, this would both reduce the need for so many students and increase the jobs available for students, and create a new employment niche with a different balance of teaching/administration/research. It would basically be turning "post doc" into an actual career rather than a stop over. Thi…

This isn't really a culture problem, IMO, as much as a funding one. My group currently employs two people of the description you have, and it does reduce the need for students (and honestly, increase productivity). It's also by far the most stressful part of my job. Funding them involves writing multiple grants per year (because the expectation of any particular grant is low, even with a decent hit rate) and I am con…

The funding problem is a cultural problem though. Religious right wing politicians in the US have attacked science and education funding at every opportunity. Science and education produce ideas that are at odds with right wing religious orthodoxy, so those things must not be allowed in society.
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