Aren't more than a fifth of PhD holders in the U.S. foreign born? The story of immigrants returning home is a lot different from a story of native-born Americans abandoning their country.
Nearly a fifth of scientists are considering abandoning the U.S.
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Re: Nearly a fifth of scientists are considering abandoning the U.S.
#22Aren't more than a fifth of PhD holders in the U.S. foreign born? The story of immigrants returning home is a lot different from a story of native-born Americans abandoning their country.
I think it's easier to not be alarmed about foreign-born PhDs returning home (if that is indeed where they go when they leave the us) than if it were US natives leaving, but I'm not sure that it's really that much less worrisome. Either way, smart people are deciding that they can earn a better life with their skills in a different country. If it's foreign-born PhDs returning home, it really only says that the natives are staying because of the difficulties of getting started in a new country, not that the long-term outlook of moving isn't bad.
Re: Nearly a fifth of scientists are considering abandoning the U.S.
#23Aren't more than a fifth of PhD holders in the U.S. foreign born? The story of immigrants returning home is a lot different from a story of native-born Americans abandoning their country.
It's definitely not just immigrants returning home. My wife is a neuroscientist, and we emigrated to Canada. Whether we will return is still an open question.
Re: Nearly a fifth of scientists are considering abandoning the U.S.
#24Economics -> Research priorities "Because of science - not religion or politics - even people like you and me can have possessions that only a hundred years ago kings would have gone to war to own. Scientific method should not be take lightly. The walls of the ivory tower of science collapsed when bureaucrats realized that there were jobs to be had and money to be made in the administration and promotion of science.…
What are you trying to say about the linked story?
Re: Nearly a fifth of scientists are considering abandoning the U.S.
#25Aren't more than a fifth of PhD holders in the U.S. foreign born? The story of immigrants returning home is a lot different from a story of native-born Americans abandoning their country.
It isn't like that at all. The funding picture has changed dramatically in the last few years. Back in 2003 the NIH success rate was around 30 %, if your idea wasn't too stupid you could count on your getting funded for the next five years. Now it's less than 10 %. If you are not at MIT or Caltech you might consider not even applying.
Folks, we are looking at the end of an empire.
Re: Nearly a fifth of scientists are considering abandoning the U.S.
#26The turning point as far as I am concerned was when Leon Lederman resigned as Director of Fermilab to work more on the LHC.
Yet another high energy physicist who thinks HEP is the only science being done. /condensedMatterPhysicistRant
Re: Nearly a fifth of scientists are considering abandoning the U.S.
#27Aren't more than a fifth of PhD holders in the U.S. foreign born? The story of immigrants returning home is a lot different from a story of native-born Americans abandoning their country.
I think it's easier to not be alarmed about foreign-born PhDs returning home (if that is indeed where they go when they leave the us) than if it were US natives leaving, but I'm not sure that it's really that much less worrisome. Either way, smart people are deciding that they can earn a better life with their skills in a different country. If it's foreign-born PhDs returning home, it really only says that the native…
> I think it's easier to not be alarmed about foreign-born PhDs returning home (if that is indeed where they go when they leave the us) than if it were US natives leaving, but I'm not sure that it's really that much less worrisome.
It is a very different situation, and the meaningfulness is likewise different. For a foreign-born PhD holder, they have family back there, they'll become bigger fish in a smaller pond, they already know the language, probably have citizenship, are acculturated, may not have kids and wives deeply embedded into American culture & communities, etc. For an American-born PhD holder, most of these will be false. The cost to an American of moving permanently overseas is, on average, going to be vastly higher to them.
When you hear of some foreign-born PhD holders on the margin deciding to return home, it's no big deal, and is adequately explained by very small shifts in the rewards of being in the US and the rewards of going home. (And a survey means even less.) People simply don't want to leave their home countries for very good reasons. Think of how few Jews left Nazi Germany before it was too late, even when the writing was literally on the wall (in the form of anti-semitic graffiti).
When you hear of a lot of American scientists leaving America permanently, then it's time to start panicking.
Re: Nearly a fifth of scientists are considering abandoning the U.S.
#28I find the metric questionable, or maybe established poorly (there is a strong difference between "considering the idea as a far flung possible track" and a visceral near-line option)
Re: Nearly a fifth of scientists are considering abandoning the U.S.
#29It's not just economics. The key to excellence in science is to attract the best, keep the best, and give them what they need to do their best.
Researchers start out as grad-students, and the U.S. is a lot less friendly to foreign students than it used to be. Whether it's increased trouble with permits or being treated like terrorists by the TSA, fewer foreign grad students are staying in the U.S.. Many students considering a move to the U.S. are dissuaded after just one conference on U.S. soil! Overly nationalistic individuals from other countries can take some joy in this since it means better minds for their own nations, but science is a global endeavor and what lessens one nation lessens us all!
Re: Nearly a fifth of scientists are considering abandoning the U.S.
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's easier to not be alarmed about foreign-born PhDs returning home (if that is indeed where they go when they leave the us) than if it were US natives leaving, but I'm not sure that it's really that much less worrisome. Either way, smart people are deciding that they can earn a better life with their skills in a different country. If it's foreign-born PhDs returning home, it really only says that the native…
> I think it's easier to not be alarmed about foreign-born PhDs returning home (if that is indeed where they go when they leave the us) than if it were US natives leaving, but I'm not sure that it's really that much less worrisome. It is a very different situation, and the meaningfulness is likewise different. For a foreign-born PhD holder, they have family back there, they'll become bigger fish in a smaller pond, th…
The writing is on the wall right now for science outside the top dozen or so universities in the country.