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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

#281

Post by josephg »

bayarearefugee wrote: post #160
ixtli wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10k PhDs lost isn't a step in the direction of fixing anything, though. There is little to no evidence that the people leaving aren't the top performers, let alone the bottom.

> There is little to no evidence that the people leaving aren't the top performers, let alone the bottom. According to the article, the majority of the losses were voluntary (people quitting or accepting buyout offers) and not people who were directly laid-off. While this isn't direct evidence of where these people sit on the spectrum from top to bottom performers, my anecdotal life experience suggests that when loss…

At least amongst my circles, that seems so obvious. I don’t know what things are actually like on the ground. But from here in Australia, the subtext of all the ICE news is that foreigners are no longer welcome in the US. And that America is becoming an authoritarian, fascist state.

Of course I don’t want to visit the US. There’s no way I’d want to move there right now.

I know of multiple US run conferences which are taking place in Europe this year. Too many attendees wouldn’t come if they were hosted in the US.

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

#282

Post by GuestFAUniverse »

detritus wrote: post #264
kevinsync wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You being an outside observer of my country, what do you think the mid-term (next ~decade) looks like if the US is somehow able to flush the toilet and do a complete 180 from a policy and administration perspective? I imagine even if people we need are welcomed back with open arms, they're not going to want to come. I sure wouldn't want to go back to a bar where the bouncer kicked the shit out of me! Just curious, it…

As an outsider not in academia, your system has poisoned your well. We trusted in you to do the Right Thing , yet a significant sub-system of your culture has entirely successfully undermined your 'Checks and Balances' - a sub-system which has clearly been in action since at least the eighties. I don't know how you get rid of that. It's You. . I get that America/the West is far from perfect.

Are you kidding?

Currently I wouldn't dare to enter the US, while I'm sure I would be relatively safe in China. And: even before Trump the TSA had elements of despotism. All the while I never heard of Europeans being treated like shit in China -- simply the better hosts!

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

#283

Post by rjh29 »

tasuki wrote: post #214
mjuarez wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is misleading. It's actually taxing 36% of _assumed gains_ of say 5% on all assets. So if you have $1M in savings, you'll end up paying 1.8% or $18K/annum, regardless of the actual investment return. I can see it would be painful during down years, but most of the time it would be ok.

No, that's not ok. Many years ago, a friend of mine in the Netherlands had the same job as another guy, earning the same money, my friend being extremely thrifty, the other guy splurging. When they both found themselves out of a job at the same time, my friend got no support from the government as he had savings, while the other guy started getting a very generous allowance. This goes directly against all that is rea…

Same situation in the UK. Even a modest amount of savings (a few months of your salary) is enough to disqualify you from the majority of benefits, childcare etc.

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

#284

Post by retired »

tasuki wrote: post #214
mjuarez wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is misleading. It's actually taxing 36% of _assumed gains_ of say 5% on all assets. So if you have $1M in savings, you'll end up paying 1.8% or $18K/annum, regardless of the actual investment return. I can see it would be painful during down years, but most of the time it would be ok.

No, that's not ok. Many years ago, a friend of mine in the Netherlands had the same job as another guy, earning the same money, my friend being extremely thrifty, the other guy splurging. When they both found themselves out of a job at the same time, my friend got no support from the government as he had savings, while the other guy started getting a very generous allowance. This goes directly against all that is rea…

Correct. If you go over €38.478 in savings, you immediately lose your renters benefit. No taper, just a hard drop-off. You can lose up to €5.000 in renters benefit a year.

A legal tax avoidance is to just buy a €1000 TV if you are near the limit. Yes that is as crazy as it sounds but people do it.

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

#285

Post by TacoCommander »

direwolf20 wrote: post #44
TacoCommander wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A simple house in the South Bay is $2 million or more. Is this a win for humanity?

What's the relationship between this comment and the topic of discussion?

The point was - Do we really benefit from these companies in our backyard, or are they destroying local communities?

Is a trillion dollar company in your backyard really a good thing?

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

#286

Post by Hammershaft »

titzer wrote: post #163

It's harder to recruit PhD students and it's harder to fund them. NSF budget was cut 55% in the first year. The administration is doing everything possible to make it clear that no foreigners are welcome here. America is stabbing itself directly in the brain.

The %55 budget cut is proposed, it fortunately hasn't happened yet and it might not survive congress.

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

#287

Post by bnjms »

somethingsome wrote: post #272
adev_ wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

European researcher here. There is an other thing that should make America worry. Research grants have been cut everywhere in the US. That cuts deep and terminated many scientific collaborations between USA and the EU Horizons projects in many STEMs research fields. That created a void.... and sciences is like nature: it hates void (and the lack of money...) My perception in the domain is that the resulting void is b…

Hi, I looked into joint collaborations between many countries and EU, but honestly I didn't really find anything EU-China that was interesting, most funding agencies do not fund collaborative projects EU-China, or maybe I'm missing something, in any cases it didn't strike me. If you have some examples I would be curious. There are way more opportunities with other countries that I'm aware of, mostly EU-EU.

I’m unfamiliar with academia but doesn’t this only measure formal funding? It doesn’t measure collaboration with separate EU funding.

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

#288

Post by ActorNightly »

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.

>Private sector does some things better, see Rocket Lab, Blue Origin, SpaceX, et al.

All of those companies exist on the backbone of work that was done by government funded labs. You are just seeing the investments pay off.

PHds aren't engineers. The whole point of a PHd is basically spending a whole bunch of time working on something, with a very slight chance that it may or may not work - this is not something that is compatible with a private sector in any means. The point is that as a collective, you hope that someone has a brain blast moment and discover something that engineers can then take and make viable.

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

#289

Post by [deleted] »

weirdmantis69 wrote: post #155
amelius wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is because China has a meritocratic system.

I'm very curious about this because even tho we need to preserve democracy, some elements of meritocracy also seem needed. Obviously as Xi's latest purges show, there is some politics to it as well, but China does seem to do a fairly good job of meritocracy in the bureaucracy.

[deleted]

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

#290

Post by bauldursdev »

guywithahat wrote: post #216
titzer wrote: post #163

It's harder to recruit PhD students and it's harder to fund them. NSF budget was cut 55% in the first year. The administration is doing everything possible to make it clear that no foreigners are welcome here. America is stabbing itself directly in the brain.

> It's harder to recruit PhD students and it's harder to fund them If it’s harder to fund them then it should be easier to recruit them. I don’t think both can be true at the same time, unless you’re saying it’s harder to fund foreign PhD’s with US tax dollars in which case I think you’ll find limited sympathy for your cause.

It's not a fixed size of PhD candidates competing. A future PhD candidate may choose to not become a future PhD candidate because of changes. For example, a high school or undergraduate student might read all these articles and statistics about how funding is getting pulled and research is becoming more difficult and choose to take another path. They are no longer a competitor to be a PhD candidate, they do not bid down the prices.
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