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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

#311

Post by buellerbueller »

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.

Over the long run, the benefits of private sector mostly accrue to the private sector.

Over the long run, the benefits of the public sector mostly accrue to society.

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

#312

Post by fasbiner »

rwyinuse wrote: post #112
JuniperMesos wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not claiming that this is a step in the direction of fixing academia; I'm claiming that, because academia is currently broken, we shouldn't assume that the ~10k people who got PhDs under the current system are people doing actually-valuable work for the federal government and ultimately the American people.

Knowing current administration anti-science approach to things like climate and health, I wouldn't be all at surprised if many of those who left academia were ones producing quality work that just didn't align with Trump admin's ideology.

I suspect you're right, but what we are and are not surprised by is self-referential rather than evidentiary.

But are we supposed to be content with not being given enough information to make a meaningful differentiation between people with PhDs in human resources and $IDENTITY-studies vs PhDs in organic chemistry and climatology?

When there's hostility towards discernment, it makes me feel like the two political strains are working together to use a one-two punch of credentialism and anti-intellectualism to erode empirical investigation into reality.

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

#313

Post by adev_ »

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.

You are not going to find much because China is not yet part officially of Horizons (South Korea and Japan are but not China).

Most of these collaborations happens under the hood and are peer-to-peer and project based.

I can speak for the fields that I am close to:

- For Astrophysics, China already provide both hardware and computing resources to some projects. Conferences in China are in common and exchange are frequents. Rumors of collaborations on Space and scientific satellites are also on the way.

- For nuclear physics, China is actively participating in several software stack used for nuclear fusion. There is also mutual collaborations on some nuclear fusion reactors and they regularly host conferences where EU researchers are invited. They progressed tremendously compared to 10y ago.

- For particle physics, China was historically playing alone and was planning to create and operate their own particle collider similar to the LHC in size. This is not on the table anymore. There is a deeper collaborations with several EU institutes including CERN, they also voiced their interest in the FCC project.

- For Neurosciences, their labs has permissions to execute wet experiments on animals that are forbidden on most EU territories and that I will not describe. A lot of data are shared both way between China and several EU labs. Many neurosciences related conferences have emerged in China, exchanges are much more common that they were.

- For HPC and A.I, this is by far the most active and pushed research domain actually. Alibaba, Tencent and others are even proposing computing resources for free on some projects in exchange of conference attendance in China and collaborations. There is not much collaboration on hardware (due to embargos and NDAs) but a lot of collaborations on software.

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

#314

Post by malfist »

mike_hearn wrote: post #235
malfist wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just because some PhD students make "low quality science" doesn't mean we end academia. After all, who is going to do the high quality science if you get rid of all the scientists?

Lots of scientists work in industry. Look at AI, rocketry, semiconductors, drug design, robotics, anything related to manufacturing. Academics are in the minority in these fields. You could eliminate all such jobs and there'd be plenty of science being done.

That's applied science. You don't have companies doing basic research because it isn't immediately profitable. You have to do both, basic research to learn things, and applied science to utilize it and make it commercially valuable.

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

#315

Post by relaxing »

Herring wrote: post #206

The problem with these threads is everyone wants to complain about Trump, but support drops drastically when you talk about policies that actually help buffer against the far-right. Eg implementing robust safety nets and low inequality, to reduce status anxiety and grievance. How many of you software engineers want to sign up for high taxes? It's basically tragedy of the commons. Economics on its own is probably not…

You’re right to be thinking of second- and third-order solutions to these problems, which unfortunately the commenters in these threads aren’t prepared to engage with.

But the “economic anxiety” angle is well debunked at this point. Grievance, stoked by the right wing takeover of the media, is the answer. And we’ll need to go a lot further along the vector of solutions you’ve started down to fix that.

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

#316

Post by adev_ »

kevinsync wrote: post #250
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…

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…

> 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 honestly do not know.

Academia works with networking between peers and moves where the money is.

In Academia, the relation between researchers and the 'names' in the domain matters a lot. But the money stream matters even more.

When relations are created, I do not see them 'ending' just because US decided to play the good guys again and open the money stream again.

It will help to restore some links yes, but will probably not cut any ties created with other countries.

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

#317

Post by RealityVoid »

Herring wrote: post #300
munificent wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with funding. The US is spending $892.6 billion on the military, $11.3B on ICE, and planning to spend $400 million building a fucking ballroom . It's about authoritarianism.

I want you to go to your favorite frontier LLM and ask how much it would cost the US to implement Vienna-style public housing. Figure in paying off current homeowners to get their support. Restrict it to major cities where housing is the worst, just to make it easier. I bet you it's well over $10T long-term. Iraq was $2-3T long term. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War

You know what? I'll bite. I just went to Gemini and asked this and the answer was between 2.5 and 5 trillion. So less than 2 Iraq wars. Deff a tractable problem if so.

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

#318

Post by ModernMech »

Hammershaft wrote: post #286
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.

They can cut budgets without Congress by reappropriating money now, it's one of the powers they've managed to usurp. But they don't have to cut anything, they manage to curb spending by throwing a wrench in the whole machine and watching awards crawl to a halt. They cancel grants, fire or drive out reviewers to increase review times, or delay follow-up funding. Maybe the funding comes through eventually but students need to be funded continually; the government will pull their visas if they don't have funding to enroll.

They're also straight up harassing and arresting foreign students for no reason, so they don't even have to muck with the budget at all to materially ruin things.

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

#319

Post by dragontamer »

kelipso wrote: post #249
dragontamer wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Geely owns Volvo and IIRC a significant portion of Volvos are Chinese made now. There's a number of companies or brands that are now Chinese owned. China knows that home grown brands (like Geely) don't work on an international stage, so they buy well known brands like Volvo. It's a bit of a silent behind the scenes takeover but I'd say that China is now seriously making competitive cars. If you can follow the brands…

Lol, the fully homegrown BYD is destroying Tesla everywhere outside the US where it’s basically banned and you’re taking about Geely and Volvo and behind the scenes. It’s all out there on the stage.

I don't really give a shit about Tesla though. Or BYD for that matter.

By my eye, Volvo / Geely cars are the most impressive.

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

#320

Post by adev_ »

GuestFAUniverse wrote: post #282
detritus wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

> I never heard of Europeans being treated like shit in China -- simply the better hosts!

Yeah. Also lets not forget:

- Citizens from most EU countries can now enter China visa free. No ESTA and no other administrative crap. Generally no problem to enter and leave the country as long as you respect the law there.

- The Chinese authority are very cooperative when it is about granting some visting Visa to researchers. Most Chinese research centers and Universities have a some kind of direct link to an office that can bypass some of the procedures.

The situation is way easier than it was 10y ago.

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