Additional Data

Here's an updated graph of the percentage of temporary visa holders in mathematics, physical science and engineering graduate programs. In 2005 (the most recent year for which data is available), the percentages were 42% for physical sciences, 44% for mathematics and 54% for engineering. These numbers reflect a slight drop from their peaks in 2001-2 due to a reduced number of visas in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.






For those who want all the gory details, they can be found at the NSF website.

Restarting a conversation from October 2004

It should be deeply troubling that admissions for students from countries which have previously been enthusiastic consumers of American education is up (apparently in double-digit percentage increases), especially in fields where American student participation has already declined dramatically, and in which international student participation already exceeds 50%.

It is facile and [dis]ingenuous to claim that this is a problem related to a lack of competitiveness on the part of American students. The real issue is whether the departments in question have been compromised to the extent that they no longer function for the populations that they were built to educate. Ohio University’s experience over the last two years indicates that such a compromised culture flourished for over two decades in its graduate mechanical engineering department — allowing international students to plagiarize with impunity and thus “outcompete” US citizens. Ohio is not alone and the problems detailed there may be spreading.

Realistically, American students really have very few other options to fulfill their educational needs. Degrees taken in most other nations (with the exceptions of the UK, Canada, and Australia) are usually not considered equivalent to US degrees in the US job market, and most nations are not particularly open to the notion of welcoming immigrant labor. There is also a certain amount of resentment and hostility generally directed at Americans abroad primarily owing to political issues — even in nations that are presumably allies — and it would be foolish to assume that this does not have a negative impact on those subjected to it.

There are other substantive issues involved, including the indiscriminate dissemination and loss of intellectual property, the exploitation of graduate programs to provide means and opportunity for international espionage, and the probability of successful integration of people from countries where ethnicity and religion are conflated with national identity. There are issues of representation and not-so-subtle racism — is it sound for a nation to enroll large numbers of people from a given nation (e.g. India) when it has substantial minority populations that are underserved (i.e. Hispanic, African-American, or better yet, Native American)? Not least is the issue of whether a nation has a duty to at least try to ensure the productive employment of its citizens, and whether large-scale international participation interferes with that duty.

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