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Scientists used to make a good living in the USA. Now the market is flooded with cheap foreigners and science is a road to poverty. Ending the employment of che

Scientists used to make a good living in the USA. Now the market is flooded with cheap foreigners and science is a road to poverty. Ending the employment of cheap foreigners, including as TAs and RAs, would go a long way to making science a respectable profession again. And it would open the field to American women. When math and science professors can't make a decent living to support a family until after their prime child bearing years, any claims of equal treatment and equal opportunity are nothing but a sham. Science careers today practically demand that women permanently give up any hope of a family just to get on the professor track. And things are just getting worse. It's time to stop importing foreign science grads.

_Wintermute 10y ago
Foreign science grads are what is driving the US as a leader in R&D. Look at the post-docs at labs in MIT, look at the US Nobel prize winners - the majority of them are immigrants If companies are limited to domestic scientists then they'll quite happily move their R&D departments to countries with more relaxed immigration laws. Foreign universities will happily take the best researchers from around the world that are denied work in the US. We're seeing this in the UK from the Brexit fallout. We were getting the brightest from around Europe working in our research labs. Now that we're going to make it more difficult for them they're probably going to go elsewhere.
- ianai 10y ago
  The elephant no one seems to talk about is: Why are universities not accepting more "local" grad students? In my experience, it was the standardized tests. I was completing an undergrad in math while attempting to the GRE. Meanwhile I heard stories of students in other countries essentially focusing on the GRE as their undergrad equivalents weren't as time consuming/rigorous.
  - WildUtah 10y ago
    In my experience, standardized tests play almost no role in STEM grad school admissions. Why would a math department care about your score on a vocabulary test like the GRE, as long as you speak fluent English? The keys are, above all, good recommendations from respectable academics and some kind of research experience followed by high undergrad grades. A high GRE score can't substitute for any of those. Of course, the foreigners can manufacture the grades and recommendations with a little cash. Maybe even the research experience. They probably do have to study English to pass the standardized tests: The one that matters for them is the TOEFL.
    - bayareafella 10y ago
      > Of course, the foreigners can manufacture the grades and recommendations with a little cash. Maybe even the research experience. They probably do have to study English to pass the standardized tests: The one that matters for them is the TOEFL. Wow. Do you have any source for this? I would love to hear one. DO you have ANY idea how difficult it is to get an application accepted at a top tier grad school? Especially if you are an international student? We have to compete against millions of our own country folk at our local examinations, which are way more difficult than the american equivalents. Google IIT-JEE for a starter, and probably try to solve a few sample questions. We work hard to get to where we are and don't expect/feel entitled a job/education just because we are born in a certain country. No one is conspiring to keep local students out, it just happens to be that when graded on a uniform scale (set by the universities themselves (Not every foreign institution's scores are accepted)) the international counterparts are better. With respect to my credentials and experience, I was a grad student from India in one of the tier one schools and work as an architect in the Big 4. You see a huge international presence here in the big companies frankly because we compete at a completely different scale than what you would like to think. I have interviewed enough people to not judge them based on where they come from or how well they can talk english.
      - WildUtah 10y ago
        We have to compete against millions of our own country folk at our local examinations, which are way more difficult than the american equivalents. It's much harder in America because it doesn't matter how you do on the examinations. Your fate is decided by personal opinions and relationships and what your local school thinks of you. There is no simple IIT exam or A-level or Baccalaureate or Sooneung where you can just study hard, write a great exam and get admitted. How we dreamed of the ease foreign students had with their exams! Instead it's a deep dreary slog of obsequiousness, obedience, busy work, group projects, supplication, and being seen but seldom heard. And the results are secret evaluations you're never entitled to see and which are never documented in public. But that's all for undergrad. The fact remains that the only exam that matters much in top tier grad admissions for US schools is the TOEFL and that's only for foreigners. Documented research work experience is much more important than any test.
  - selimthegrim 10y ago
    If you want to go to grad school and you spend more than like maybe two weekends studying for the general GRE, maybe you should consider other options. (The subject GREs are another can of worms entirely)
  - aakshintala 10y ago
    Trust me the people who spent all their time focused on the GRE don't make it to decent grad programs. The elephant in the room isn't why aren't more universities accepting 'local' students. No department would choose a foreigner over a local. You wanna know why? How much the student is going to cost them. Foreign students never qualify for in-state tuition (well at a state school anyways) and right off the bat are much more expensive to their advisor's budget. Local students can also apply for NSF Graduate Fellowship, and bring in their own funding, something most foreign students can't. Both of these factors make it so that the first preference is to hire local. That said, in a large number of departments (especially in CS, and other sciences) you see a burgeoning international student population. Why? There just weren't enough decent local applicants to go around and science needs its foot-soldiers.
    - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
      >That said, in a large number of departments (especially in CS, and other sciences) you see a burgeoning international student population. Why? There just weren't enough decent local applicants to go around and science needs its foot-soldiers. That's not really true. The basic problem is that while a foreigner can take a US PhD and apply for a fairly prestigious job in their home country, an American with a US PhD gets their career stuck in a rut. Multiple post-docs, for low salaries and long hours, followed by a desperate rush to find a job in a national lab, an industrial lab, or academia. There are hundreds of applicants for each permanent job, and even if you get a permanent job, you're not really guaranteed job-security (tenure). Many "permanent" jobs are even on soft money, which means if you fail to bring in enough grants (and grant rates have fallen dreadfully low in recent years due to Congressional budget cuts), you're a "professor" who can't pay for food or housing. American academia relies too much on having legions of cheap grad-students to do much of the footwork, and then throwing those "students" out of science entirely when they graduate. It also relies on Congress actually funding the NSF, NIH, NASA, etc. at rates proportional to how much science is being done, which of course nowadays Congress steadfastly refuses to do. American science careers are in crisis because the career model has become based upon exploitation: getting as much cheap labor out of as many people as possible before throwing them away.
hn_news 10y ago
In grad school i was one of those TAs teaching science to 1st/2nd year university kids. Let me tell you, i was horrified and could not believe these kids paid $50k/year to attend these essentially "baby sitting" classes with high school level information.. at most. 95% kids knew nothing IMO and were planning to go to med schools, i pissed off many of them (as i later discovered) by not giving them anything higher than a C (honestly they deserved to fail). They thought i was too hard one them, but all i was looking for is understanding of the subject and they clearly had very over the surface level of understanding .. Where i come from they would not even be able to enter the university at all... To me the educational system is clearly broken, most schools in USA are unable to produce quality talent. One of the things that annoyed me was the love of multiple choice tests .. i never encountered one in academia until i came to the USA. What, they tell you the answer when you take the test? Whats the point of the test? Until USA fixes education system ground up starting from the elementary school to high school to college there will continue to be a need for talent from outside of the country. Until teaching becomes a highly respected and competitive profession (see Japan) - things will not change. There is a lot of demand for smart well educated people in this country and Since America does not have enough of these people inside (see last election results lol) there will continue to be a flow of brains from the outside of the country.
- WildUtah 10y ago
  One of the things that annoyed me was the love of multiple choice tests We said "multiple choice" only to the foreigners and the most uptight profs. They're properly called 'multiple guess' by American students.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    No, we Americans call them "multiple-choice tests" too. And they're bullshit.

_Wintermute 10y ago

Foreign science grads are what is driving the US as a leader in R&D. Look at the post-docs at labs in MIT, look at the US Nobel prize winners - the majority of them are immigrants If companies are limited to domestic scientists then they'll quite happily move their R&D departments to countries with more relaxed immigration laws. Foreign universities will happily take the best researchers from around the world that are denied work in the US. We're seeing this in the UK from the Brexit fallout. We were getting the brightest from around Europe working in our research labs. Now that we're going to make it more difficult for them they're probably going to go elsewhere.

ianai 10y ago
The elephant no one seems to talk about is: Why are universities not accepting more "local" grad students? In my experience, it was the standardized tests. I was completing an undergrad in math while attempting to the GRE. Meanwhile I heard stories of students in other countries essentially focusing on the GRE as their undergrad equivalents weren't as time consuming/rigorous.
- WildUtah 10y ago
  In my experience, standardized tests play almost no role in STEM grad school admissions. Why would a math department care about your score on a vocabulary test like the GRE, as long as you speak fluent English? The keys are, above all, good recommendations from respectable academics and some kind of research experience followed by high undergrad grades. A high GRE score can't substitute for any of those. Of course, the foreigners can manufacture the grades and recommendations with a little cash. Maybe even the research experience. They probably do have to study English to pass the standardized tests: The one that matters for them is the TOEFL.
  - bayareafella 10y ago
    > Of course, the foreigners can manufacture the grades and recommendations with a little cash. Maybe even the research experience. They probably do have to study English to pass the standardized tests: The one that matters for them is the TOEFL. Wow. Do you have any source for this? I would love to hear one. DO you have ANY idea how difficult it is to get an application accepted at a top tier grad school? Especially if you are an international student? We have to compete against millions of our own country folk at our local examinations, which are way more difficult than the american equivalents. Google IIT-JEE for a starter, and probably try to solve a few sample questions. We work hard to get to where we are and don't expect/feel entitled a job/education just because we are born in a certain country. No one is conspiring to keep local students out, it just happens to be that when graded on a uniform scale (set by the universities themselves (Not every foreign institution's scores are accepted)) the international counterparts are better. With respect to my credentials and experience, I was a grad student from India in one of the tier one schools and work as an architect in the Big 4. You see a huge international presence here in the big companies frankly because we compete at a completely different scale than what you would like to think. I have interviewed enough people to not judge them based on where they come from or how well they can talk english.
    - WildUtah 10y ago
      We have to compete against millions of our own country folk at our local examinations, which are way more difficult than the american equivalents. It's much harder in America because it doesn't matter how you do on the examinations. Your fate is decided by personal opinions and relationships and what your local school thinks of you. There is no simple IIT exam or A-level or Baccalaureate or Sooneung where you can just study hard, write a great exam and get admitted. How we dreamed of the ease foreign students had with their exams! Instead it's a deep dreary slog of obsequiousness, obedience, busy work, group projects, supplication, and being seen but seldom heard. And the results are secret evaluations you're never entitled to see and which are never documented in public. But that's all for undergrad. The fact remains that the only exam that matters much in top tier grad admissions for US schools is the TOEFL and that's only for foreigners. Documented research work experience is much more important than any test.
- selimthegrim 10y ago
  If you want to go to grad school and you spend more than like maybe two weekends studying for the general GRE, maybe you should consider other options. (The subject GREs are another can of worms entirely)
- aakshintala 10y ago
  Trust me the people who spent all their time focused on the GRE don't make it to decent grad programs. The elephant in the room isn't why aren't more universities accepting 'local' students. No department would choose a foreigner over a local. You wanna know why? How much the student is going to cost them. Foreign students never qualify for in-state tuition (well at a state school anyways) and right off the bat are much more expensive to their advisor's budget. Local students can also apply for NSF Graduate Fellowship, and bring in their own funding, something most foreign students can't. Both of these factors make it so that the first preference is to hire local. That said, in a large number of departments (especially in CS, and other sciences) you see a burgeoning international student population. Why? There just weren't enough decent local applicants to go around and science needs its foot-soldiers.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    >That said, in a large number of departments (especially in CS, and other sciences) you see a burgeoning international student population. Why? There just weren't enough decent local applicants to go around and science needs its foot-soldiers. That's not really true. The basic problem is that while a foreigner can take a US PhD and apply for a fairly prestigious job in their home country, an American with a US PhD gets their career stuck in a rut. Multiple post-docs, for low salaries and long hours, followed by a desperate rush to find a job in a national lab, an industrial lab, or academia. There are hundreds of applicants for each permanent job, and even if you get a permanent job, you're not really guaranteed job-security (tenure). Many "permanent" jobs are even on soft money, which means if you fail to bring in enough grants (and grant rates have fallen dreadfully low in recent years due to Congressional budget cuts), you're a "professor" who can't pay for food or housing. American academia relies too much on having legions of cheap grad-students to do much of the footwork, and then throwing those "students" out of science entirely when they graduate. It also relies on Congress actually funding the NSF, NIH, NASA, etc. at rates proportional to how much science is being done, which of course nowadays Congress steadfastly refuses to do. American science careers are in crisis because the career model has become based upon exploitation: getting as much cheap labor out of as many people as possible before throwing them away.

hn_news 10y ago

In grad school i was one of those TAs teaching science to 1st/2nd year university kids. Let me tell you, i was horrified and could not believe these kids paid $50k/year to attend these essentially "baby sitting" classes with high school level information.. at most. 95% kids knew nothing IMO and were planning to go to med schools, i pissed off many of them (as i later discovered) by not giving them anything higher than a C (honestly they deserved to fail). They thought i was too hard one them, but all i was looking for is understanding of the subject and they clearly had very over the surface level of understanding .. Where i come from they would not even be able to enter the university at all... To me the educational system is clearly broken, most schools in USA are unable to produce quality talent. One of the things that annoyed me was the love of multiple choice tests .. i never encountered one in academia until i came to the USA. What, they tell you the answer when you take the test? Whats the point of the test? Until USA fixes education system ground up starting from the elementary school to high school to college there will continue to be a need for talent from outside of the country. Until teaching becomes a highly respected and competitive profession (see Japan) - things will not change. There is a lot of demand for smart well educated people in this country and Since America does not have enough of these people inside (see last election results lol) there will continue to be a flow of brains from the outside of the country.

WildUtah 10y ago
One of the things that annoyed me was the love of multiple choice tests We said "multiple choice" only to the foreigners and the most uptight profs. They're properly called 'multiple guess' by American students.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  No, we Americans call them "multiple-choice tests" too. And they're bullshit.