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Students from China (and many other countries) are required to renew their visas annually, a process which is already quite nerve-wracking for many. PhDs in par

Students from China (and many other countries) are required to renew their visas annually, a process which is already quite nerve-wracking for many. PhDs in particular can take anywhere from 4 to 8 years to complete, meaning 4-8 chances for your studies to be interrupted with the only option to return home while the visa renewal stalls. This article explicitly calls out the fact that renewals seem to have been getting slower, which will impact a lot of students. The US already lost out on multiple academic generations of bright Iranian students and scientists thanks to their restrictive visa policies. If they further hamstring themselves by excluding Chinese students, the decline of American science will accelerate dramatically. Already, science budgets are continually slashed and grants are harder to find. Slowing the pace of scientific development is a short-sighted move that will likely not be felt in full for decades, but it will definitely be felt. Science exists outside of the USA - now is as good a time as any to consider research in places like Canada, Europe, Japan, Korea, and yes, even China. Language doesn’t need to be a barrier - increasingly, many prolific institutions are conducting much of their work in English.

ekianjo 7y ago
> . If they further hamstring themselves by excluding Chinese students, the decline of American science will accelerate dramatically it is a strange assumption to make since by all counts the US is already the country in the world with the most diverse population. It is not as if science is only the work of students or even in particular foreign students...
- tntn 7y ago
  60-80% of graduate students in STEM fields in the U.S. are international students. It seems like having 60-80% fewer graduates would accelerate the decline of American science.
  - zaroth 7y ago
    “[B]etween 1995 and 2015, the number of full-time domestic students enrolled in graduate computer science programs increased by 45 percent, from 8,627 to 12,539 students, while the number of full-time international graduate students increased by about 480 percent, from 7,883 in 1995 to 45,790 in 2015.” CS went from less than 50% to nearly 80% foreign graduate students over 10 years. Quite interesting! https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/10/11/foreign-students-and-graduate-stem-enrollment https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/10/11/foreign...
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    The lack of a stable career path accelerates the decline of American science.
  - scottlocklin 7y ago
    The schools might have to let natives in; the horror. We might have to return to the dark ages of the 1950s when the STEM graduates were majority Americans and we actually were making technological progress in something other than lithography. "Science" is addicted to cheap foreign labor, which has ruined the market for natives.
    - mrhappyunhappy 7y ago
      Who are these natives you speak of? Last I checked we are a nation of immigrants. If not you then your parents, grandparents and their parents.
      - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
        Natives = people who were born and grew up here. Stop being intentionally obtuse. Nobody is native on a long enough timeline.
    - tntn 7y ago
      Certainly increased acceptance rates for domestic students would impact which schools they go to. But do you have any data indicating that a) there are a significant number of domestic students who apply to STEM programs and get rejected from all of them and relatedly b) the demand for grad school positions is sufficiently elastic to match an 80% increase in supply? I'm not sure what your point was with the casual dismissal of 70 years of research in every field besides lithography. Am I supposed to think that international students only work on lithography? Most lithography research, as far as I'm aware, doesn't even happen in academia.
      - scottlocklin 7y ago
        Compared to the previous 70 years, the last 70 years of scientific and technological research has been complete and utter shit, except for lithography. Pretty simple, really. The presence of all that cheap labor in the last 70 years has objectively not made things better. Mind you, in raw numbers we have at least 10x the number of active workers in the sciences in the last 70 years as in the previous 70 years; and less is getting done. Imagine that! Your first point is a red herring: the presence of cheap labor in the sciences and the lack of decent jobs makes it unattractive to any sane person who was born in a first world country.
  - ashelmire 7y ago
    Don’t most of them return to their home countries? Seems like freeing up those spots for American students that will stay would be a boon for American science.
    - rbg246 7y ago
      That would seem to indicate that Americans who want to do STEM courses cannot currently do them? That doesn't sound right to me.
    - nl 7y ago
      No, because graduate students are actually doing the science in the US. If they are replaced by less capable students then the work being done will be of a lower quality.
    - rchaud 7y ago
      "Freeing up those spots" implies that US students are barred from competing for grad school places or that international students have some advantage that domestic students do not.
      - ashelmire 7y ago
        > international students have some advantage that domestic students do not. They often do have more money. And rampant cheating. But regardless, Chinese students can attend any university in China or the US, while an American cannot realistically attend school in China. Obviously that means China is going to have a brighter educational future, as they use our system to advance their own.
        throwaway6969 7y ago
        If they're cheating then they won't hang on to those research spots for long.
        rchaud 7y ago
        Money doesn't make a difference in grad school because everybody is there on some kind of fellowship or research grant. Certainly no international student I've ever met, Chinese or otherwise has paid a cent of tuition past undergrad. Only exceptions would be medical school, MBA and specialist MSc programs offered through business schools.
- henrikschroder 7y ago
  The US has a massive advantage in science (and business) in that many of the best and brightest from across the world want to come to the US, despite the hurdles and issues of getting student visas or work visas. This means that as a country you don't have to pay for the primary and secondary schooling of all these people, but you get to reap the rewards of them working in your country and contributing to your scientific lead, to your economy. But like all advantages, if you don't pay attention, you can squander it. You can make it easy for smart Chinese students (in this instance) to do science in the US and benefit US academia and businesses, or you can make it hard, and the same people will instead benefit some other economy. It's not about diversity, it's about not realizing that the free firehose of cheap and willing smarts and labour isn't perpetual, that it actually has to be maintained and encouraged.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - ordu 7y ago
    > This means that as a country you don't have to pay for the primary and secondary schooling of all these people You don't have to pay for an order of magnitude more people: education is not a technology yet, it could give no guarantees on a results. To get one bright student you need to teach ten people through primary and secondary school.
  - C1sc0cat 7y ago
    If its like the UK International students are a source of income as they pay more and subsidise the locals.
    - orhmeh09 7y ago
      How did universities ever manage to operate whilst charging much lower/no tuition back when there was not a group like this?
      - C1sc0cat 7y ago
        They only catered for a much smaller group basically the elites and a few lucky Grammar school kids.
- ojbyrne 7y ago
  Citation needed, and the colloquialism is actually “by all accounts.” Here is one for you: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/07/18/the-most-and-least-culturally-diverse-countries-in-the-world/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/07/18/the-most-an...
  - ekianjo 7y ago
    That depends a lot by what you call culturally diverse. This map makes you think that Africa is the most diverse continent of all, but the fact is pretty much only the US has and continues receiving people from all over the world, and not just neighboring countries.
    - ojbyrne 7y ago
      Only country? You should visit Canada.
rgbrenner 7y ago
Already, science budgets are continually slashed and grants are harder to find. The first point is false. R&D spending is at a record high: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44307.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44307.pdf Government's share of funding has fallen below 50%, but only because business r&d spending has increased so much. Federal R&D budgets are increasing: https://cen.acs.org/policy/research-funding/US-science-funding-inches/97/i8 https://cen.acs.org/policy/research-funding/US-science-fundi... If the 2nd part is true, it's only because the amount of proposals is growing faster than the funding.
- PeterStuer 7y ago
  Have the definitions/concepts of research in its various forms kept constant in these figures? I know that at least in Europe those have drifted considerable under the influence of industry lobbying to expand more and more into the higher regions of the Technology Readiness Levels [1] model that formerly were definitely not included under the 'R&D' umbrella. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_readiness_level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_readiness_level
- nneonneo 7y ago
  US R&D spending as a whole is up, but a lion's share of that (per your first link) is "development" ($314.5bn of $495.1bn). Academic environments, which are the ones affected by student visa policies and such, primarily engage in basic and applied research (not development), and are largely funded by the national government. Industry grants exist and can be real boons for researchers, but often come with strings attached and are often disproportionately targeted towards certain sectors. National funding for academic research, unfortunately, has been flat (or falling) over the last several years, and has repeatedly been targeted for cuts by the President (luckily reined in by Congress). For example, see the NSF's funding survey: https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2018/nsb20181/assets/968/figures/fig05-02.pdf https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2018/nsb20181/assets/968/figu...
unityByFreedom 7y ago
> yes, even China Just going to leave this here [1]. That's at Peking University, top school in the country. Sure, if you're a foreigner, you'll probably be left alone, but your classmates are not allowed to be themselves, and that's part of your learning environment. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/if-i-disappear-chinese-students-make-farewell-messages-amid-crackdowns-over-labor-activism-/2019/05/25/6fc949c0-727d-11e9-9331-30bc5836f48e_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/if-i-disap...
jorblumesea 7y ago
At the same time, there are a fair amount of public examples of Chinese academics taking US research budgets and running with the results. Or intelligence agents posing as students and swiping everything from university systems. The Confucius Institutes seem similarly nefarious. There needs to be a balance. Cutting out every Chinese academic is absurd and xenophobic, but more scrutiny is needed. This issue isn't black and white; a more nuanced approach is required. To pretend that there isn't some merit to some of these ideas is just as absurd as saying that every academic is a spy. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/29/fbi-director-discusses-chinese-espionage-threat-us-academic-research https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/29/fbi-director-... https://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/education-or-espionage-chinese-student-takes-his-homework-home-china-n893881 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/education-or-espionage-ch... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3007903/china-determined-steal-economic-ladder-us-expense-fbi-chief https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3007903/chi...
point78 7y ago
Don't the majority of foreign PhD students return to their home countries when complete anyway?
- fragmede 7y ago
  Yes - but not entirely by choice. Many a PhD student has returned home after earning their degree, because of the US's visa policies, which make it hard to stay after completing a degree. Why would they stay somewhere that doesn't want them?
  - protastus 7y ago
    Current visa rules make it very easy to stay. STEM graduate students on an F-1 visa get a whopping 36 months of employment authorization in the US. Look up OPT extension. That's 3 years they can apply to get a H-1B. In fact, getting a M.S. from a mediocre U.S. school is a popular method young people use to immigrate.
    - lotsofpulp 7y ago
      H1-B provides for a terrible quality of life, and is only attractive if options in home country are worse.
      - C1sc0cat 7y ago
        It is in many cases ask any Indian on a h1b about the Dickensian employment laws in India reliving letters etc.
        lotsofpulp 7y ago
        I know, and it’s why Indians use H1B, but it’s a terrible policy to be 1 step above Dickensian Indian labor laws and also hurts Americans for the benefit of the owners of capital.
    - levosmetalo 7y ago
the_svd_doctor 7y ago
Your first point is incorrect. First a student asks for an F-1 (sometimes J-1) visa. This can be delivered for a single entry (typical for Iranian students for instance), or for 1 or like 5 years (the common case for international students). The visa lets you _enter_ the country. Once admitted in the US, a student can remain indefinitely while maintaining its student status (including school transfers). This applies to Chinese students as well. There is no renewal and if you only go to school or transfer school, nothing can really happen. There's nothing to renew every year. The issue that arises is when a student leaves the US with an expired VISA. Then he has to apply for a new one before coming back. This is where it can get complicated. I have a student/friend who go stuck 4 months (in China) waiting to renew his VISA.
- ETHisso2017 7y ago
  So once a student has been on a F-1 visa for more than a year, they face a risk of being barred from re-entering the US if they choose to visit their families?
  - occamschainsaw 7y ago
    No, iirc F1 visas are usually granted for length of program plus one year (5 for a BS etc). As long as the person maintains student status with the university, traveling to and fro is permitted.
    - the_svd_doctor 7y ago
      No, there is no such a rule. F-1 VISA are _typically_ granted for 5 years, but PhDs may be longer (6 or even more). Once your VISA expires, and if you go home, you need to reapply for a new one. For some (a small fraction through), VISA are granted for 1 year or are single entry. Those categories of students sometimes chose not to leave the country, for the risk of getting their VISA denied (and, hence, their whole studies and everything with it) is too high (since they got a short in the first place). This is very common thinking within Chinese or Iranian communities.
briandear 7y ago
Was American science declining in the 1960s when almost no Chinese students were in American universities? Could there also be extremely smart people in Africa that might now find a place in American universities? Are there Americans that might now find a place in American Universities? I am not saying anything about visa policies, but suggesting that limiting Chinese students will hurt American science is a pretty narrow view. There is also a counter argument that many bright Chinese students go back to China, thus strengthening China. There is also another view that some Chinese students are working for or carrying the water for Beijing’s government. Students in China can’t just decide to go to the US, they have to be approved by the Chinese government and there is no doubt that such approvals require allegiance to the CCP and and some willingness to help the CCP when asked. Attributing nothing but good intentions for the 350,000 Chinese students admitted to the US each year is naïve. https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/chinese-students-are-stealing-intellectual-property-for-beijing-warns-us-intelligence-agencies/news-story/9872bf737f203dc66feec28d6bb0679b https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/chines...
- lambdasquirrel 7y ago
  American science was doing “well” in the 60’s because Europe was still recovering. Today, the US “competes” (to some extent) with Europe for the best and brightest.
- nneonneo 7y ago
  > there is no doubt that such approvals require allegiance to the CCP and and some willingness to help the CCP when asked. No, they really don’t. Where’s your source for this? You make it sound like we’re just admitting 350,000 spies into the States each year. However, it is true that if you make these folks feel thoroughly unwelcome, they will want to just go home and help out - and that’s exactly what you’ll do by (a) being baselessly suspicious of them and (b) being harsh when they try to stay for studies or immigrate.
  - scottlocklin 7y ago
    I dunno about OP, but there are definitely industrial spy issues, and individual Chinese students do have issues with the government in traveling to the US. I had a Chinese student who I would have loved to keep in the US, but according to him, his parents would suffer because they worked in the banking industry, and they'd fall under suspicion.
StreamBright 7y ago
This is exactly the reason I do not live in the US. Not only the VISA renewal is a big hurdle, sometimes totally randomly they deny you application. Adding the unconstitunal practices at the border where I need to reveal private content and trade secrets to the border control people and you are making sure that many of us are going to work or doing PHD somewhere else. For bonus points, it is not possible to save your details in the gov database so you need to re-enter all the 10 pages of information by hand every time you apply for a VISA. That is right, you need to keep re-entering the same information over and over, again and again.
Tsubasachan 7y ago
Its fascinating how America is slowly turning into a country that simply doesn't want foreigners. Sadly I like New York so I have to diligently go through the mountain of paperwork. How many people from the EU overstay or cause problems for the police?!
- inflatableDodo 7y ago
  Brits overstay and work in the US without the correct paperwork all the time. They don't seem to get noticed by the police for some reason.
  - Kurtz79 7y ago
    When you enter the country you get a stamp with your entry date. Doesn't this get checked when you leave, at passport control? I would think at the very least it would raise a huge red flag the next time you try to enter US... I also doubt that any serious employer would hire someone without checking his/her paperwork, outside maybe of seasonal/server jobs.
    - inflatableDodo 7y ago
      >When you enter the country you get a stamp with your entry date. >Doesn't this get checked when you leave, at passport control? Imagine that there is this huge underground market dedicated to solving this problem for you attached mysteriously to the entire US bar industry. edit - this is honestly the only thing that makes sense. I haven't ever done so, but brits working their US holidays and massively over staying visas by years is not uncommon and I can only think of one example of someone who ended up in actual shit.
      - Kurtz79 7y ago
        I'm not saying that something like this does not exists (and I know for certain that some people overstay their visas), but it just seems silly to me that people coming from countries with similar quality of life and opportunities as the US would risk getting caught doing something illegal, in a country that is notoriously strict on immigration matters.
tjeannin 7y ago
"Europe is home to 1.64 million researchers, while the US number approaches 1.47 million. ... Europe produced 33.4% of the world's research outputs, while the US accounted for 23.4%." The US is not really leading the way. It's a bit strange to "consider" Europe as a potential good place for research, it's already way ahead the US.
- theklub 7y ago
  Europe's population is double what the US is...
  - imafish 7y ago
    Well, the number of researchers obviously isn’t
- ovi256 7y ago
  That's hardly far ahead, barely 11% more than the US. The opposite is true on means, budget and research infrastructure, where the US leads, both in aggregate and per capita, and by much more than 11%.

ekianjo 7y ago

> . If they further hamstring themselves by excluding Chinese students, the decline of American science will accelerate dramatically it is a strange assumption to make since by all counts the US is already the country in the world with the most diverse population. It is not as if science is only the work of students or even in particular foreign students...

tntn 7y ago
60-80% of graduate students in STEM fields in the U.S. are international students. It seems like having 60-80% fewer graduates would accelerate the decline of American science.
- zaroth 7y ago
  “[B]etween 1995 and 2015, the number of full-time domestic students enrolled in graduate computer science programs increased by 45 percent, from 8,627 to 12,539 students, while the number of full-time international graduate students increased by about 480 percent, from 7,883 in 1995 to 45,790 in 2015.” CS went from less than 50% to nearly 80% foreign graduate students over 10 years. Quite interesting! https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/10/11/foreign-students-and-graduate-stem-enrollment https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/10/11/foreign...
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  The lack of a stable career path accelerates the decline of American science.
- scottlocklin 7y ago
  The schools might have to let natives in; the horror. We might have to return to the dark ages of the 1950s when the STEM graduates were majority Americans and we actually were making technological progress in something other than lithography. "Science" is addicted to cheap foreign labor, which has ruined the market for natives.
  - mrhappyunhappy 7y ago
    Who are these natives you speak of? Last I checked we are a nation of immigrants. If not you then your parents, grandparents and their parents.
    - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      Natives = people who were born and grew up here. Stop being intentionally obtuse. Nobody is native on a long enough timeline.
  - tntn 7y ago
    Certainly increased acceptance rates for domestic students would impact which schools they go to. But do you have any data indicating that a) there are a significant number of domestic students who apply to STEM programs and get rejected from all of them and relatedly b) the demand for grad school positions is sufficiently elastic to match an 80% increase in supply? I'm not sure what your point was with the casual dismissal of 70 years of research in every field besides lithography. Am I supposed to think that international students only work on lithography? Most lithography research, as far as I'm aware, doesn't even happen in academia.
    - scottlocklin 7y ago
      Compared to the previous 70 years, the last 70 years of scientific and technological research has been complete and utter shit, except for lithography. Pretty simple, really. The presence of all that cheap labor in the last 70 years has objectively not made things better. Mind you, in raw numbers we have at least 10x the number of active workers in the sciences in the last 70 years as in the previous 70 years; and less is getting done. Imagine that! Your first point is a red herring: the presence of cheap labor in the sciences and the lack of decent jobs makes it unattractive to any sane person who was born in a first world country.
- ashelmire 7y ago
  Don’t most of them return to their home countries? Seems like freeing up those spots for American students that will stay would be a boon for American science.
  - rbg246 7y ago
    That would seem to indicate that Americans who want to do STEM courses cannot currently do them? That doesn't sound right to me.
  - nl 7y ago
    No, because graduate students are actually doing the science in the US. If they are replaced by less capable students then the work being done will be of a lower quality.
  - rchaud 7y ago
    "Freeing up those spots" implies that US students are barred from competing for grad school places or that international students have some advantage that domestic students do not.
    - ashelmire 7y ago
      > international students have some advantage that domestic students do not. They often do have more money. And rampant cheating. But regardless, Chinese students can attend any university in China or the US, while an American cannot realistically attend school in China. Obviously that means China is going to have a brighter educational future, as they use our system to advance their own.
      - throwaway6969 7y ago
        If they're cheating then they won't hang on to those research spots for long.
      - rchaud 7y ago
        Money doesn't make a difference in grad school because everybody is there on some kind of fellowship or research grant. Certainly no international student I've ever met, Chinese or otherwise has paid a cent of tuition past undergrad. Only exceptions would be medical school, MBA and specialist MSc programs offered through business schools.
henrikschroder 7y ago
The US has a massive advantage in science (and business) in that many of the best and brightest from across the world want to come to the US, despite the hurdles and issues of getting student visas or work visas. This means that as a country you don't have to pay for the primary and secondary schooling of all these people, but you get to reap the rewards of them working in your country and contributing to your scientific lead, to your economy. But like all advantages, if you don't pay attention, you can squander it. You can make it easy for smart Chinese students (in this instance) to do science in the US and benefit US academia and businesses, or you can make it hard, and the same people will instead benefit some other economy. It's not about diversity, it's about not realizing that the free firehose of cheap and willing smarts and labour isn't perpetual, that it actually has to be maintained and encouraged.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ordu 7y ago
  > This means that as a country you don't have to pay for the primary and secondary schooling of all these people You don't have to pay for an order of magnitude more people: education is not a technology yet, it could give no guarantees on a results. To get one bright student you need to teach ten people through primary and secondary school.
- C1sc0cat 7y ago
  If its like the UK International students are a source of income as they pay more and subsidise the locals.
  - orhmeh09 7y ago
    How did universities ever manage to operate whilst charging much lower/no tuition back when there was not a group like this?
    - C1sc0cat 7y ago
      They only catered for a much smaller group basically the elites and a few lucky Grammar school kids.
ojbyrne 7y ago
Citation needed, and the colloquialism is actually “by all accounts.” Here is one for you: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/07/18/the-most-and-least-culturally-diverse-countries-in-the-world/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2013/07/18/the-most-an...
- ekianjo 7y ago
  That depends a lot by what you call culturally diverse. This map makes you think that Africa is the most diverse continent of all, but the fact is pretty much only the US has and continues receiving people from all over the world, and not just neighboring countries.
  - ojbyrne 7y ago
    Only country? You should visit Canada.

rgbrenner 7y ago

Already, science budgets are continually slashed and grants are harder to find. The first point is false. R&D spending is at a record high: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44307.pdf https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44307.pdf Government's share of funding has fallen below 50%, but only because business r&d spending has increased so much. Federal R&D budgets are increasing: https://cen.acs.org/policy/research-funding/US-science-funding-inches/97/i8 https://cen.acs.org/policy/research-funding/US-science-fundi... If the 2nd part is true, it's only because the amount of proposals is growing faster than the funding.

PeterStuer 7y ago
Have the definitions/concepts of research in its various forms kept constant in these figures? I know that at least in Europe those have drifted considerable under the influence of industry lobbying to expand more and more into the higher regions of the Technology Readiness Levels [1] model that formerly were definitely not included under the 'R&D' umbrella. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_readiness_level https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_readiness_level
nneonneo 7y ago
US R&D spending as a whole is up, but a lion's share of that (per your first link) is "development" ($314.5bn of $495.1bn). Academic environments, which are the ones affected by student visa policies and such, primarily engage in basic and applied research (not development), and are largely funded by the national government. Industry grants exist and can be real boons for researchers, but often come with strings attached and are often disproportionately targeted towards certain sectors. National funding for academic research, unfortunately, has been flat (or falling) over the last several years, and has repeatedly been targeted for cuts by the President (luckily reined in by Congress). For example, see the NSF's funding survey: https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2018/nsb20181/assets/968/figures/fig05-02.pdf https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2018/nsb20181/assets/968/figu...

unityByFreedom 7y ago

> yes, even China Just going to leave this here [1]. That's at Peking University, top school in the country. Sure, if you're a foreigner, you'll probably be left alone, but your classmates are not allowed to be themselves, and that's part of your learning environment. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/if-i-disappear-chinese-students-make-farewell-messages-amid-crackdowns-over-labor-activism-/2019/05/25/6fc949c0-727d-11e9-9331-30bc5836f48e_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/if-i-disap...

jorblumesea 7y ago

At the same time, there are a fair amount of public examples of Chinese academics taking US research budgets and running with the results. Or intelligence agents posing as students and swiping everything from university systems. The Confucius Institutes seem similarly nefarious. There needs to be a balance. Cutting out every Chinese academic is absurd and xenophobic, but more scrutiny is needed. This issue isn't black and white; a more nuanced approach is required. To pretend that there isn't some merit to some of these ideas is just as absurd as saying that every academic is a spy. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/29/fbi-director-discusses-chinese-espionage-threat-us-academic-research https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/04/29/fbi-director-... https://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/education-or-espionage-chinese-student-takes-his-homework-home-china-n893881 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/china/education-or-espionage-ch... https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3007903/china-determined-steal-economic-ladder-us-expense-fbi-chief https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3007903/chi...

point78 7y ago

Don't the majority of foreign PhD students return to their home countries when complete anyway?

fragmede 7y ago
Yes - but not entirely by choice. Many a PhD student has returned home after earning their degree, because of the US's visa policies, which make it hard to stay after completing a degree. Why would they stay somewhere that doesn't want them?
- protastus 7y ago
  Current visa rules make it very easy to stay. STEM graduate students on an F-1 visa get a whopping 36 months of employment authorization in the US. Look up OPT extension. That's 3 years they can apply to get a H-1B. In fact, getting a M.S. from a mediocre U.S. school is a popular method young people use to immigrate.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    H1-B provides for a terrible quality of life, and is only attractive if options in home country are worse.
    - C1sc0cat 7y ago
      It is in many cases ask any Indian on a h1b about the Dickensian employment laws in India reliving letters etc.
      - lotsofpulp 7y ago
        I know, and it’s why Indians use H1B, but it’s a terrible policy to be 1 step above Dickensian Indian labor laws and also hurts Americans for the benefit of the owners of capital.
  - levosmetalo 7y ago

the_svd_doctor 7y ago

Your first point is incorrect. First a student asks for an F-1 (sometimes J-1) visa. This can be delivered for a single entry (typical for Iranian students for instance), or for 1 or like 5 years (the common case for international students). The visa lets you _enter_ the country. Once admitted in the US, a student can remain indefinitely while maintaining its student status (including school transfers). This applies to Chinese students as well. There is no renewal and if you only go to school or transfer school, nothing can really happen. There's nothing to renew every year. The issue that arises is when a student leaves the US with an expired VISA. Then he has to apply for a new one before coming back. This is where it can get complicated. I have a student/friend who go stuck 4 months (in China) waiting to renew his VISA.

ETHisso2017 7y ago
So once a student has been on a F-1 visa for more than a year, they face a risk of being barred from re-entering the US if they choose to visit their families?
- occamschainsaw 7y ago
  No, iirc F1 visas are usually granted for length of program plus one year (5 for a BS etc). As long as the person maintains student status with the university, traveling to and fro is permitted.
  - the_svd_doctor 7y ago
    No, there is no such a rule. F-1 VISA are _typically_ granted for 5 years, but PhDs may be longer (6 or even more). Once your VISA expires, and if you go home, you need to reapply for a new one. For some (a small fraction through), VISA are granted for 1 year or are single entry. Those categories of students sometimes chose not to leave the country, for the risk of getting their VISA denied (and, hence, their whole studies and everything with it) is too high (since they got a short in the first place). This is very common thinking within Chinese or Iranian communities.

briandear 7y ago

Was American science declining in the 1960s when almost no Chinese students were in American universities? Could there also be extremely smart people in Africa that might now find a place in American universities? Are there Americans that might now find a place in American Universities? I am not saying anything about visa policies, but suggesting that limiting Chinese students will hurt American science is a pretty narrow view. There is also a counter argument that many bright Chinese students go back to China, thus strengthening China. There is also another view that some Chinese students are working for or carrying the water for Beijing’s government. Students in China can’t just decide to go to the US, they have to be approved by the Chinese government and there is no doubt that such approvals require allegiance to the CCP and and some willingness to help the CCP when asked. Attributing nothing but good intentions for the 350,000 Chinese students admitted to the US each year is naïve. https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/chinese-students-are-stealing-intellectual-property-for-beijing-warns-us-intelligence-agencies/news-story/9872bf737f203dc66feec28d6bb0679b https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/chines...

lambdasquirrel 7y ago
American science was doing “well” in the 60’s because Europe was still recovering. Today, the US “competes” (to some extent) with Europe for the best and brightest.
nneonneo 7y ago
> there is no doubt that such approvals require allegiance to the CCP and and some willingness to help the CCP when asked. No, they really don’t. Where’s your source for this? You make it sound like we’re just admitting 350,000 spies into the States each year. However, it is true that if you make these folks feel thoroughly unwelcome, they will want to just go home and help out - and that’s exactly what you’ll do by (a) being baselessly suspicious of them and (b) being harsh when they try to stay for studies or immigrate.
- scottlocklin 7y ago
  I dunno about OP, but there are definitely industrial spy issues, and individual Chinese students do have issues with the government in traveling to the US. I had a Chinese student who I would have loved to keep in the US, but according to him, his parents would suffer because they worked in the banking industry, and they'd fall under suspicion.

StreamBright 7y ago

This is exactly the reason I do not live in the US. Not only the VISA renewal is a big hurdle, sometimes totally randomly they deny you application. Adding the unconstitunal practices at the border where I need to reveal private content and trade secrets to the border control people and you are making sure that many of us are going to work or doing PHD somewhere else. For bonus points, it is not possible to save your details in the gov database so you need to re-enter all the 10 pages of information by hand every time you apply for a VISA. That is right, you need to keep re-entering the same information over and over, again and again.

Tsubasachan 7y ago

Its fascinating how America is slowly turning into a country that simply doesn't want foreigners. Sadly I like New York so I have to diligently go through the mountain of paperwork. How many people from the EU overstay or cause problems for the police?!

inflatableDodo 7y ago
Brits overstay and work in the US without the correct paperwork all the time. They don't seem to get noticed by the police for some reason.
- Kurtz79 7y ago
  When you enter the country you get a stamp with your entry date. Doesn't this get checked when you leave, at passport control? I would think at the very least it would raise a huge red flag the next time you try to enter US... I also doubt that any serious employer would hire someone without checking his/her paperwork, outside maybe of seasonal/server jobs.
  - inflatableDodo 7y ago
    >When you enter the country you get a stamp with your entry date. >Doesn't this get checked when you leave, at passport control? Imagine that there is this huge underground market dedicated to solving this problem for you attached mysteriously to the entire US bar industry. edit - this is honestly the only thing that makes sense. I haven't ever done so, but brits working their US holidays and massively over staying visas by years is not uncommon and I can only think of one example of someone who ended up in actual shit.
    - Kurtz79 7y ago
      I'm not saying that something like this does not exists (and I know for certain that some people overstay their visas), but it just seems silly to me that people coming from countries with similar quality of life and opportunities as the US would risk getting caught doing something illegal, in a country that is notoriously strict on immigration matters.

tjeannin 7y ago

"Europe is home to 1.64 million researchers, while the US number approaches 1.47 million. ... Europe produced 33.4% of the world's research outputs, while the US accounted for 23.4%." The US is not really leading the way. It's a bit strange to "consider" Europe as a potential good place for research, it's already way ahead the US.

theklub 7y ago
Europe's population is double what the US is...
- imafish 7y ago
  Well, the number of researchers obviously isn’t
ovi256 7y ago
That's hardly far ahead, barely 11% more than the US. The opposite is true on means, budget and research infrastructure, where the US leads, both in aggregate and per capita, and by much more than 11%.