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Don't even know where to begin...but according to this [1] less than 5% of students in the US are international students. 1 - https://www.fwd.us/news/internati

Don't even know where to begin...but according to this [1] less than 5% of students in the US are international students. 1 - https://www.fwd.us/news/international-students/ https://www.fwd.us/news/international-students/

vpb 4y ago
"And even though they make up only 5% of the total student population, international students earned nearly half of all Master’s and Doctor’s STEM degrees awarded in 2019, a total of 117,000 degrees." That's an interesting stat which might be the source of the parent post assertion.
bmitc 4y ago
That is either for undergraduates or total enrollment. The percentages for international students in graduate schools basically range from 50% upwards, depending on the field. https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2021/08/19/international-students-remain-a-primary-source-of-us-tech-talent/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2021/08/19/inter...
snakeboy 4y ago
We're talking about postdocs though, which is a completely different population than college students. I found this [1] which estimates that 51% of US postdocs are foreign-born as of 2018. [1] https://elifesciences.org/articles/40189 https://elifesciences.org/articles/40189
bjourne 4y ago
"The dearth of Americans is even more pronounced in hot STEM fields like computer science, which serve as talent pipelines for the likes of Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft: About 64 percent of doctoral candidates and almost 68 percent in master’s programs last year were international students, according to an annual survey of American and Canadian universities by the Computing Research Association. In comparison, only about 9 percent of undergraduates in computer science were international students (perhaps, deans posit, because families are nervous about sending offspring who are barely adults across the ocean to study)." https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/education/edlife/american-graduate-student-stem.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/education/edlife/american... Note that the definition of "international student" excludes those with permanent visas. The number of foreign born PhD students is therefore significantly higher than 64%. Don't know if there are any stats for citizen/non-citizen share of PhDs though.
- overeater 4y ago
  > Note that the definition of "international student" excludes those with permanent visas. The number of foreign born PhD students is therefore significantly higher than 64%. Don't know if there are any stats for citizen/non-citizen share of PhDs though. Why are you interested in the percentage of foreign born PhD students? You realize that a lot of Americans are "foreign born". It seems like an archaic way of thinking about things. "International student" should indeed exclude those who are permanent residents. Which means they have been living here permanently before becoming a student, likely grew up in America, or just waiting for the citizenship, etc. "International student" means someone who moved here to study. I'm assuming good intentions, but want to make sure we're not intentionally trying to gatekeep what it means to be an American.
  - bjourne 4y ago
    Because the statement that was challenged was "I think Western academia is mostly reliant on immigration" and almost all people not born in the US but living in the US are immigrants.
FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
Your statistic must be for undergrads, where the situation is very different. In STEM grad school, no more than half the people are from the US, and it could easily be as low as 25%, depending where you are. Actually, the very source you cited agrees, roughly: > international students earned nearly half of all Master’s and Doctor’s STEM degrees awarded in 2019 I suspect that the number "5%" is also too low even at the undergrad level, if you restrict attention to, say, the top 20 universities.

vpb 4y ago

"And even though they make up only 5% of the total student population, international students earned nearly half of all Master’s and Doctor’s STEM degrees awarded in 2019, a total of 117,000 degrees." That's an interesting stat which might be the source of the parent post assertion.

bmitc 4y ago

That is either for undergraduates or total enrollment. The percentages for international students in graduate schools basically range from 50% upwards, depending on the field. https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2021/08/19/international-students-remain-a-primary-source-of-us-tech-talent/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2021/08/19/inter...

snakeboy 4y ago

We're talking about postdocs though, which is a completely different population than college students. I found this [1] which estimates that 51% of US postdocs are foreign-born as of 2018. [1] https://elifesciences.org/articles/40189 https://elifesciences.org/articles/40189

bjourne 4y ago

"The dearth of Americans is even more pronounced in hot STEM fields like computer science, which serve as talent pipelines for the likes of Google, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft: About 64 percent of doctoral candidates and almost 68 percent in master’s programs last year were international students, according to an annual survey of American and Canadian universities by the Computing Research Association. In comparison, only about 9 percent of undergraduates in computer science were international students (perhaps, deans posit, because families are nervous about sending offspring who are barely adults across the ocean to study)." https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/education/edlife/american-graduate-student-stem.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/education/edlife/american... Note that the definition of "international student" excludes those with permanent visas. The number of foreign born PhD students is therefore significantly higher than 64%. Don't know if there are any stats for citizen/non-citizen share of PhDs though.

overeater 4y ago
> Note that the definition of "international student" excludes those with permanent visas. The number of foreign born PhD students is therefore significantly higher than 64%. Don't know if there are any stats for citizen/non-citizen share of PhDs though. Why are you interested in the percentage of foreign born PhD students? You realize that a lot of Americans are "foreign born". It seems like an archaic way of thinking about things. "International student" should indeed exclude those who are permanent residents. Which means they have been living here permanently before becoming a student, likely grew up in America, or just waiting for the citizenship, etc. "International student" means someone who moved here to study. I'm assuming good intentions, but want to make sure we're not intentionally trying to gatekeep what it means to be an American.
- bjourne 4y ago
  Because the statement that was challenged was "I think Western academia is mostly reliant on immigration" and almost all people not born in the US but living in the US are immigrants.

FooBarBizBazz 4y ago

Your statistic must be for undergrads, where the situation is very different. In STEM grad school, no more than half the people are from the US, and it could easily be as low as 25%, depending where you are. Actually, the very source you cited agrees, roughly: > international students earned nearly half of all Master’s and Doctor’s STEM degrees awarded in 2019 I suspect that the number "5%" is also too low even at the undergrad level, if you restrict attention to, say, the top 20 universities.