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>> Most of them are immigrants > This is false. Doctorate means different things in different fields. In particular, getting a doctorate in Education or some

>> Most of them are immigrants > This is false. Doctorate means different things in different fields. In particular, getting a doctorate in Education or some of the applied Life Sciences fields looks more like a masters degree with a long paper at the end and you typically work full-time at a "real job". You or your employer may even pay your tuition. Ie, not the type of PhDs the article is talking about. Digging into SED data, the "Citizen / Resident" numbers are propped up by two categories: 1. the applied biological sciences / health sciences, many of which do not resemble a traditional PhD program in any way. 2. education, which again functions very differently from a typical PhD program in every way: who pays, how they pay, what you're doing during and after, etc. You can then track by field in the rest of the SED data and see that a huge number of these people aren't on the traditional academic track and are not doing a phd in the sense that most people in STEM mean; ie, they're working other full-time jobs, probably not publishing or barely publishing, never planning on going into academia afterwards, and so on. -- More details: The NSF runs a survey of earned doctorates (SED) each year. These reports include a table entitled "Research doctorate recipients, by detailed field of doctorate, citizenship status, ethnicity, and race: <year>". Let's look at 2021. In Computer Science, 953/1545, or about 62%, were Temporary visa holders. That's a lower bound! The other category includes permanent residents and the survey happens at the end of the PhD. Many PhD students receive permanent resident status during their PhD -- particularly those from places other than India and China, or who immigrated to the US prior to starting their PhD (eg for undergraduate or work). There are a variety of pathways, bu suffice it to say that many people end those 6 years no longer on a temporary visa. Additionally, there are about 100 PhDs in 2021 that reported neither "citizen / permanent resident" or "temporary visa", who are almost certainly majority immigrant who don't (or at least don't think) they fall into either category. All-in, I've seen estimates that up to 70% of earned doctorates in Computer Science are awarded to immigrants. For all earned doctorates these numbers are closer to 33%, so flipped in the opposite direction. But if you start breaking down by field you will notice that the vast majority of fields where citizens are over-represented are exactly the fields where "PhD study as research assistant/TA" is less of thing and full-time employment during the PhD is much more common/feasible.

lapcat 4y ago
> But if you start breaking down by field you will notice that the vast majority of fields where citizens are over-represented are exactly the fields where "PhD study as research assistant/TA" is less of thing and full-time employment during the PhD is much more common/feasible. This claim is very questionable. Your comment seems to completely ignore the humanities, for example, except for hand-waving away education.
- thwayunion 4y ago
  tldr: I'm not ignoring the humanities; it does function like you describe. But ALL of the humanities combined were only 2.6K PhDs out of 52K total; Education is larger than all of the humanities combined, health sciences is about the same size as all of humanities combined, clinically-heavy life sciences are about the same size, CS is about the same size, etc. etc. The humanities are an outlier, and also small. Why is it "hand-waving away education" but "look at the humanities" when there are nearly 600 more Ed PhDs than there are all of the humanities COMBINED in SED 21? In Ed, 48% are primarily self-funded and 12.7% are primarily supported by an employer meaning a majority aren't "traditional" phd students on the path to a potential faculty position. A ton of the Ed students on fellowships are employer-supported by other means and even those with research assistantships or teaching assistantships are on same path (working full time in a central office or K12 school). The vast majority of Ed PhDs have no interest in higher ed eployment; they're getting their EdD/PhD because of the role it plays in public school compensation bands and promotion pathways. There are breadcrumbs that paint this picture throughout the various SED tables, but also, you can just... talk with people in the field. Many of the applied/clinical life and health sciences function the same way albiet with slightly different funding mechanisms and candidate incentives. The point is, no interest in TT faculty jobs. Combined with humanities this is 2x-3x larger than humanities. WRT non-classical phd setups and immigration, humanities are the outlier rather than the norm. And in any case small compared to STEM -- many individual STEM fields are nearly as large as all of the humanities combined, for example.
  - lapcat 4y ago
    > But ALL of the humanities combined were only 2.6K PhDs out of 52K total Ok, I just looked at the SED (Survey of Earned Doctorates) to see how they break it down, and I notice that "Psychology and social sciences" is huge. Larger than education, larger than math & CS, almost as large as engineering. So when you combine psychological and social sciences, humanities, "non-science and engineering fields not elsewhere classified", and a few other fields, you've got a huge number of degrees that seem to be ignored in your discussion, and that would explain the conclusion: "For all earned doctorates these numbers are closer to 33%, so flipped in the opposite direction." I also think you're stereotyping education and life sciences.

lapcat 4y ago

> But if you start breaking down by field you will notice that the vast majority of fields where citizens are over-represented are exactly the fields where "PhD study as research assistant/TA" is less of thing and full-time employment during the PhD is much more common/feasible. This claim is very questionable. Your comment seems to completely ignore the humanities, for example, except for hand-waving away education.

thwayunion 4y ago
tldr: I'm not ignoring the humanities; it does function like you describe. But ALL of the humanities combined were only 2.6K PhDs out of 52K total; Education is larger than all of the humanities combined, health sciences is about the same size as all of humanities combined, clinically-heavy life sciences are about the same size, CS is about the same size, etc. etc. The humanities are an outlier, and also small. Why is it "hand-waving away education" but "look at the humanities" when there are nearly 600 more Ed PhDs than there are all of the humanities COMBINED in SED 21? In Ed, 48% are primarily self-funded and 12.7% are primarily supported by an employer meaning a majority aren't "traditional" phd students on the path to a potential faculty position. A ton of the Ed students on fellowships are employer-supported by other means and even those with research assistantships or teaching assistantships are on same path (working full time in a central office or K12 school). The vast majority of Ed PhDs have no interest in higher ed eployment; they're getting their EdD/PhD because of the role it plays in public school compensation bands and promotion pathways. There are breadcrumbs that paint this picture throughout the various SED tables, but also, you can just... talk with people in the field. Many of the applied/clinical life and health sciences function the same way albiet with slightly different funding mechanisms and candidate incentives. The point is, no interest in TT faculty jobs. Combined with humanities this is 2x-3x larger than humanities. WRT non-classical phd setups and immigration, humanities are the outlier rather than the norm. And in any case small compared to STEM -- many individual STEM fields are nearly as large as all of the humanities combined, for example.
- lapcat 4y ago
  > But ALL of the humanities combined were only 2.6K PhDs out of 52K total Ok, I just looked at the SED (Survey of Earned Doctorates) to see how they break it down, and I notice that "Psychology and social sciences" is huge. Larger than education, larger than math & CS, almost as large as engineering. So when you combine psychological and social sciences, humanities, "non-science and engineering fields not elsewhere classified", and a few other fields, you've got a huge number of degrees that seem to be ignored in your discussion, and that would explain the conclusion: "For all earned doctorates these numbers are closer to 33%, so flipped in the opposite direction." I also think you're stereotyping education and life sciences.