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The US is destroying it's own advantage. For decades the US was pulling the best and brightest from all over the world into its Universities and companies. Why

The US is destroying it's own advantage. For decades the US was pulling the best and brightest from all over the world into its Universities and companies. Why would anybody think stopping that would lead to a 'Golden Age'.

jqpabc123 10mo ago
Ignorance, incompetence, indifference --- it's how empires end.
gadders 10mo ago
Unfortunately it changed from "best and brightest" to "whoever could make it over the border" and "whoever would do the same job for less money".
- yoyohello13 10mo ago
  Pretty sure "whoever could make it over the border" are not getting admitted to Harvard.
  - gadders 10mo ago
    Agreed - so why admit the rest?
    - ceejayoz 10mo ago
      Because it turns out we need lettuce, too?
      - gadders 10mo ago
        Maybe Walmart etc would have to take a few less billion for shareholders and pay people properly if they want them harvested.
- cmtm4 10mo ago
  When was it ever substantially not "whoever could make it over the border"? That only stopped being (mostly—see the Chinese Exclusion Act) our actual policy in what, the 1950s? And after that, much to the relief of the agriculture industry that sharply opposed the change, we de facto barely enforced the new policy.
  - gadders 10mo ago
    Thank God big ag managed to keep the profits flowing
programjames 10mo ago
Seems like an arrogant American take. The United States primary and secondary schools are middling at best, and that has been showing through to its universities. Foreigners were already choosing Chinese universities. It's not like the recent administration could just "keep pulling", what do they have to appeal with? Obviously shutting off the flow of any and all talent is stupid, but it's a little arrogant to pretend it was not already diverting to better systems.
- munk-a 10mo ago
  Most schools are middling - but the US was willing to give generous scholarships and post-graduation grants to smart immigrants to build it here. There was a long entrenched culture that in the US you could turn your intelligence into positive change and get rich doing it. We've been slipping into rent seeking at least since the eighties though - so the share that actual researchers get has been shrinking while the culture has become much more hostile to immigration. It is a situation built on momentum though - so while the tools supporting it have been torn down we still do have a lot of people who moved here with the hope of leveraging it.
  - programjames 10mo ago
    > There was a long entrenched culture that in the US you could turn your intelligence into positive change and get rich doing it. Yes, this is still true, and why immigration to America maintained its previous momentum. It was often easier to get a student visa than a different immigration visa, so for the past 30 years or so that has been the primary route, and in turn has raised the prestige of American universities. However, if you look at the American-born population, their students are not impressive. Quite the opposite, for how much funding their education gets. And—by federal interest—only ~10% of the undergraduate student body can be foreigners. Professors at American universities routinely complain about their students' low standards. Things are not the same as they were ten years ago, let alone thirty or fifty years ago. I think international sentiment has not shifted to the point that this is common knowledge—that if people want to go international, they better attend a school in China or Switzerland—but it would have happened in a few years with or without Trump, and the decline would be as apparent as the primary and secondary school decline has been.

jqpabc123 10mo ago

Ignorance, incompetence, indifference --- it's how empires end.

gadders 10mo ago

Unfortunately it changed from "best and brightest" to "whoever could make it over the border" and "whoever would do the same job for less money".

yoyohello13 10mo ago
Pretty sure "whoever could make it over the border" are not getting admitted to Harvard.
- gadders 10mo ago
  Agreed - so why admit the rest?
  - ceejayoz 10mo ago
    Because it turns out we need lettuce, too?
    - gadders 10mo ago
      Maybe Walmart etc would have to take a few less billion for shareholders and pay people properly if they want them harvested.
cmtm4 10mo ago
When was it ever substantially not "whoever could make it over the border"? That only stopped being (mostly—see the Chinese Exclusion Act) our actual policy in what, the 1950s? And after that, much to the relief of the agriculture industry that sharply opposed the change, we de facto barely enforced the new policy.
- gadders 10mo ago
  Thank God big ag managed to keep the profits flowing

programjames 10mo ago

Seems like an arrogant American take. The United States primary and secondary schools are middling at best, and that has been showing through to its universities. Foreigners were already choosing Chinese universities. It's not like the recent administration could just "keep pulling", what do they have to appeal with? Obviously shutting off the flow of any and all talent is stupid, but it's a little arrogant to pretend it was not already diverting to better systems.

munk-a 10mo ago
Most schools are middling - but the US was willing to give generous scholarships and post-graduation grants to smart immigrants to build it here. There was a long entrenched culture that in the US you could turn your intelligence into positive change and get rich doing it. We've been slipping into rent seeking at least since the eighties though - so the share that actual researchers get has been shrinking while the culture has become much more hostile to immigration. It is a situation built on momentum though - so while the tools supporting it have been torn down we still do have a lot of people who moved here with the hope of leveraging it.
- programjames 10mo ago
  > There was a long entrenched culture that in the US you could turn your intelligence into positive change and get rich doing it. Yes, this is still true, and why immigration to America maintained its previous momentum. It was often easier to get a student visa than a different immigration visa, so for the past 30 years or so that has been the primary route, and in turn has raised the prestige of American universities. However, if you look at the American-born population, their students are not impressive. Quite the opposite, for how much funding their education gets. And—by federal interest—only ~10% of the undergraduate student body can be foreigners. Professors at American universities routinely complain about their students' low standards. Things are not the same as they were ten years ago, let alone thirty or fifty years ago. I think international sentiment has not shifted to the point that this is common knowledge—that if people want to go international, they better attend a school in China or Switzerland—but it would have happened in a few years with or without Trump, and the decline would be as apparent as the primary and secondary school decline has been.