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Aren't more than a fifth of PhD holders in the U.S. foreign born? The story of immigrants returning home is a lot different from a story of native-born America

Aren't more than a fifth of PhD holders in the U.S. foreign born? The story of immigrants returning home is a lot different from a story of native-born Americans abandoning their country.

wtallis 13y ago
I think it's easier to not be alarmed about foreign-born PhDs returning home (if that is indeed where they go when they leave the us) than if it were US natives leaving, but I'm not sure that it's really that much less worrisome. Either way, smart people are deciding that they can earn a better life with their skills in a different country. If it's foreign-born PhDs returning home, it really only says that the natives are staying because of the difficulties of getting started in a new country, not that the long-term outlook of moving isn't bad.
- gwern 13y ago
  > I think it's easier to not be alarmed about foreign-born PhDs returning home (if that is indeed where they go when they leave the us) than if it were US natives leaving, but I'm not sure that it's really that much less worrisome. It is a very different situation, and the meaningfulness is likewise different. For a foreign-born PhD holder, they have family back there, they'll become bigger fish in a smaller pond, they already know the language, probably have citizenship, are acculturated, may not have kids and wives deeply embedded into American culture & communities, etc. For an American-born PhD holder, most of these will be false. The cost to an American of moving permanently overseas is, on average, going to be vastly higher to them. When you hear of some foreign-born PhD holders on the margin deciding to return home, it's no big deal, and is adequately explained by very small shifts in the rewards of being in the US and the rewards of going home. (And a survey means even less.) People simply don't want to leave their home countries for very good reasons. Think of how few Jews left Nazi Germany before it was too late, even when the writing was literally on the wall (in the form of anti-semitic graffiti). When you hear of a lot of American scientists leaving America permanently, then it's time to start panicking.
  - HarryHirsch 13y ago
    The writing is on the wall right now for science outside the top dozen or so universities in the country.
  - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
    When you hear of a lot of American scientists leaving America permanently, then it's time to start panicking. I got the hell out of the USA to go to grad school. One thing that really helped is that when I visited one of my two grad-school options, the one inside the USA, the current grad-students told me there was no hope of ever getting a permanent research position, and that we could all expect to just drift from post-doc to post-doc before being discarded. And this was a very good department for the field we were discussing. I adore these guys and their research. At Technion, not only my advisor but other graduate students seem to feel they can safely assume they'll eventually find a well-paying industrial, academic, or governmental job with a Technion grad degree. So, yeah, funny thing, making aliyah may well have been a good career move, which basically never happens. Oh, and speaking of antisemitic graffiti, once when I visited my cosmopolitan college town of Amherst, I found neo-Nazi graffiti about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion on an alley wall, and learned that UMass Amherst has a secret neo-Nazi club. Be a little bit afraid.
    - nandemo 13y ago
      Did you have to serve, though?
      - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
        You mean in Tzahal? I haven't been drafted yet, but I will be. It's really not that much trouble.
    - smalltalk 13y ago
      You're not an American leaving the US, so your comment is irrelevant. And if the graduate school opportunity was at UMass, I assure you, it was not a very good department.
  - 13y ago
Cyranix 13y ago
It's definitely not just immigrants returning home. My wife is a neuroscientist, and we emigrated to Canada. Whether we will return is still an open question.
HarryHirsch 13y ago
It isn't like that at all. The funding picture has changed dramatically in the last few years. Back in 2003 the NIH success rate was around 30 %, if your idea wasn't too stupid you could count on your getting funded for the next five years. Now it's less than 10 %. If you are not at MIT or Caltech you might consider not even applying. Folks, we are looking at the end of an empire.
- vwinsyee 13y ago
  Hey, you know, I hear that <10% NIH success rate number all the time, and am definitely hearing a lot about the effect of the recent sequester, etc. and I completely believe it. But I'm actually somewhat surprised at the published percentage: 20.3% for fiscal year 2012. [0, 1] If I have some time, it would be very interesting to plot the historical success rate trend (if someone hasn't already done that). [0] http://report.nih.gov/success_rates/ http://report.nih.gov/success_rates/ [1] http://report.nih.gov/DisplayRePORT.aspx?rid=601 http://report.nih.gov/DisplayRePORT.aspx?rid=601
  - HarryHirsch 13y ago
    Here's some details: http://news.sciencemag.org/funding/2012/01/nih-examines-what-drove-its-grant-success-rate-record-low http://news.sciencemag.org/funding/2012/01/nih-examines-what...
vwinsyee 13y ago
You're right that many doctorates in the U.S. are foreign born. And that makes this article even more alarming. The problem is that since WWII, the vast majority of these foreign born scientists in the US tended to stay and become naturalized U.S. citizens. It was uncommon, if not rare, for them to leave. In fact, there were waitlists for scientists trying to immigrate _into_ the U.S. The reason for this was very much economic. The U.S., the leader in scientific spending over many decades after WWII, could pay scientists more than how much their home countries could pay. I should also note that in the past, the U.S. was also much more accomodating toward foreign born scientists in regard to naturalization, as well as popular attitude. Now on every other bulletin board in my building, there're flyers in Chinese advertising very well-paid positions in China, and I get to read about the growing percentage of climate change deniers and creationists in the U.S almost every other week in the NY Times.

Aren't more than a fifth of PhD holders in the U.S. foreign born? The story of immigrants returning home is a lot different from a story of native-born Americans abandoning their country.

wtallis 13y ago

I think it's easier to not be alarmed about foreign-born PhDs returning home (if that is indeed where they go when they leave the us) than if it were US natives leaving, but I'm not sure that it's really that much less worrisome. Either way, smart people are deciding that they can earn a better life with their skills in a different country. If it's foreign-born PhDs returning home, it really only says that the natives are staying because of the difficulties of getting started in a new country, not that the long-term outlook of moving isn't bad.

gwern 13y ago
> I think it's easier to not be alarmed about foreign-born PhDs returning home (if that is indeed where they go when they leave the us) than if it were US natives leaving, but I'm not sure that it's really that much less worrisome. It is a very different situation, and the meaningfulness is likewise different. For a foreign-born PhD holder, they have family back there, they'll become bigger fish in a smaller pond, they already know the language, probably have citizenship, are acculturated, may not have kids and wives deeply embedded into American culture & communities, etc. For an American-born PhD holder, most of these will be false. The cost to an American of moving permanently overseas is, on average, going to be vastly higher to them. When you hear of some foreign-born PhD holders on the margin deciding to return home, it's no big deal, and is adequately explained by very small shifts in the rewards of being in the US and the rewards of going home. (And a survey means even less.) People simply don't want to leave their home countries for very good reasons. Think of how few Jews left Nazi Germany before it was too late, even when the writing was literally on the wall (in the form of anti-semitic graffiti). When you hear of a lot of American scientists leaving America permanently, then it's time to start panicking.
- HarryHirsch 13y ago
  The writing is on the wall right now for science outside the top dozen or so universities in the country.
- eli_gottlieb 13y ago
  When you hear of a lot of American scientists leaving America permanently, then it's time to start panicking. I got the hell out of the USA to go to grad school. One thing that really helped is that when I visited one of my two grad-school options, the one inside the USA, the current grad-students told me there was no hope of ever getting a permanent research position, and that we could all expect to just drift from post-doc to post-doc before being discarded. And this was a very good department for the field we were discussing. I adore these guys and their research. At Technion, not only my advisor but other graduate students seem to feel they can safely assume they'll eventually find a well-paying industrial, academic, or governmental job with a Technion grad degree. So, yeah, funny thing, making aliyah may well have been a good career move, which basically never happens. Oh, and speaking of antisemitic graffiti, once when I visited my cosmopolitan college town of Amherst, I found neo-Nazi graffiti about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion on an alley wall, and learned that UMass Amherst has a secret neo-Nazi club. Be a little bit afraid.
  - nandemo 13y ago
    Did you have to serve, though?
    - eli_gottlieb 13y ago
      You mean in Tzahal? I haven't been drafted yet, but I will be. It's really not that much trouble.
  - smalltalk 13y ago
    You're not an American leaving the US, so your comment is irrelevant. And if the graduate school opportunity was at UMass, I assure you, it was not a very good department.
- 13y ago

Cyranix 13y ago

It's definitely not just immigrants returning home. My wife is a neuroscientist, and we emigrated to Canada. Whether we will return is still an open question.

HarryHirsch 13y ago

It isn't like that at all. The funding picture has changed dramatically in the last few years. Back in 2003 the NIH success rate was around 30 %, if your idea wasn't too stupid you could count on your getting funded for the next five years. Now it's less than 10 %. If you are not at MIT or Caltech you might consider not even applying. Folks, we are looking at the end of an empire.

vwinsyee 13y ago
Hey, you know, I hear that <10% NIH success rate number all the time, and am definitely hearing a lot about the effect of the recent sequester, etc. and I completely believe it. But I'm actually somewhat surprised at the published percentage: 20.3% for fiscal year 2012. [0, 1] If I have some time, it would be very interesting to plot the historical success rate trend (if someone hasn't already done that). [0] http://report.nih.gov/success_rates/ http://report.nih.gov/success_rates/ [1] http://report.nih.gov/DisplayRePORT.aspx?rid=601 http://report.nih.gov/DisplayRePORT.aspx?rid=601
- HarryHirsch 13y ago
  Here's some details: http://news.sciencemag.org/funding/2012/01/nih-examines-what-drove-its-grant-success-rate-record-low http://news.sciencemag.org/funding/2012/01/nih-examines-what...

vwinsyee 13y ago

You're right that many doctorates in the U.S. are foreign born. And that makes this article even more alarming. The problem is that since WWII, the vast majority of these foreign born scientists in the US tended to stay and become naturalized U.S. citizens. It was uncommon, if not rare, for them to leave. In fact, there were waitlists for scientists trying to immigrate _into_ the U.S. The reason for this was very much economic. The U.S., the leader in scientific spending over many decades after WWII, could pay scientists more than how much their home countries could pay. I should also note that in the past, the U.S. was also much more accomodating toward foreign born scientists in regard to naturalization, as well as popular attitude. Now on every other bulletin board in my building, there're flyers in Chinese advertising very well-paid positions in China, and I get to read about the growing percentage of climate change deniers and creationists in the U.S almost every other week in the NY Times.