Foreign-borns returning home seems like an oversimplification. It's true Americans aren't leaving in droves yet, but it doesn't surprise me that a lot of young

Foreign-borns returning home seems like an oversimplification. It's true Americans aren't leaving in droves yet, but it doesn't surprise me that a lot of young researchers are willing to do whatever it takes to stay in science when competition for grants is fiercer than ever in the US. It doesn't help that most institutions are top-heavy with old faculty working far beyond the average retirement age who refuse to retire and make room for young blood. I personally know several American-born students from Caltech who've taken post-docs in France and Germany, and some European-born ones who took very cush faculty offers in Singapore when nothing good turned up in the "west". It's not ideal, but when you're ~30ish and heavily invested in your science career you do what's necessary to stay in the game and hope that later you can leverage yourself into a more preferred location when American universities undergo some needed demographic turnover.