China Luring Scientists Back Home

blee37 writes "The NY Times reports that China is increasing incentives for Chinese students earning PhDs in the US to return home. One example is a prestigious Princeton microbiologist who returned to become a dean at Tsinghua, the Chinese MIT. In my experience as a grad student, Chinese students were often torn about returning home. The best science and the most intellectually stimulating jobs are in the US. Yet, surely they miss their families and their hometown. As alluded in the article, Chinese science remains far behind, especially because of rampant cronyism in academia as well as government. But, if more Chinese students go back, it could damage the US's technology lead. A large percentage of PhD students in the US are from China. Also, the typical PhD student has their tuition paid for and receives a salary. Does it make sense to invest in their training if they will do their major work elsewhere?"

Comments

probably still makes sense

[Trepidity]

Especially in the lab sciences, you're not paying that PhD student's meagre stipend out of altruism, hoping that they'll one day blossom into a lovely scientist. You're paying it because you need people to do the research: the professor is more of a manager of a large-ish lab so unable to do it him/herself, and hiring actual research scientists on the open market would cost a lot more than $20-25k, and they would expect more reasonable working hours. Considering the proportion of the work that actually gets done by grad students, it's a bargain.

Re:probably still makes sense

[ShiftyOne]

This is pretty accurate. Grad students in the sciences aren't making lavish salaries, they are making stipends to pay for their schooling and living expensive. They do most of the work while the professors gives advice and manages. You can pay around eight graduate students for the salary of one professor, which is not bad at all.

Re:probably still makes sense

[minorproblem]

Agreed, PdD students are not paid it is not an investment. They basically work for free and are given a small weekly allowance so that they can afford coffee, carbs and accommodation... Think how much money American universities have made off the research of their PhD students.

Re:probably still makes sense

[Daniel Dvorkin]

This is true from the professors' and universities' POV, but not necessarily from the US government's. Grad student stipends in the sciences are often tied to grants from the NIH, NSF, etc., and that is very definitely seen as an investment: training the next generation of American scientists and engineers. If the government thinks it's not going to see some ROI, this may change, and the fallout could affect students from the US as well.

Re:probably still makes sense

[ShiftyOne]

Lets be honest, the people receiving these stipends are making at most $40,000 a year. If they were to go out and get a job, their starting salaries would be $60,000 or if they already have a masters, upwards of $100,000. They also have to produce results are they can get their money taken away or not get their degree. At best I would call this cheap labor. Also, I know DoD grants have required service at a lab after they graduate, that could become the norm for other grants as well.

Re:probably still makes sense

[wizardforce]

If the US as a whole isn't providing a sufficient incentive for these students to remain here and China is, then I'd say that the problem is mostly our doing. Give them a good reason to stay and they most likely will, treat them like crap and they'll leave.

Re:probably still makes sense

[Trepidity]

They get a lot of their ROI in direct research, though, not just in the nebulous future-production-of-engineers. If an NSF grant spends $200,000 paying the stipends+tuition of 5 students, and those 5 students end up producing a few journal articles, and once in a while those sets of journal articles include important results, he NSF's gotten its $200,000 worth.

Re:probably still makes sense

[Tycho]

Brain drain sucks even worse for the people who live in the country the person receiving a PhD emigrated from. For instance, there are more doctors in the born in Ethiopia living in just the Washington, DC area than there are doctors in the entire country of Ethiopia. How does a country recover from such a tremendous brain drain and address major social ills like rampant poverty, famine, and endemic corruption when the very people who might be best able to assist with their own experience and knowledge do not return to their native country because there is nothing to return to and no reasonable job prospects? Why must the US retain as many of their foreign born individuals who received their PhD in the US, when under the right conditions these PhD holders could help their own country far more than any kind of work they do in the US? I'm not suggesting we force these people to return or even expect them to return, especially when there is nothing to return to. But then again I see nothing wrong with ti US offering grants and other forms of aid to underdeveloped countries so that they can improve their situation with respect to development and improve the local economy. This would come with the explicit expectation that these governments spend the money wisely, and steps are taken so that as little money as possible is wasted by corruption.

Re:probably still makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

> How does a country recover from such a tremendous brain drain

It's not correct to call that a brain drain from Ethiopia if that country doesn't build any brains itself. These brains are build by the US in the US. They are drained from nowhere.

If certain countries, especially muslim one's, would leave behind their cultural backwardness (trying to violently live Qur'an like 1400 years ago - stupid backwardness !) instead of killing christians or other other-faith-people, students would have real incentives to return to such countries.
So these countries get what they act.

Re:probably still makes sense

[rve]

> How does a country recover from such a tremendous brain drain

It's not correct to call that a brain drain from Ethiopia if that country doesn't build any brains itself. These brains are build by the US in the US. They are drained from nowhere.

If certain countries, especially muslim one's, would leave behind their cultural backwardness (trying to violently live Qur'an like 1400 years ago - stupid backwardness !) instead of killing christians or other other-faith-people, students would have real incentives to return to such countries.
So these countries get what they act.

Ethiopia is a mostly christian country though

Re:probably still makes sense

[Rogerborg]

Do they publish though? One of the endemic problems with Chinese students is that many of them can't communicate in English worth a damn, to the extent that they pay people to sit communication entrance exams for them.

Re:probably still makes sense

[psnyder]

This would come with the explicit expectation that these governments spend the money wisely, and steps are taken so that as little money as possible is wasted by corruption.

Good luck with that.

Re:probably still makes sense

[tsa]

It's not only the US that treats its Ph.D. students like that. Here in NL (and I think in most of the rest of Europe as well) it's the same. Besides, in most companies scientists are paid much less than for instance the marketing people.

Re:probably still makes sense

[Trepidity]

I guess it depends on the lab and the kind of research. There are areas of the lab sciences where the prof has a hypothesis, has pretty much written the paper (or more likely has a postdoc writing it), and needs an army of drones to run a huge pile of experiments and get him/her some numbers. In that case, the job of the grad students is to get the numbers, and there is probably no cheaper way you could possibly get those numbers (research scientists who could successfully run experiments in a modern lab don't work for $25k stipends).

Re:probably still makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

...the problem is mostly our doing.

But is it a problem? The USA is all about government by the people.

I walk down Main Street, USA and the banners hanging from the sign posts - they don't say, "We support our scientists". On the the right, do people support Sarah Palin, or Dick Cheney, or George Bush because of some fierce love of science? Or, how about on the left: is it a fierce love of science that drives people to support Jesse Jackson, or Hillary Clinton, or Barack Obama? Do libertarians climb up on their soap boxes and demand to pay more taxes to support scientific research? Do they hold forth that the one true function of government is science?

For me, it's personal. I've got a PhD in biochemistry and a solid working knowledge of half a dozen different programming languages. You'd think that the USA would be banging down my door - asking me to write computer programs to help sift out new discoveries from that vast maze of accumulated biological knowledge. But, no. Turns out, the one place that's willing to give me a job that pays enough to support my family is over in Asia - and it's a meager living at that.

Government by the people. Well, by and large, the people don't really want science. That's not to say that they would object to having the fruits of scientific research handed to them on a silver platter. But, like a couch potato who wouldn't object to receiving an Olympic medal - but who isn't willing to do the work of earning one - the people really just aren't willing to pony up and pay for the actual scientific research.

Science is not the national priority. But that's OK because, in the end, democracy is about giving the people wht they want. And, whatever it is that the people want, it sure doesn't seem to be science.

Re:probably still makes sense

[greppling]

All NSF stipends for graduate students in my field (math) can only be given to US passport or greencard holders. (Other grad students earn their salary via their teaching.)

Re:probably still makes sense

[TheRaven64]

If an NSF grant spends $200,000 paying the stipends+tuition of 5 students

Then it's getting a ridiculously good deal. That's $40K/student. A typical PhD in the USA takes at least 5 years, so that's under $10K/student/year, which doesn't even cover stipend or tuition, let alone both.

For reference, the grant that I was on for my PhD was for £500,000 (around $1m at the time) and paid for four PhD students and one research assistant. Including office space, overheads (equipment, infrastructure maintenance, technicians salaries and so on) charged by the university, and my stipend and conference budget, the EPSRC paid around £100,000 per PhD. On top of this, I got an extra £25,000 grant (split between me and my supervisor) for travel, so the total cost to the EPSRC for my PhD was around £112,500.

Producing a PhD student costs around quarter of a million dollars, probably more[1]. The ROI that the funding bodies expect is a greater body of scientists doing research, which increases the amount of tax revenue available by increasing industrial output. If the students are leaving the country, then it's not a particularly good return. That's why it's much harder for students from outside of the EU to get funding for a PhD here.

[1] PhD students are paid more in the UK. When I finished, we got £12,000/year, but it had gone up every year. Unlike the USA, stipends are not taxable, so this is take-home pay and is pretty close to an entry level salary for a graduate after deducting tax and NI. On the flip side, PhDs here only take 3-4 years (in part because we don't need to work or teach while doing them), so the total stipend is probably about the same.

Re:probably still makes sense

[Trepidity]

I was counting per year ($40k incl. tuition is fairly common as a ballpark figure).

Maybe it varies by the area, but my impression is that funding agencies don't really care about "greater body of scientists doing research" as their ROI, with the exception of specific programs like the NSF's Graduate Research Fellowship program.

They're funding a project, and they want to know if their $500k or $1m or whatever it is, will produce $500k or $1m of research. Sometimes the money doesn't even get primarily spent on grad students, if the PI thinks that hiring more research scientists or postdocs is a better option. But often grad students are the best bang-for-the-buck, because you just can't get other full-time scientific employees for less.

Re:probably still makes sense

[AHuxley]

US government's view was to lure anyone from around the world to the USA.
Show them how good life is when free and happy, then send them back.
At home they where to infect the locals with pro US views.
Better yet rise up the ranks of their private or public sector and buy made in the USA over a long productive life.
Why do you think so many world leaders have very expensive US degrees?
The problem is China has out smarted the US.
They got their best and brightest near the US academics and learned all they could.
What works with funding, what works in the private sector, when you need cash and when you need decades.
What needs one person to make the leap or a team.
All the generations of US brilliance has been noted, reversed and sent back to China over a few short decades.
For the short term aim of cold war politics and anti communist education, the US gave it all away via its top universities.

Re:probably still makes sense

[sonnejw0]

No. NIH gives grants to students to do a specific project. Grants are contracted work, and the grant money is held by the lab to do that work, not by the student in their personal account. The grant relieves the lab/department of paying the stipend thus allowing the purchase of more resources including potentially a lab tech. If the student leaves, the grant still exists for the lab and is free from paying the stipend. Aside from that, when did the government start caring about where our tax money goes?

Re:probably still makes sense

[TheKidWho]

If you can't find a job with a PhD in Biochemistry in the entire USA, you're not telling the whole story.

Re:probably still makes sense

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

You know, like many countries the situation is simple. The probable answer is yes, but nobody knows for sure. It's quite an investment to find out for sure. There are not nearly enough discovery wells. Generally speaking, the foot of any young mountain range should have at least some oil (and older ones should have lots and lots of coal).

In America, Alaska, for example, should have much more oil than is presently discovered, as should california. In Latin America there are supposed to be many undiscovered oil giants.

Exploration for oil is, however, quite costly. Given what happens to a country once oil gets discovered, It'd probably be best to hope there is no oil in Ethiopia. And they have muslim neighbors. We all know what will happen if oil is discovered.

Re:probably still makes sense

[ceoyoyo]

The real problem is that Chinese students won't want to come to North America to work for food anymore, when they can stay at home and work for food. North America has a shortage of qualified domestic students who are willing to do the same.

Re:probably still makes sense

[tomhath]

While everything you say makes sense, it answers the wrong question.

Certainly universities want the very best students available in their graduate programs (except for students with a very rich or politically well connected daddy, but those don't count). What we don't know is how much better the foreign students are than the American students who didn't get in. Is an apparently better foreign student who might return home a better investment than the US student? Obviously you want the superstars going to the top universities no matter what, but below the elite level it's not so clear that there aren't enough qualified US citizens to go around. In light of the billions of dollars the current administration is allocating to affirmative action programs, the emphasis seems to be less on qualifications and more on politics anyway.

.

Re:probably still makes sense

[amilo100]

In many countries some people are not appreciated. This especially happens to minorities in some countries - what usually happens is that they leave.

In many developing countries, the ruling party caters for the lower classes and is completely populist. It absolutely makes sense to leave the country in such circumstances.

Re:probably still makes sense

[quadelirus]

Thank you, Trepidity. I got all fired up about the OP and was going to say roughly the same thing. As a graduate student in the sciences, I can tell you that my stipend is not even remotely out of altruism. I get payed by the university for 20 hours of work a week to work on research and do TA duties. I can tell you that I'm currently working about 60 hours a week on research alone. Many of the chinese graduate students that I know put in at least as much, they tend to be very hard working. And we don't do it simply because we love the material. There is a lot of pressure from above to be working this hard.

Re:probably still makes sense

[quadelirus]

The university doesn't assume this. In fact, if you receive a PhD from a university, you basically can't get a job there until you have left and proven yourself elsewhere (apart from your adviser). The university pays graduate students because without us it couldn't operate (there is a reason, for instance, that a single project in polymer science could have 20 underpaid graduate students led by one faculty member, instead of 20 faculty members). The bottom line is that without graduate students a research university could not financially afford to operate.

Re:probably still makes sense

[quadelirus]

Agreed, but much fewer graduate students receive government funding--most are supported by their universities, or in my field directly by their advisors, and also lots of government funding requires citizenship.

Re:probably still makes sense

[quadelirus]

I wish we were making 40k. The average at my university (which is a large state school) is something like 14k, and a minimum of 13k negotiated by a graduate student union, which means that most people are making fairly close to the average. Also, we happen to have a union, many universities don't, so I would expect it to be lower.

Re:probably still makes sense

[Jeremy Erwin]

(Other grad students earn their salary via their teaching.)

For the undergraduates' sake, let's hope that your foreign grad students are fluent.

Re:probably still makes sense

[moosesocks]

I've always wondered about this. While I'm certainly not going to complain about America's desire to recruit the best and the brightest, I do question why we don't do more to retain the best and the brightest, particularly when they regularly have visa problems in spite of receiving a massively subsidized education.*

I briefly considered continuing my education outside the US, and very quickly concluded that we are by far more generous toward foreign students than most other developed nations. The EU in particular wants nothing to do with you unless you're a citizen of one of their member states, or have more money than sense.**

*There's historic evidence to support this strategy -- it's often said that America made it to the moon because our German rocket scientists were better than Russia's German rocket scientists.

**This isn't necessarily true for undergraduate education. I completed part of my undergrad in Europe, and received a top-notch education for less money than most state schools charge in the US. I greatly regret my decision to return to the US to finish my degree so that I would receive a domestic qualification. However, if you're pursuing a postgraduate degree in the sciences, you'd be nuts to pay a dime for it.

Re:probably still makes sense

[Schickeneder]

This would come with the explicit expectation that these governments spend the money wisely, and steps are taken so that as little money as possible is wasted by corruption.

That is the problem plaguing the Bretton Woods Institutions and most other NGO international aid organizations since their inception. Certainly not a trivial problem. If you've got a solution then you'd immediately be appointed King of the World and given a Nobel prize to boot.

That bit about the Ethiopians is interesting, never heard that but can't say it's surprising!

Re:probably still makes sense

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can't find a job with a PhD in Biochemistry in the entire USA, you're not telling the whole story.

Well, I ain't no superstar but there's no scandal either.

And, I suppose in a certain sense, that was part of my point. The top PhDs - they're still going to get faculty positions at Harvard and Yale, so to speak. But "the people" here in the USA are really only willing to pony up to support a few of the Einsteins at the top. So, increasingly those of us who aren't superstars (both American and foreign) are finding better opportunities overseas.

That is, the lack of commitment to scientific research in the USA is causing a brain drain primarily from the bottom rather than from the top. I'm not saying that's wrong - just how it is.

Incidentally, as to why I've struggled to find a job in the USA, I took a couple years off after grad school to do some travelling, help my mom after my father died unexpectedly, and a few other things. I then did a three year stint as a scientific programmer and a year teaching part-time at a community college. So, at the moment, I just don't have the publication record to competitive for tenure track research faculty positions. But, I'm now also out past the 5 years since I did my PhD - so finding post-docs is also difficult.

If I keep doing part-time community college teaching I'll probably eventually land a full time community college gig. But, in the mean time, $30K/year is tough to support a family. Ideally, I'd get a job as a scientific programmer here in the USA paying $50K/year- but those jobs are very competitive. So when I got an offer for $45K/year doing a post-doc over in Asia - I really didn't have any choice but to take it.

And, that's my underlying point: for people like me who aren't superstars, moving out of the USA to pursue opportunities in places like Asia is looking better and better.

Re:probably still makes sense

[spmkk]

It's not that simple. If/when the US matches or exceeds China's "carrot" incentives for Ph.D. students to stay here after graduation, China will simply introduce stronger "stick" incentives for them to return home.

These students still have all their families in the old country. If there is a threat, say, of hardship for their loved ones if they fail to come back to China after earning their degrees, they'll be gone in a heartbeat no matter what the US offers them.

A more effective approach might be what many corporations do for employees who go to graduate or business school on the company's dime: require a latent time commitment at the firm after graduation. In international student terms, this could be the refusal of an exit visa for X years after graduation (stipulating that their new US-funded expertise is actually being put to use benefiting the American economy during that time). If you or your foreign sponsor would like to reimburse the US for the full retail cost of the education, you're free to go.

Re:probably still makes sense

[grepya]

There's nothing wrong with moving out the US to find jobs. That's precisely the sort of large geographical moves that are routine for grad students from India and China that allow them to compete on a global stage. It's an entrepreneurial move. That's precisely what America is (was?) all about. No ?

 

Re:probably still makes sense

[quax]

Thank you for sharing this story. Very interesting.

Re:probably still makes sense

[Rogerborg]

Do they publish though?

Oh, sorry - you were answering a completely different question, that I hadn't asked.

Re:probably still makes sense

[bladesjester]

It was my experience in college that a lot of the grad students teaching math courses were nowhere *near* fluent. It made the classes that much more difficult.

Re:probably still makes sense

[IICV]

And 1400 years ago, the Muslim world was a shining beacon of science and philosophy. For example, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Kwarizmi, one of the founders of algebra, was a Persian who lived circa AD 800. In the 1200s, Latin translations of his book "Kitab al-Jabr wa-l-Muqabala" introduced the foundations of math as we know it to the Europeans. Up until that point, they were still using Roman numerals, with no concept of zero or decimals.

So basically, I would love it if the Muslim world went back to living the Qur'an like they did 1400 years ago - they'd probably be even more civilized than we are.

As it is, they stand as a stark example of what happens when fundamentalism and anti-intellectualism control a nation for extended periods of time. Sure, Obama isn't the greatest - but electing Palin as VP would have led us even further down that road.

Re:probably still makes sense

[Maxo-Texas]

Completely agree.
Since the 80's, americans have lost the last of the respect they had for scientists previously (since perhaps the 40's?)

Meanwhile, they increasingly pay smart, non-science positions increasingly disproportionate amounts of money.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_was_the_salaries_in_the_1950s

In the 50's, average pay was $3000.
Scientists who were "middle class" (or perhaps higher, earned as much as $10,000).

So far so good, since $46k is the average today and scientists earn about $138k... oh wait, actually their pay is more like $70-80k but senior ones can make $110k.. past their we are talking about the top edge of the bell curve these days.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2001/06/25/305448/index.htm
http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/workshops/AppliedEcon/archive/pdf/FrydmanSecondPaper.pdf

CEO's received, in adjusted for inflation year 2000 dollars, $500,000 annual salaries in the 1950's.
So they earned about 150x the average national salary. A princely sum. But nothing near the 6,000x the average national wage today.

Here's the problem...
A person who wants to go to a ski resort or to a nice beach can save up enough money to compete with a 1950's CEO salary.
There is no hope of competing with the current ultra rich. You could save your entire lifetime and they could out bid you with an hour's wages.

---
So meanwhile back to scientists... they produce the work-- but management has highjacked their compensation. If CEO's were earning a million a year today, then scientists could be earning the $150k average that would justify the expense and effort that goes into acquiring a degree in science.

Re:probably still makes sense

[Grishnakh]

The school system is broken, yes, but it's not THAT broken. There's plenty of very smart Americans that are perfectly able to handle the coursework in college. The problem is that there's no incentive for them to go into these science jobs which pay peanuts when they could go into law or medicine or business and make far more money. Heck, if you want to stay in a more science-oriented career, you'd probably do a lot better going into engineering than trying to be a researcher. Most engineers get starting salaries of $60-70k these days, and six figures isn't that hard to do.

Fixing the broken school systems would mainly mean that a few more kids from the really bad schools would be able to go to college. American schools are very different based on which school you go to; the upper-middle-class kids go to much better public schools than the ghetto kids.

Re:probably still makes sense

[Grishnakh]

How is the US ever going to match China's "carrot" incentives? To do that, the US government would have to take over all the corporations, so that they aren't focused on quarterly profits, and make scientific research a priority (and well-paid, and respected). That's not going to happen. It's just not part of our culture. I think we should just face up to the fact that we're not going to be a leader in science any more, and let China take over that role.

Re:probably still makes sense

[rve]

And 1400 years ago, the Muslim world was a shining beacon of science and philosophy. For example, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Kwarizmi, one of the founders of algebra, was a Persian who lived circa AD 800. In the 1200s, Latin translations of his book "Kitab al-Jabr wa-l-Muqabala" introduced the foundations of math as we know it to the Europeans. Up until that point, they were still using Roman numerals, with no concept of zero or decimals.

So basically, I would love it if the Muslim world went back to living the Qur'an like they did 1400 years ago - they'd probably be even more civilized than we are.

As it is, they stand as a stark example of what happens when fundamentalism and anti-intellectualism control a nation for extended periods of time. Sure, Obama isn't the greatest - but electing Palin as VP would have led us even further down that road.

It makes as much sense judging a civilization by what they were 1000 years ago as by judging them by what they might be 1000 years from now.

But if you insist on mentioning it; Persian civilization existed a thousand years before the birth of Mohammed; it wasn't Islam that made their most recent golden age possible. And don't forget that the golden age of Islam wasn't a case of bringing civilization to an empty desert, but brutal conquest of some of the most advanced civilizations of the time: Persia, Christian Egypt, the Greek and Christian eastern Mediterranean, North Africa and Spain.

In short, I don't believe people then were much different from the way they are now, the balance of power was just different.

Ironically, they are still angry about the response to these Muslim conquests of what was then the vast majority of the Christian world: the crusades.

Re:probably still makes sense

[cyn1c77]

But then again I see nothing wrong with ti US offering grants and other forms of aid to underdeveloped countries so that they can improve their situation with respect to development and improve the local economy. This would come with the explicit expectation that these governments spend the money wisely, and steps are taken so that as little money as possible is wasted by corruption.

The country that wants to retain the doctors should be the one offering grants. These people are choosing not to return to their home countries because of poor living conditions, corruption, and the fear of violence.

It seems like excessive drain on our economy to pay to educate someone and THEN pay them to work in their home country.

IMO, Ethopia, and Africa as a whole, has gotten enough handouts. Their leaders stay rich, the money never makes in into infrastructure and education and the people keep killing each other. It's very similar to Iraq. You can pour money into the country, but unless the people as a whole want to improve their quality of life, the money will just be siphoned away into foreign banks and death.

Re:probably still makes sense

[TheKidWho]

American schools have probably some of the best programs for gifted students. It's a rather large dichotomy between the average student and the gifted one. If a student is truly gifted, they have the opportunity to excel in the USA's schooling system. It's the average mediocre student who suffers.

For example, the public High School that I attend in NYC is considered one of the best in the world, having graduated seven Noble prize winners and 6 Pulitzer prize winners. Almost all of my peers from that school have finished college and are well to do intelligent adults.

Re:probably still makes sense

[Maxo-Texas]

More here...
And it turns out I was being optimistic for executive pay.

http://www.businessweek.com/1999/99_16/b3625017.htm

Only 30 made over 300,000 the equivalent of those today made 500 million or more.

Re:probably still makes sense

[grepya]

" One solution would be for "the people" to pay more taxes and create enough research scientist jobs to retain the non-superstar PhDs. A lot of scientific research would get done. But, as far as I can tell, it's not what "the people" in the USA want."

    Er... that's only a "solution" if you define the problem as "Keep second tier Phd's in the country". What possible motivation would USA, as a society, would have to do that (assuming there actually was a body making decisions for the betterment of the society as a whole... Stop! don't even say the G word.). According to you, US universities keep the cream of the talent (at least among those who got their Phd's there), and cut the others loose to find their living the best they can. That's the very essence of a functioning, competitive market.

    The real "solution" to the problem of concentration of the best and brightest minds in one place is for other places to make themselves more attractive. According to TFA, China is trying to do some of that. US security agencies are doing the rest putting the fear of god in any and all foreigners trying to travel to US for any reason. All power to them. The Chinese program seems to be to lure native Chinese scientists back home after their Phds. But if this or similar programs allow Euro/American born scientists a wider choice... there's nothing wrong with that either. Globalization in action and all that.

       

Re:probably still makes sense

[jorgevillalobos]

> How does a country recover from such a tremendous brain drain

It's not correct to call that a brain drain from Ethiopia if that country doesn't build any brains itself. These brains are build by the US in the US. They are drained from nowhere.

The GP was referring to advanced degrees, just like TFA. The native Ethiopians would have received some form of education in their home country, and *then* migrate to continue their education. This is the same case as in many other countries, such as mine. These are already brilliant people who leave their country and never come back to contribute to the society they grew in. It is brain drain.

If certain countries, especially muslim one's, would leave behind their cultural backwardness (trying to violently live Qur'an like 1400 years ago - stupid backwardness !) instead of killing christians or other other-faith-people, students would have real incentives to return to such countries. So these countries get what they act.

See previous reply. You're wrong on all accounts.

Re:probably still makes sense

[TheKidWho]

I think his other major problem is his insistence on getting a job in scientific programming with a PhD in Biochemistry. Not even being able to find a job for 45k with a PhD in Biochemistry is an absolutely ridiculous notion to me. I honestly think he's just doing it wrong.

Simple question...simple answer.

[djupedal]

> "Does it make sense to invest in their training if they will do their major work elsewhere?"

What goes around comes around.

Grad students don't have to reside in North America to do good....get over it.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[scapermoya]

given the less-than-open nature of.... well, everything in china, it isn't as simple as that.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[HybridJeff]

On the other hand, sending back western educated scientists and engineers to China can't help but better relations between the east and the west. People accustomed to western culture who have move back to China to fill high paying positions in Chinese academia and industry are much more likely to think well of the west than those who were fully brought up, raised, and educated under the Communist Party of China. (Not to say that relations between China and the west are bad at the moment, they're probably near as good as they ever have been at the moment).

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[interkin3tic]

When the scientists publish their results, those results will be out there just as much as if the scientists had stayed here.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[scapermoya]

true, but still leaves the problem of brain drain. what do you we do about the immediate issue of spending resources on people and not recouping them except in long-term political/social ways.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[Totenglocke]

Grad students don't have to reside in North America to do good....get over it.

It has nothing to do with their education and everything to do with taxpayers money being used (in the form of grants) to pay for that education. But apparently you're just one of the many billions who think that the US exists solely to be the global sugar daddy.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[wizardforce]

Simple. Give them a good reason to stay. The fact that so many are choosing to return to China is strongly indicative that the US has done something very very wrong in terms of making these students want to remain here. If we want to stay in the lead in terms of scientific research we'd better find a way to up the Chinese government's ante or else we risk getting pwned.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[slawekk]

It's not necessarily something "very wrong" that USA did, it's just that China is catching up and the reasons for leaving the family, adjusting to a different culture and starting from close to zero in America are disappearing. This will accelerate in the future, especially when the realization that the US is a bankrupt country sinks in (heard that laughter when Geithner told Chinese students that dollar assets are safe?).

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[sznupi]

the US exists solely to be the global sugar daddy.

It's kinda implied by the US itself, with the amount of influence it wants to have in the world.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, because Western educated Muslims never go back to their countries resenting America or Britain!

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[MidnightBrewer]

I agree. The original poster expresses bad-manager sentiment; if I train my employees, they might get so good that they'll leave for greener pastures. If the work is good and the work environment friendly, people are more likely to stick around. If you make them feel like their own boss is their worst enemy, then don't be too surprised if your employees start leaving in droves. Train the people you hire; nobody said life had any guarantees, and the best-case scenario is that your own employees learn more and perform better.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[tsa]

That doesn't have to be the case. When I worked as a Post-Doc in Utrecht, the Netherlands, in 2000, we had a Chinese co-worker who just got his Ph.D. and was working also as a post-doc. He got a letter from the Chinese authorities in which he was invited to come back to China. He was promised a job as a professor at a university there. I don't remember wether he went there to have a look before he moved, but after he moved we got a heartbreaking email from his wife who told us that this so-called 'professorship' didn't exist, and the authorities had given them room to live in a house together with 9(!) other families. This was a big setback for her, being used to the standard of living here in NL. Her husband had a better job here than he had gotten in China. And of course there was no way this poor guy and his family were allowed to come back to the Netherlands. I wouldn't be surprised if this happens a lot with Chinese people who are drawn back to China by their government.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[Kjella]

Public research, yes.

But there's a ton of very smart people with PhDs that don't do public research, only very important private research. Just to pick one I imagine Boeing has tons of people with PhDs in aeronautics whose results aren't published but rather used in fierce competition with Airbus and so on. That kind of brain drain will be a problem.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[tsa]

It's often not about the knowledge published in the publications, but about the way the scientists do the research. And a publication can make very difficult things seem very easy. You often need the scientists involved in the research to replicate the results.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[TheRaven64]

Which would be true if papers really were publication, but these days a depressing number are just advertising. They say 'I'm great, look at these results that I got' but don't contain enough information to reproduce them. And, of course, the reviewers don't have time to actually try reproducing the results, so they approve them for publication.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[Hurricane78]

Considering how often I read on Slashdot about some Chinese team doing good science, I must agree.

You can say what you want, but they’re doing some impressive science down there. Which also is sad, because imagine them having a good government. They (the government) would not have to act like dicks. They could lead out of sheer respect for their work. Imagine a Chinese/US team effort to get to mars.
I guess there’s nothing I hate more, than some asshole slowing down the progress of the whole world, for his own short-lived personal gain.

Oh well, could be worse. They could try to promote creationism. ;)

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[Trepidity]

It depends on the environment on the amount of enculturation. There are some places with very large foreign-student populations, and very competitive environments, where a Chinese student will essentially come to the US for 5-6 years, work 80+ hour weeks that entire time, mainly associating with other Chinese students in the same situation, and then graduate.

They'll probably still know more about American culture than not coming at all, but to some extent large labs in the physical sciences are a bit of a bubble-world.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[Trepidity]

Unfortunately that's true, but I think it says something about the increasing failure of the public science literature to actually embody advances in knowledge. In a lot of areas, you really cannot replicate the results solely from the published literature--- meaning it's not really science.

In many cases, this is deliberate, because the scientists are playing an academic game on one side of the fence, and working for startups on the other side of the fence, so they go out of their way to make the "public" part of their research omit enough important details that competitors on the private side can't just reimplement it.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[AHuxley]

The locals hate you.
The top ranking locals know to use your smarts.
Your just a tool that has decades of skills.
Get out of line in any way, the Laogai awaits for you and your family.
They know who they sent out in the 1970, 80, 90's ect, what your doing and where your positioned.
When to ask a question or have a sit down with your fav prof from China, just an afternoon of friendly chats.
Repeat that a few 1000 times per year for the US and then the world over and China is soaking up serious skill sets.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[AHuxley]

Japan learned to build ships, sank some Russian ships and then some US and UK ships.
Then Japan got sunk.
With FOX news and the democrats running the USA, China can just sit back and wait.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[hey!]

It's an interesting thought experiment.

If you take a brilliant, highly educated person out of a country with political freedom and put him a politically repressive country, he doesn't stop being brilliant or highly educated. But does it affect his productivity?

I don't think it does. However, the chances of something stupid being done with him and his work is higher. There's a wonderfully ironic example of this from the US Red Scare in the late 40s, when our government engaged in political witch hunts of intellectuals.

Qian Xuesen was a brilliant young rocket scientist, one of the founders of the JPL, one of the key brains behind early US rocketry, and a giant in the field of aerodynamics and jet propulsion theory. When he applied for citizenship in 1949 he was turned down, on fears that he might be Communist. The only evidence: he was Chinese. At one point he was arrested by the FBI for carrying a table of logarithms on a trip outside the US. His security clearance was revoked, making it impossible for him to continue his crucial rocketry work for the US.

Unable to work in the homeland he'd wanted to adopt, Qian would have been forced to move back to China, which would have been delighted to take him back. But this wasn't a case of some low level researcher who might smuggle the crown jewels of America's defense technology out of the country. Qian's brains *were* the crown jewels. High level defense department officials immediately realized this was a horrible mistake. Unfortunately, it wasn't politically possible to back away from that mistake at the height of the Red Scare. Qian was put under house arrest for five years, for no other crime than applying to become an American citizen.

Eventually he was allowed to return to China, which welcomed him with open arms even though he was not a Communist. After several years there the self-fulfilling prophecy came true and Qian joined the party. He was allowed to pursue his work unfettered by political interference, training a new generation of Chinese rocket engineers and advancing Chinese ICBM capabilities by decades. With Qian's help, China went from having no modern domestic rocketry technology to designing and building its own ICBMs in ten years. In fifteen years China was able to put payloads into orbit.

Note the abundant ironies here. The supposedly "free" US government oppresses a brilliant individual, but the supposedly "oppressive" one welcomes him with open arms and lets him do the kind of work he's born to do. The US government, by catering to fear and paranoia, provided a bitter enemy with the ability to strike US soil with nuclear weapons.

You could argue that the secretive, non-democratic government was actually at an advantage here, not having to worry about being re-elected and able to simply squelch any kind of organized public scare mongering by its political enemies. Qian apparently sailed through the Cultural Revolution because he was obviously too valuable to mess with. Too bad the FBI wasn't able to realize that during *our* Cultural Revolution.

That's why in the US the power of the federal judiciary to be a check on the elected branches is so important. If the executive branch, for example, is allowed to define it's own para-judicial system for politically sensitive cases, it *will* screw up, even though it *knows* at the time it's screwing up. Had Qian had been able contest the accusation in a forum that was not charged with political calculation, his clearance would have been restored and citizenship granted, to the enormous benefit of the United States. Instead his destiny was put in the hands of politics, and the politicians *knowingly* caused all the bad things they were ostensibly preventing, just to get through the next elections.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[Anonymous Coward]

He actually died 2 months ago... Still, a very sobering story.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[aspelling]

Did you get a letter from him complaining about inability to teach or to do research?
Wives always complain about their living be that a room in a dormitory or 4000ft2 house

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[mikael]

Happened to the Chinese guy in our research group - got an invitation as a research associate in a prestigious Chinese university. Next thing he knows, he is supervising nine other PhD students.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[timeOday]

apparently you're just one of the many billions who think that the US exists solely to be the global sugar daddy.

Could you be any more wrong about the US/China relationship? We owe them $800,000,000,000. It's pretty obvious who's the sugar daddy.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[whyfreakout]

When I was a PhD student in the US (EU citizen) it was impossible for me to get any employment. The immigration rules in the US are so hostile towards anybody wanting to stay based on the argument that you can provide value from your contribution it's ridiculous.

The rules regarding technology export control are even worse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITAR) - if you are not a "US person" any other individual is not even allowed to talk to you about many types of technology work, no matter where you are physically located (at the threat of severe punishment). While export control is not an issue in academic settings, in my industry (aerospace) it closes doors faster and harder than even the US' immigration policies do.

The US treats immigrants (legal or not, educated or not) with such disdain, why does it surprise anyone that people who have a choice no longer select to stay here? I applaud China's government for acknowledging the value of educated individuals - if the US government/culture were to value education even a fraction as much it would solve a lot of problems in this country (poverty, teacher shortage, etc.).

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[troll8901]

He was promised a job as a professor at a university there ... after he moved we got a heartbreaking email from his wife who told us that this so-called 'professorship' didn't exist, and the authorities had given them room to live in a house together with 9(!) other families.

I think governments like this is just a reflection of human selfishness (common to all humans worldwide) - wanting to hoard all the riches but not wanting to share. It had always been the case since medieval ages. Being able to control the press is a bonus - preventing the news from spreading.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[the gnat]

Qian apparently sailed through the Cultural Revolution because he was obviously too valuable to mess with. Too bad the FBI wasn't able to realize that during *our* Cultural Revolution.

Except that the Cultural Revolution really did do an amazing amount of damage to China's scientific progress - it took them decades to recover, since some of their brightest minds were shipped off to the countryside to work in collective farms. In the Soviet Union, while physics and engineering prospered, their biology was essentially worthless because of the dominance of Lysenko and his ideas. The other totalitarian states of the 20th century had similarly awful records - some German physicists rejected the work of Einstein because it was "Jewish Physics," and Enrico Fermi left Italy because his wife was Jewish and the Fascists had started passing anti-Semitic laws.

I agree that the example you give is a near-suicidal mistake for any country to make, and certainly not the only example either (Oppenheimer was also treated poorly), but the USA has usually done a much better job of avoiding such mistakes than authoritarian regimes.

Re:Simple question...simple answer.

[the gnat]

It has nothing to do with their education and everything to do with taxpayers money being used (in the form of grants) to pay for that education.

I'm a bit hazy on the specifics, but I believe that training grants may not be used for foreign nationals. For the first two years of graduate school, my stipend was paid from these grants, and most of my classmates were funded the same way. Foreign students, on the other hand, had to be funded separately, or so one of the professors told me.

Once students joined a lab and passed their qualifying exam, they were generally paid from the professor's grant money (usually NIH). However, at that point they're basically a full-time (at least!) researcher, and you're getting highly-trained labor (at least a BS plus advanced technical skills, and usually some real-life work experience, perhaps a publication record too) for around $40,000 per year once tuition/fees are included (the actual stipend is around $25,000). Postdocs get paid a little better (the base pay is slightly under $40,000), but that's for someone who spent most of their 20s in school and has a PhD or MD. I suppose we could just tell foreign students and postdocs to fuck off and try to run our national basic research infrastructure on American labor only, but I doubt you'll find qualified Americans rushing to fill the void for such low salaries.

Fixed the story for you

[Anonymous Coward]

The NY Times reports that China is increasing incentives for Chinese students earning PhDs in the US to return home along with all of the technology they acquired at working at American companies.

Re:Fixed the story for you

[Anonymous Coward]

So...once someone works for an American company, it becomes unethical for them to work in any other country is it? Self pity much?

Re:Fixed the story for you

[TheRaven64]

If US have enough American PhD why does America lures Chinese students to study home?

I'm not sure if it's the same in the USA, but over here students from outside the EU and Commonwealth pay much higher tuition fees. This means that it's in the interests of the university to recruit as many as possible, because they get more money and can use that to subsidise other things (more staff, more local students, the vice chancellor's limo, whatever). For a funded PhD, however, these tuition fees are paid for by a grant, either from industry or, more commonly, from the government. This means that getting a Chinese student means more money from the government going to the university than getting an EU student. This is pretty much the opposite of what the rules were set up to achieve.

Re:Fixed the story for you

[Anonymous Coward]

In the American schools, for undergrad, we charge more for out of staters. However, the feds put up a lot of money to support students, including foreign students. It is upper academia, where things are interesting. It use to be that other nations paid to come here. Now, the feds, in the interest of getting all nations to work together, put a small stipend out for most students. Sadly, it is not enough for Americans to live on. So other nations are putting up part of the money.

Basically, foreigners get better support here, than do Americans since foreigners have the same support as Americans AND their nation's. That is why American's are losing out.

Re:Fixed the story for you

[TamCaP]

I come from a non-China nation (EEurope) and I am in "upper academia". If you can please show me any of the money "my nation" is giving me (or has been giving me since I started college, as I finished HS back home) I would be appreciative. Oh, wait! yes, I receive a stipend of $100 / month. Almost missed it :-/

On the other hand, Uncle Sam (through some money-academia-laundering) has been more than welcome to help me out, but my stipend is pretty much the same as the one of American-born peers.

I think the worse problem is the other way around

[clong83]

I've always thought that if they want to go home afterwards, let them. If it becomes a large scale trend that nobody Chinese (or any other particular nationality) wants to stay afterwards, then people may just stop hiring as many. In general until that point, it's still worth it to fund their education just for the work they do as a grad student, and the likely work they will do in the US afterwards, even if a few end up going home and working and contributing heavily in another economy.

Here's where I think the main problem actually is: We actually send home some who do want to stay. And that is a true wasted opportunity. I've met a couple of very smart people in my days as a grad student that were sent home even though they wanted to stay. Visa expired, couldn't find a job in time or some other such nonsense. If you have a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, you are not likely to be a drag on society, even if you don't wind up employed in your first six months out. And now they are in China, Germany, India, or Mexico, working and contributing in those economies and using all the tools and education they got courtesy of Uncle Sam.

We should make it easier for them. And yes, I have real people in mind that I am typing about.

The Worm Turns

[hyades1]

The US has been profiting from the "Brain Drain" for the best part of a hundred years. Now, finally, the countries from whom they've been recruiting the best and brightest have some solid reasons to go home after enjoying the benefits of a US postgraduate education (which often was paid for by the other country at a rate two or three times that charged to US students). Meanwhile, undergraduate, secondary and primary education in the US has been degraded by underfunding to the point where fewer and fewer Americans are able to take advantage of the superb post-grad opportunities.

Re:The Worm Turns

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was in college most American kids were having the time of their lives. Parties, sex, drugs, frats. All the foreign or new citizen kids were in the library and filling the halls of the engineering / computer science dept. Years of that are catching up and all most Americans can do is blame everything on money or not enough government services. How do you think that Vietnamese kid whose family immigrated to the US was able to afford his Master/PHD. He actually worked for it.

Re:The Worm Turns

[shutdown -p now]

The US has been profiting from the "Brain Drain" for the best part of a hundred years. Now, finally, the countries from whom they've been recruiting the best and brightest have some solid reasons to go home after enjoying the benefits of a US postgraduate education (which often was paid for by the other country at a rate two or three times that charged to US students).

My thoughts exactly.

Hell, in Russia, degree and beyond is actually free (if you're good enough, anyway), and then people turn around and immigrate... a lot of folk are quite bitter about it all.

And in this case, those Chinese students have likely paid a lot of money (more than an American would) to study in U.S., and not all of them go for post-grad. I would be very much surprised if it's a net loss even if all post-grads leave.

Re:The Worm Turns

[CAIMLAS]

I'm really getting tired of the "underfunded" argument as to why schools are failing in the US. Seriously?

Public funding has increased steadily, at a rate faster than inflation. This is not just nationally, but also at the local level through property taxes.

Also, the funding argument is easily dissuaded simply by pointing out counter-examples: there are many, many private schools which are able to educate students to superior levels in all of the basics. We're talking half as much funding and less.

The cause for government school failure in the US is not due to a lack of funding. That's an excuse, and pushes the blame from the cause. The cause is that they're government schools, with strict top-down models they must adhere to, and do not take the individual student in mind. Schools have to do well on standardized tests, yadda yadda. It's all a huge drain to actual education, and has been so, progressively for over 60 years now.

Re:The Worm Turns

[sznupi]

Those school systems which are functioning good throughout the world are very much "government" ones too, so you might let go that socialism phobia. Something went a bit more wrong with your implementation along the way.

One could even argue that what you're describing is, essentially, applying corporate ethics to the way education is performed ;p

Re:The Worm Turns

[eclectro]

Yup. It's a shame we ran out of Nazis to help with the space program though.

Re:The Worm Turns

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever watched Jerry Springer?

Re:The Worm Turns

[misexistentialist]

It's hard to see how "having the time of their lives" is a bad thing. Unless the Vietnamese kid ends up engineering/programming something significant in terms of human accomplishment or at least lucrative, he basically wasted his life.

Re:The Worm Turns

[Anonymous Coward]

"he basically wasted his life."

I guess someone wants to justify how they lived or their current lives. A waste is doing shit everyone else is capable of doing with ill or no regard to the consequences. Nothing wrong with eating, drinking, and fucking, but it doesn't make you special or your life meaningful, even amongst /.ers. It makes you like everyone else, which is okay, but as a response to TFA, is hardly a response to why we might be getting our asses kicked.

Any wonder anymore why the US is seemingly falling behind? Not only are people screwing around, but hard work is a point of derision. There's also an immense failing in understanding that the sum of society can also accomplish something based on individual strivings, such as this Vietnamese kid contributing an idea or part that someone else sees and puts together to do something minor, which pays people to live their lives. He may do something as pass on an idea, teach, or raise his children a certain way based on his experiences who then in turn accomplish. It's a silly thing, and something people look down on these days, but these things add up and are interconnected.

Re:The Worm Turns

[Grishnakh]

Education in the USA is NOT underfunded by any means. There's plenty of statistics available showing how much the USA spends per pupil compared to other countries, and it's not deficient. It's typical liberal thinking to say schools in the US are underfunded, and that throwing more money at a problem will somehow fix it.

There's several problems with US public education, and money isn't one of them. One is the teacher's unions, which serve only to keep terrible teachers around and discourage good ones from going into the profession. One is the bad administrations. One is the poor teacher pay in many districts (no, this wouldn't be fixed by more funding; the money is being wasted somewhere else, such as administrators' salaries). One is the lack of discipline and all the bad students who are not expelled from the system, preventing other kids from learning. One is the constant latching onto stupid educational trends like "lattice multiplication" instead of teaching the basics (the 3 Rs) properly. One is the insane amounts of money wasted on Microsoft software.

US public education needs a massive overhaul, and just throwing money at it won't make it better.

Re:The Worm Turns

[Anonymous Coward]

America is quite diverse, where I live there are people who can barely speak English, or have thick accents, and they proudly call themselves American. Here's a nice analogy America (and really, most nations) are not a mass of like-thinking people, rather a mass of individuals; on Slashdot it's safe to assume everyone has heard of C++ ipv6 and linux, (I personally know little about ipv6 other than the obvious, there will be people who can't program at all, and there'll be those who know it all), yet every topic shows brilliantly differing opinions, an arguments about it (we may of all heard about c++, but some of us think it's a work of art, others think it's shitty compared to other languages, others don't know enough about c++ to actually have a real opinion, and still others take an opinion without knowing what they're talking about). So we know Americans have heard of Jerry Springer, majority have even seen an episode or two (myself included), I personally hate the show, yet I have watched it, I know what goes on, because I'm an American. Another American may think the show is amazingly funny/interesting, and we are still both American (this logic applies to every culture group you can imagine, not just American).

To be culturally American is hard to define, I have a friend who wouldn't ever dream of moving to china and only visits every so often on family trips, yet she speaks the language, her house has a calendar in chinese, and random decorations culturally tied to china right next to the xbox360/guitar hero setup, I consider her Culturally American. I have another friend, everything is the same (down to the guitar hero setup) except she yearns to visit China in the summer out of her own will, moved her when she was about 13ish, and the only thing keeping her from definitely moving to china after graduation is money issues, and rarely uses English when speaking to anyone who knows her language aswell, she identifies with Chinese culture more strongly than American.

Re:The Worm Turns

[CAIMLAS]

Just because that's the cause (provided it is) does not mean it's justified.

There should be no special ed. There's only so much that retarded people can do, and there is absolutely no reason why a child should be subjected to that. It's an unnecessary expense.

And no, public schools don't offer enough of an education to "round a person out" so that special ed could be justified in that fashion. There's only so much you should be teaching someone who's going to be physically and/or mentally unable to do much more than flip burgers or sweep a floor, when it's on the taxpayer dime. (Many of them will be on welfare their entire lives, anyway.)

So no, private schools don't have to deal with special ed. Instead, many focus on "special ed" in the sense of helping students who are actually able to excel. Government schools should not have special ed, either.

No Child Left Behind is, basically, Special Ed for Everyone People. That's a big fault.

Re:The Worm Turns

[CAIMLAS]

Yes, something got fucked with the US implementation of government schools. That's because they're in America, and socialism has a bad habit of fucking things up really, really bad in America.

In America, social programs are run like a poorly operated corporation. There's a lot of top-end bloat, and not a whole lot gets done.

Re:The Worm Turns

[xirusmom]

Top-down models? I do not know the Chinese system but I would guess it is pretty much "top-down"as well. Maybe that is a problem but not the main reason US schools are failing. I think the main reason, is self-indulgence, parents who are not interested in their kid's education and expect the school will do the entire job alone. That will never happen. Behavior, attitude towards life and education comes from home, not from schools. Plus, a culture where we praise criminals who write songs about beating people up or worse (and make a lot of money from it), professors who are paid crap so the school can pay millions to football coaches, I can go on and on... but the bottom line is: if people do not value education, individually or as a nation, the system will fail.

Re:The Worm Turns

[Grishnakh]

The problem isn't that "government" is bad. The problem is that the U.S. government is bad. Sure, when a well-run small country like Switzerland sets up a school system (or just about anything else it seems), they seem to do a pretty decent job of it without enormous amounts of corruption and graft getting in the way. When the U.S. government tries anything like this, it's an expensive disaster.

Why do you think American citizens are so dead-set against government-run healthcare? Because everything else the government touches over here turns to shit. We have zero confidence that our government would do it right.

It's too bad, with all the corporate outsourcing going on these days, that we can't outsource our own government. Someone else could probably do a much better job than we can.

Re:The Worm Turns

[Grishnakh]

This is definitely one of the big problems with public schools, and something that should be fixed (but with the government and teacher's unions the way they are, it won't happen). Bad students need to simply be expelled. Bad students, the ones who don't want to learn, are holding back the ones who do, so teachers are spending more time just being babysitters than actually teaching. And special-needs students should be sent to a special school just for them. The problem with that is that it won't happen either, because parents will get upset that their little Johnny is being sent to the "retarded" school and not being taught alongside all his peers.

So don't treat this like it's some special loophole that the private schools exploit to keep their costs low; it's not. It's exactly what EVERY school should be doing. All American children are supposed to be entitled to access to a free public education up through 12th grade; this doesn't mean that it needs to be forced on them if they're troublemakers.

Re:The Worm Turns

[MJMullinII]

Education in the USA is NOT underfunded by any means. There's plenty of statistics available showing how much the USA spends per pupil compared to other countries, and it's not deficient. It's typical liberal thinking to say schools in the US are underfunded, and that throwing more money at a problem will somehow fix it.

There's several problems with US public education, and money isn't one of them. One is the teacher's unions, which serve only to keep terrible teachers around and discourage good ones from going into the profession. One is the bad administrations. One is the poor teacher pay in many districts (no, this wouldn't be fixed by more funding; the money is being wasted somewhere else, such as administrators' salaries). One is the lack of discipline and all the bad students who are not expelled from the system, preventing other kids from learning. One is the constant latching onto stupid educational trends like "lattice multiplication" instead of teaching the basics (the 3 Rs) properly. One is the insane amounts of money wasted on Microsoft software.

US public education needs a massive overhaul, and just throwing money at it won't make it better.

And it's the typical result of seeing every problem through the prism of Class Warfare to assume only liberals want to take the easy way out (meaning throwing money at the problem). Every conservative who endlessly bitches about taxes is doing the exact same thing, just in the opposite direction. One side has the idea that money will fix anything, the other the idea that somehow "they" (unions, foreigners, etc.) are after "their" money and so zero money should be spent, period until it's fixed.

That's a whole lot like telling your doctor not to send you your bill until you pay it.

Throw in more than a little revisionism ("gee whiz, everything was perfect in the 'Leave it to Beaver' before they had fancy things like 'physics'") and you just compound the problem,...not to mention ensure nothing ever gets fixed.

Re:The Worm Turns

[fishexe]

I'm really getting tired of the "underfunded" argument as to why schools are failing in the US. Seriously?

And I'm getting really tired of morons failing to grasp the simple connection, then invoking government conspiracy theories about them damn lib'ruls, as well as made-up statistics, to justify running the education system further into the ground.

Public funding has increased steadily, at a rate faster than inflation.

First of all, without other information this is completely meaningless. If schools were grossly underfunded to begin with, then you would expect spending to increase faster than inflation just to make up the deficit. How do we stand on education spending? As a percentage of GDP, 37th in the world (source: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_edu_spe-education-spending-of-gdp). What country is first? Cuba. Is this correlated with educational quality? Perhaps, perhaps not, but the country with the world's highest literacy rate? Also Cuba (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate).
Second, your claim that this increase has been steady is false. ( http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=1980_2010&view=1&expand=&units=b&fy=fy10&chart=20-total&bar=1&stack=1&size=m&title=&state=US&color=c&local=) True, most years the increase is more than inflation, but certainly not all, and in a few years it was as low as 1.8% when inflation was around 3%.

This is not just nationally, but also at the local level through property taxes.

I don't know where you live, but where I grew up (a village in southern Wisconsin) the school budget declined every year for the entire time I attended middle and high school, to the point that there was a toilet paper shortage, since it "wasn't in the budget" to buy a few dozen more rolls toward the end of the year, all because every year local conservatives whined more and more about property taxes. In the time since I've graduated funding has gotten even lower; a friend who now teaches at the school has reported that school lunch is now down to a couple slices of white bread, a slab of meat, and an apple. At least when I was there, we still got two vegetable choices and pizza day twice a month.

Also, the funding argument is easily dissuaded simply by pointing out counter-examples: there are many, many private schools which are able to educate students to superior levels in all of the basics. We're talking half as much funding and less.

Do you have documentary evidence of even one private school taking in half as much money as a nearby public school and outperforming it? Comparisons of widely different geographic and demographic areas don't count; that's called cherry-picking your data. While it's certainly true that the average private school outperforms similarly situated public schools, almost all of these private schools take in more funding per pupil AND have the selection bias of families whose parents are more motivated towards education than the local average.

The cause for government school failure in the US is not due to a lack of funding. That's an excuse, and pushes the blame from the cause.

Again, evidence please? In statistical or logical form, not just your assertion.

The cause is that they're government schools, with strict top-down models they must adhere to, and do not take the individual student in mind. Schools have to do well on standardized tests, yad

I predict a boom in Chinese research.

[Interoperable]

From what I have observed in the field that I study (quantum optics), there has been a rapid increase in the number and quality of publications from Chinese institutes. For the moment, they tend to lag behind the labs in more developed economies, filling out the body of information in the field rather than pioneering new techniques. Nonetheless, the research is usually very sound and many institutes are catching up very quickly.

The students from China tend to be very talented and are willing to work extremely hard. As the quality of equipment and infrastructure improves in the Chinese labs and the opportunities there rival the more mature labs the Chinese students will have no problem returning or staying to do doctoral work. I imagine that the situation is similar in other fields and I'm sure that there will soon be an explosion of quality research coming from China.

Re:I predict a boom in Chinese research.

[timmarhy]

the chinese don't tend to be terribly inventive is their problem. from what i've seen, they tend to suffer a cultural thing "it's been done this way for 1000 years, it's how we will continue". what they are good at is taking an idea and doing it for 1/10th the price and in 1/2 the time.

as their exposure to the west increases this will change i'm sure, but for now most of the innovatino is still going to come from the USA and other western countries.

Re:I predict a boom in Chinese research.

[15Bit]

My experience echoes this - i review for a number of materials science journals and i've noticed a steady increase in the quality of work coming from the chinese universities. Its becoming well written (in english, which is not easy for them i think) and increasingly relevant. I would predict that before long they will need us less than we need them. The only case of blatant cheating (copying and pasting "nano particles" all over a SEM picture) came from india, not china.

Re:I predict a boom in Chinese research.

[Dorsai65]

The thing that concerns me is that "but for now" part.

If the U.S. doesn't get its collective head out of its ass and start not only teaching math and science again, but actually respecting (and even honoring) the fields, then we're going to be the world's foremost service people. We've got too many kids going to college just for the "piece of paper" that valuable resources are being wasted. It's well past time for parents to accept that a college degree isn't an automatic job guarantee, and start directing their kids into some trade schools. A journeyman plumber takes more money home than a Liberal Arts grad flipping burgers.

Re:I predict a boom in Chinese research.

[NeutronCowboy]

Ah - you mean, like the Japanese from the 60s and 70s? By that logic, we should see a CNOOC sign on top of Rockefeller Plaza by 2020.

Re:I predict a boom in Chinese research.

[Idiomatick]

There is something positive to be said for a well educated populace mind you...

Re:I predict a boom in Chinese research.

[sznupi]

Large part of our world is built on Chinese ingenuity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions

So I'm not sure what you are saying. The period of stagnation China had for some time relatively recently was an exception in their history. Not without destructive influence of the West, too.

Re:I predict a boom in Chinese research.

[TheKidWho]

A journeyman plumber is also more valuable than a Liberal Arts grad

One has a practical degree, the other has a waste of paper.

Re:I predict a boom in Chinese research.

[aspelling]

Chinese are willing to spend their money on fundamental research without immediate financial reward.
This is against our culture of quarter-per-quarter results.
Friend of mine who is in the top pack of string theorists was invited for a tenured position to teach/research in China. I always make fun of him working on something he couldn't even experimentally proof, but they were willing to pay for it.
He hasn't accepted the offer because he got the same position in UK, which is much closer culturally to us.

Re:I predict a boom in Chinese research.

[cheesybagel]

The stagnation started way before the West had anything to do with it. Ever since the Song Dynasty ended with the Mongol invasion the Chinese started lagging tremendously. Real recovery started when Deng Xiaoping took over.

Re:I predict a boom in Chinese research.

[sznupi]

Well, then it still falls under "external influence" a bit, no?

Re:I predict a boom in Chinese research.

[philpalm]

Being inventive is difficult. I believe Thomas Edison said that it takes more perspiration than inspiration to get an invention.OK, America will provide the incentives and the Chinese will take the initiative and succeed in producing more and more useful "junk". Even if Americans and Europeans invent stuff, China will manufacture it and make a profit off of it. Spread the wealth around until slowly but surely China will own the world...

Re:I predict a boom in Chinese research.

[number17]

Less than 50 years ago a guy named Mao was able to pull together a country of 1.3 billion people and almost wipe out that culture. He brought massive change to the country. It wasn't novel for the world but it was for China. Post-Mao brought an almost complete reversal with what I would say is just as big of a change.

Most people will do anything to make a buck, such as even leaving their children behind, and become part of the largest mass migrations in the world. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE50C10J20090113

This article pegs it at almost 200million people (2/3 of the US population). If thats not a completely different way of living then I dont know what is. http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-News/Chinese-New-Year-Mass-Migration-As-Chinas-Population-Visit-Their-Families/Article/200901415210152

I sure met a lot of people who were stuck in the old ways and they were mostly over 60. The young are out exploring the world, something their parents would have never had a chance to do. The town I stayed in (pop. > 80000) had very little young as it was a prosperous town and most are foreign students. The young who were in town were mostly the uneducated looking for work.

Re:I predict a boom in Chinese research.

[sznupi]

I said only "Not without destructive influence of the West, too.", it doesn't imply exclusive influence at all. But it was in the response to a post almost boasting "West = civilization"

still some issues for china's progress

[chentiangemalc]

I lived in China for one year teaching high school students and one thing I noticed in general while students were brilliant at chemistry, maths, physics, etc. when solving text book problems, many seemed to be struggling with coming up with new concepts, and in some cases applying what they learnt into new areas. Many struggled when told 'I want x as the end result' without any explanation of the process to achieve the end result. It seems most of the science study was just pure memorizing of facts and figures. I found the same later on when managing some staff from Asia, although very dedicated and hard working they required additional guidance on what processes to use to achieve a goal. There seemed to be a strong sense of 'copy wherever possible' (why re-create it, if somebody already has?) My students had to do 'school', 'city', and 'provincial exams' The complained the provincial exams 'didn't allow copying' Another instance of this was when a foreign professor in Chinese university was fired when failing students for work that had obviously been copied from another source. I think US / Europe still had lead on creativity which can be an important factor when coming up with new solutions / ideas. Not to say the Chinese can't, and it will be interesting to see how they go, but I don't think the number of PhD's alone will decide whether US or China has technology lead. It will also depend on how much further China restricts internet access as the number of internet sites being blocked continues to increase, it certainly frustrates me that even though I have a large network of friends in China working in technology social networking / YouTube continues to be blocked there, and alternatives to access these sites such as proxies / VPN are illegal - and often if detected are blocked. For my friends in China who have studied overseas and since moved back to China they are constantly complaining about fact sites like facebook,twitter, youtube no longer work.

Re:still some issues for china's progress

[plasticsquirrel]

This is very common in other countries as well. I'd venture to guess that it is the most common method in developing countries. I discussed this once with Uzbek and Nepalese students who couldn't understand why other students were bothered when they wanted to copy answers from them. I mentioned that the other person had to do work to study the material and learn it, but they wouldn't have any of that. I was really taken aback by the attitude and by the lack of basic educational spirit reflected in it. "Why learn anything, when you can just copy from someone else?"

In China, I also see that many students just memorize English sentences and regurgitate them like robots to get a good grade. This is not just a bad teaching habit here, but rather the standard way of teaching. Give students a dialogue and then have them regurgitate it later. "If they can pronounce everything correctly, they must know what it all means."

The U.S. has many problems, but I think two good things we have are a sense of educational honesty, and good sensibilities about fairness and loyalty. I still believe we are generally good-natured and honest people, but our culture is often naive, and this hurts us (and others) in many ways.

Re:still some issues for china's progress

[Krahar]

I've been noticing this reliance on rote memorization in everything I've done that comes from Asia. E.g., if you read a Chess book, you will be given examples with explanations and a lot of text. If you read a Go book (a game from China), you will be given absolutely no explanation of any kind, and you are expected to pick up the concepts yourself from being presented with a large amount of examples that aren't explained - the concepts aren't even named. These books literally have no text in them, just images of Go boards. This is the wax-on-wax-off philosophy at work - do not question why you are being set a task, simply do it and trust that your better's have a good reason for having you do it. I saw a documentary where Chinese people were expected to learn English by repeating given sentences over and over until they could do so extremely quickly. Then they had to keep at it until they could say them backwards!

Re:still some issues for china's progress

[Concerned Onlooker]

It's not just in China. It's in our classrooms. I recently went back to school for a degree in CS and--I know this is going to sound a little bad--but a certain foreign students would ask me to just send them the code for a certain problem we were all working on.

And if you frequent places like the OpenCV forum it is very common to see a post that says words to the effect of "I'm trying to do X. Send me some code." It's definitely off-putting. I love collaboration and discussion, but just being somebody's homework lackey doesn't do it for me.

Re:still some issues for china's progress

[sznupi]

...I don't think the number of PhD's alone will decide whether US or China has technology lead...

It will certainly help Chinese if PhD's brought up in place targeting creativity will start to shape their educational system.

Re:still some issues for china's progress

[Malc]

If you haven't read it yet, then you might like read Peter Hessler's "River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze". It makes particular sense to those of us who've had the privilege to live in China, and for you, having taught there, will probably really resonate.

Re:still some issues for china's progress

[Tellarin]

It is definitely very common to find this "memorizing-stuff-is-education" in developing countries. Brazil for example, used to be very much like this in the 80s. Even Richard Feynman complained about it when he taught in Brazil for a year. It is still somewhat like that, but has improved. My experience with China (and Singapore, for that matter) is that the issue is more of a "no challenge allowed", so students don't have a say and have to do exactly what is asked of them. Maybe due to this, most students from Asia are less autonomous, needing more guidance to pursue solutions to problems.

From the educational systems I know something about, the "copy culture" is not so specific to countries. I'd say it is more of a global thing, with occasional countries where it seem to happen more often.

My impression from the US is that there is a lack of interest in students to really study hard, and this is amplified by policies that keep lowering the bar. But the US still has the best options for grad school. I'd say that on average they are better than most in Europe.

Overall I think basic education is the biggest influence in determining students behaviour at grad school. In this sense, northern europe seems to take a great lead (specially the Finnish system), as well as Cuba (at least basic education they do right if not much else). I've also heard good things about Canada, but have no experience in this regard.

intellagence gathering..

[iccaros]

Plan, Send out students to US, or allies. students go to schools that have large DoD funding for projects. Score students who learn, are smart and know what the DoD is researching.

Re:intellagence gathering..

[ShiftyOne]

Good idea, but the DoD realizes this. They don't allow foreign nationals clearance to work on their top secret projects.

Re:intellagence gathering..

[ShiftyOne]

Forgot to post a link with this. A 71 year old professor was sentenced to jail for among other things, allowing foreign nationals to work on a DoD project. http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/jul/02/prison-for-ex-ut-professor/

Re:intellagence gathering..

[iccaros]

a lot of top secret projects are not so until they go from research to production. sounds stupid but I know of a few, the people working on them do not know they are for a DoD customer. But if you really look at what they are doing.. While the US does have policy not allowing foreign nationals to work on SCI projects.. TS, no problem. just have to have a clean nose. Let alone secret or unclass but sensitive. http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20050519_1.htm

Threats?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've heard that it's less about wanting to stay in the US, and more about the Chinese government threatening the families of the scientists if they don't come back.

What inducement would it take?

[symbolset]

What incentive could they offer for scientists who crave discovery and publication to go and live behind the Great Firewall? They must be sellng it hard.

Re:What inducement would it take?

[demonlapin]

I don't know what they're offering, but they certainly have plenty of things they can offer. Cash usually works wonders. I'd be willing to go live in China, by their rules, for double my US market value.

Re:What inducement would it take?

[toQDuj]

Oh, a chinese colleague of mine told me that the one thing he misses most from China is the food! So keep the "chinese" food in foreign countries at a shitty level, and they'll be sure to return one day..

Re:What inducement would it take?

[Tellarin]

While I'm not Chinese or Asian, I completely agree with him.

The thing I miss the most from living in Asia is the food. Only in very few places outside Asia have I found "good Chinese food", and all of those were places run by immigrants (where people in the kitchen didn't even speak English). I also heard the same from Indian and Nepalese friends.

So I guess food can really be a strong drive in going back. Stronger than most people would think.

Re:What inducement would it take?

[Tellarin]

Sorry for replying to myself, but it should say "Only in very few places outside southeast Asia..." on the part about Chinese food.

Re:What inducement would it take?

[koxkoxkox]

Like their family, an environment in their mother tongue, a culture they actually understand ? You have to understand that it is the US that have to sell something to make them stay. If the standards of living are the same (and it is the case right now for a lot of people), most of the Chinese students will prefer to come back to China. They did not came by love of American culture, but for the quality of the science and the experience of western civilization it gave them.

The Great Firewall is an annoyance, but minor for most Chinese, not many will choose to change their life based on it or a concept of "freedom" which does not have much influence in their everyday life.

Re:What inducement would it take?

[TheKidWho]

Come to New York City then! Some of the best Asian food abound!

Nothing's gonna change ... for a long while

[who could]

The moment you say research is underfunded, you imply that there are more applicants than positions. This means that if some of the positions are vacated, they will surely be filled before long. There are other reasons why nothing will change for a while. 1. The repatriates will raise the global bar of education quality 2. vacant research positions will drive other deserving students to fill them, i.e. people who just barely lost the admission will get a chance 3. there are countries other than China and India that have potential students In fact, US has the least of worries. Australia is facing the real shit, what with Indian students shunning the outback option because of the recent racist attacks.

We are asking the same in India

[Rsriram]

India invests a lot of money in training grad students in the prestigious IITs (premier engineering colleges in India). 50% plus students travel to US, do their MS/PhD and work in the US and become US citizens eventually. We call this "brain drain" in India. We will be glad if the "reverse brain drain" helps us regain some of the losses.

As a leader, it is the responsibility of a country like US to help everyone grow. If the US does not demonstrate leadership traits, someone else will. Leadership is not simply about more money/resources/power. It is about being a "leader" and behaving like one.

Re:We are asking the same in India

[Dorsai65]

Better than fussing at the U.S. that these students are choosing to stay here, better you should be asking why they don't want to go back. Caste system? Social stratification? Old-boy network? Nepotism? What does the U.S. do/have that India doesn't?

Re:We are asking the same in India

[AardvarkCelery]

As a leader, it is the responsibility of a country like US to help everyone grow. If the US does not demonstrate leadership traits, someone else will. Leadership is not simply about more money/resources/power. It is about being a "leader" and behaving like one.

Hogwash. China and India are directly competing with the United States on several levels. China builds weapons specifically targeted at the United States. Frequently, the weapons are based on stolen US technology.

What logic says we have to help our competitors grow???

(Granted, our relationship with India is far simpler and more cordial than our awkward tie-up with China, but there's still enough competition in some areas to take notice.)

Re:We are asking the same in India

[sznupi]

Interesting how you portrait it as competition...which kinda implies you're not completely looking at yourself as the position of leadership.

Anyway, look up list of Chinese inventions on Wikipedia. We stole quite a bit from them, too.

Re:We are asking the same in India

[Anonymous Coward]

As a leader, it is the responsibility of a country like US to help everyone grow. If the US does not demonstrate leadership traits, someone else will.

Right, because if anything, history is flush with leading powers failing due to their refusal to help their rivals!

Get out of the clouds and pick up a history book- global politics and commerce were never driven by The Golden Rule. It's as ruthless a race as any.

Re:We are asking the same in India

[Hurricane78]

The logic that says that this helps ourselves to grow!
It’s called teamwork.

Re:We are asking the same in India

[Hurricane78]

The illusion that they are better? ^^

Re:We are asking the same in India

[TheKidWho]

Is it really an illusion though?

Re:We are asking the same in India

[khallow]

As a leader, it is the responsibility of a country like US to help everyone grow. If the US does not demonstrate leadership traits, someone else will. Leadership is not simply about more money/resources/power. It is about being a "leader" and behaving like one.

LOL. Ignoring that any "leaders" are actively undermined by a significant portion of other countries, why does "leading" mean here sacrificing a particular country's well being for the convenience of some other country to which the speaker probably happens to belong? India doesn't need help growing. There are centuries of history, cheat sheets if you will, for how to transition to a country that is at the head of the pack. India has all the resources it needs to do that.

If the US doesn't continue to provide the environment that just so happens to appeal to many of the best and brightest, then it becomes merely a very expensive place to buy stuff.

Re:We are asking the same in India

[SpaceToast]

India tried a similar scheme recently, which unravelled rather spectacularly.

American-trained scientists simply expect a greater degree of autonomy than more traditional cultures expect of them. Overturning the work of an established scientist is how one makes a career in the U.S. In India, this can be a career-ending move.

Is China, a philosophically Confucian Communist culture with an even stronger concept of "face" than India, going to be more or less successful at this scheme? I have my doubts.

Re:We are asking the same in India

[Chowderbags]

Steakhouses?

Re:We are asking the same in India

[xirusmom]

If you come under a J visa, it usually means your country is sponsoring you. And that means you cannot obtain an immigrant visa for at least 2 years after you got your degree. That is the agreement the US has that will guarantee the return of the students to their country, at least for a while, with a few exceptions. about the US citizenship.... it will take you at least 7 years and that is the best possible case scenario. I could as well take 20.

Re:We are asking the same in India

[Rexdude]

Plenty..read this link posted by an earlier commenter:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/business/global/28return.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

Re:We are asking the same in India

[Rexdude]

Hogwash. China and India are directly competing with the United States on several levels. China builds weapons specifically targeted at the United States. Frequently, the weapons are based on stolen US technology.

India? What does India compete with the US on? Outsourcing? Your companies are GIVING us the business! It's not like Walmart aisles are crowded with Indian products now are they?

Re:We are asking the same in India

[Shane dot H]

(Granted, our relationship with India is far simpler and more cordial than our awkward tie-up with China, but there's still enough competition in some areas to take notice.)

You might want to rethink that one. Our relationship with India is complex, due to the added wrinkles of our close working relationship with their mortal enemy Pakistan. Arms deals, intelligence sharing, military aid, and economic aid for both countries has to be carefully managed with perceptions of bias or unfairness, all while we respect their sovereignty when combating extremism in both countries. And then the fact that India has violated the test ban treaty and was supposed to be subject to economic sanctions.

Neither relationship is simple.

summary is economically confused

[philgross]

The summary makes it sounds like the US is doing a favor and donating generously to the rest of the world by funding foreign PhDs. A more accurate description would be that we taking the extreme cream of the crop, educated at great expense in other countries, and then luring them to the United States, where they further strengthen our already best-in-the-world universities, and the great majority stay permanently. The article describes a slight moderation in this trend, with a few more scholars choosing to return (although also describing the obstacles they face when they do).

The overall benefits of this system continue to be overwhelmingly in the favor of the United States. Even those who do return to their home countries go back with a much deeper understanding of the US, not to mention greater English fluency.

The restrictions on foreign students in the aftermath of 9/11 stood out among the other security-theater policies for their active harmfulness.

they go home - Because there is no Visas to stay

[Anonymous Coward]

I know from personal experience that it has become increasingly difficult to stay in the US (or Immigrate) since the late 90es.

At this time, even highly skilled individuals with several post graduate degrees have no chance to get a Visa and move to the US.

Unless a student was lucky and managed to marry a US citizen during their school time, they have NO OTHER CHOICE than to leave the US once their student visa expires, and they cannot get a work (H1) visa in time.

Supposedly this is all for your own good, to protect the country and the domestic job market.

Re:I think the worse problem is the other way arou

[j1m 5n0w]

Here's where I think the main problem actually is: We actually send home some who do want to stay.

I absolutely agree. The NSF, DARPA, NIH, etc.. have paid for the education of many a foreign grad student, only to have them booted out of the country after they finish their degree. (A lot of them end up moving to Canada.)

Some of the grad students I knew had to do some crazy things like leave the country periodically, and then apply to get let back in, just because that's what the bureaucracy required.

The F-1 Process Explained

yes it does make sens to pay for others' education

[LosManos]

Yes it does make sense to pay for others' education. I would go so far as to say it is our duty, where "our" is us in the rich countries, to help the world.

- or if you are cheaper think of it like this -

Say someone gets educated in a country and learns a bit about the language and culture and gets some friends. Then this said person returns to country of birth and starts a business with some international connections. It is then plausible that the place of known culture and language and where friends reside is a more likely country to trade and work with.

Green card

[seifried]

Seriously. Anyone earning a bachelors (let alone a masters or a PhD) in a "hard" science or a list of accepted majors (CS, EE/ME/etc.) should have a green card stapled to their diploma at their commencement ceremony. Perhaps for Masters you get to bring your significant other over and for a PhD you get up to 5 additional family members (mom+dad and any siblings/brother/sister in law with no criminal record), whatever, if you're going to lure the best and brightest, train them, etc, you should bloody well hang on to them (it's just common sense!). This from a Canadian no less (personally I think we should give automatic landed immigrant status to anyone that speaks English or French, has no criminal record and has a 4 year degree in anything remotely useful). Our countries are founded on immigration, this seems like a no-brainer to me!

Re:Green card

[Idiomatick]

"This from a Canadian no less (personally I think we should give automatic landed immigrant status to anyone that speaks English or French, has no criminal record and has a 4 year degree in anything remotely useful). Our countries are founded on immigration, this seems like a no-brainer to me!"

Canadian here as well and I 100% agree with your whole post. :D My GF is from the US has a 4 year degree from a good school, finished near the top of her class and is getting a teacher's degree. That her immigration status is questionable is quite ridiculous. She also learned some basic french and took Canadian history... Essentially the way it is set up is that you can't move here until you get offered a job... And the employer must state that no suitable Canadian could be found, and they must promise to keep you for a certain time period. Getting that in today's economy is nigh impossible.

Re:Green card

[PingPongBoy]

Seriously. Anyone earning a bachelors (let alone a masters or a PhD) in a "hard" science or a list of accepted majors (CS, EE/ME/etc.) should have a green card stapled to their diploma at their commencement ceremony

For some that green card won't be used. There are two major incentives to import education to the developing world. For one, it's developing, so there can be enormous opportunity to anyone with education. For two, businesses looking for outsourcing to cut their labor will fund brain drain in spite of the hazards of building up a competing economy.

A competing economy is a better customer for exports anyways, so how bad can it be?

Re:Green card

[__aailob1448]

Spoken as someone who believes that a well educated person is an asset to a country. You're right of course. Pity not enough people agree.

It's the economics...dude

[GSGKT]

Smart and motivated people is in limited supply, so nations would complete for them. No graduate students, or postdocs, have ever got rich from their stipends while perform research in the US. Otherwise more American youth would want to work in university laboratories instead of the Wall Street. China is doing everything to bring their best talents home, because they also have invested a lot of resources on them. It still a sound investment for the US to attract the best talents from anywhere in the world to be educated and perform research here. If just the top 10% of these people decide to stay in this country, then everyone benefits from that. Furthermore, it is easier to find and recruit the best talents and for them want to stay, if they are educated here...most be the koolaid you find in the cafeteria.

Re:It's the economics...dude

[seifried]

"Smart and motivated people is in limited supply, so nations would complete for them." Apparently English majors are not in demand.

Re:It's the economics...dude

[GSGKT]

Sorry, I mean to "compete".

Re:I think the worse problem is the other way arou

[interkin3tic]

In general until that point, it's still worth it to fund their education just for the work they do as a grad student, and the likely work they will do in the US afterwards, even if a few end up going home and working and contributing heavily in another economy.

Speaking as a grad student, it's not like we're paid that much, less than unemployment on average apparently. Cheaper in many cases than hiring a non-grad student to do the same work. The lab gets cheap labor, and the student gets an education. Even if those students don't stay, I expect it adds up to a net benefit for us.

Re:I think the worse problem is the other way arou

[Raisey-raison]

I think the whole situation is ironic. Quite often when I hear stories about immigrants with degrees getting jobs in the USA, people go ballistic about how they are stealing Americans' jobs and depressing wages.

When they go back to their home country, people then complain about a brain drain and about how they should make a 'contribution' to the country that educated them (never mind that they paid highly inflated tuition and quite often even their graduate education was paid for by moneys outside of the USA + grad students essentially work for $10 an hour - slave wages).

So they are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

Yet another article

[dorpus]

Every year, the US media feels obliged to panic about some high-profile scientist that returns to China/India. In most cases, the same scientist will come back to the USA after 1-2 years, because they grew frustrated with the backwardness, lack of freedoms in their home country. These guys gave up promising jobs in the USA, so they have to go to some much less prestigious job in the US.

Don't believe me? Here's one example. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/28/business/global/28return.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

In the same vein, US universities like to loudly proclaim the opening of campuses in Asia, such as in Singapore, Dubai, or South Korea. Most of the campuses end up being shut down after about 3 years, because they couldn't get enough students, and the students they could get were of very low caliber. In the meanwhile, student tuition experiences huge hikes to pay for the millions of dollars to open new campuses, university administrators pat themselves on the back and give themselves huge bonuses, then when they shut the campuses down, they give themselves bonuses again for "cutting costs".

Re:Yet another article

[dorpus]

Thanks, that is one issue I hadn't heard about.

Another issue is that professors are unwilling to relocate to foreign countries where scientific activity is minimal. I can attest, as a PhD candidate, that published scientific papers only tell a fraction of everything that is going on. Even in the internet age, one still needs to be in physical proximity to strong departments to know what is really going on. As a result, foreign campuses only attract the tourist types who aren't serious about their academic careers.

I'm definitely keen that China doing that

[Haitian]

I think if every country was smart as China, they would have done the same things.. Trying to get their good ones back to their country. I do not think a country with better pay job is that matter than how someone can feel when he/ she working in his/ her own country.

Grapes turned sour?

[jandersen]

As alluded in the article, Chinese science remains far behind, especially because of rampant cronyism in academia as well as government

This article from New Scientist:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527426.900-get-ready-for-chinas-domination-of-science.html

doesn't agree. Chinese science is in fact well up there with the rest of the world, and will overtake us soon. There is nothing strange in this - while we in the West have grown rather complacent about education, which is necessary for science, the Chinese have been ramping up their investments in education and science. This, by the way, is something their government have decided, so this jibe about ".. as well as government" seems particularly misplaced in this context.

When China was a closed country not long ago, you Americans couldn't shut up about how everything would be so much better if China would open up and become part of the global world. Now they have done that, and you whine because they turned out to be bloody clever; and all you have left is yesterday's cold-war rhetoric. The competition from China is good for us - it will make realise that we have to get our act together and sharpen up.

Re:Grapes turned sour?

[jandersen]

I could go on, but here's the point:

Indeed you could; I have no doubt about it. But reality doesn't change, however much BS you let out.

Infrastructure problems? Equipment shortages? Have you ever been there? I have - my wife was a university teacher in Beijing (now retired) and we have traveled extensively in the whole country. China has excellent infrastructure from Ican tell, and there seems to be no equipment shortages either.

You say that you work in "a top-10 American university" and you boss is Chinese; so what? Even if this is true, there may be a number of reasons why your boss has no end of negative stories about China.

"Home" is not that sweet as one might think

[nkeric]

For anyone who wants to come back, please read this and think twice, there are many "unspoken rules" in Chinese universities:

Did corruption in Chinese universities cause the suicide of a brilliant young academic?

Re:(+) infuluence of USA students on China

[slawekk]

I don't think you ever met personally any people who returned to their home country from the USA. I have met a couple of them (and I am one myself) and the tendency among them is rather to dislike America. I call it a "Pol Pot syndrome".

zquad

[ackim]

As an international student who had four of my friends having to leave the US for China in 2009 and one a few weeks ago, I have to say that the US does not give graduate-degree carrying international students many options. In the US, my friend was forced to work as a web developer soliciting jobs on craigslist; however, back in China he began an IT consulting company and is currently on his way to doing $100,000+ is revenue at the end of the second quarter. Not bad for a guy that was denied work authorization in the country that trained him and paid him ~25k/yr to work at the prestigious college. It was pretty depressing when we spoke about his options and he is far from alone. I hear stories of masters technology students forced to return home and go into high school education and local banking. In my opinion, this country's policy on work authorization for well-experienced and well educated students – THAT THEY THEMSELVES TRAINED - is the reason for the drain. Not only do I see it as anti-capitalist to not compete for graduate talent regardless of status, but the current policy to prefer, on occasions, less educated and less skilled (but national) sounds more like a social program. Consider that in a world where competition is no longer national, but global. So NO, it makes sense to invest in their training if they will do their major work elsewhere but the US is not allowing them to do their major work within its borders.

Yes -- it's not just quantum optics.

[dtmos]

Look at the IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits (the leading journal for integrated circuit design), and compare the authorship of the papers in the January 2010 issue with that of, say, the January 1966 issue. The fraction of not just Chinese, but Asian names of all types, has dramatically increased, as has the fraction of papers from Asian institutions (being zero in 1966).

My university experience is similar, and the parent summed it up well: "The students from China tend to be very talented and are willing to work extremely hard." I, too, expect an explosion of quality research coming from China -- the combination of good academics and increasing disposable income (at the national level) from an improving economy will make it so.

Re:I think the worse problem is the other way arou

[Kjella]

I think the whole situation is ironic. Quite often when I hear stories about immigrants with degrees getting jobs in the USA, people go ballistic about how they are stealing Americans' jobs and depressing wages.

When they go back to their home country, people then complain about a brain drain and about how they should make a 'contribution' to the country that educated them

Those who are taking expensive western jobs are the Indian call center guys, because wall clock time can be bought much cheaper where the living costs are lower. I've hung out with quite a few foreign students and for the most parts they were very bright, granted there were a few playboys whose parents simply had the money but they outpaced most of the domestic slackers who were just looking to get an easy degree. They heightened the standard more than anything else, if you wanted to compete for the same jobs they did you'd have to be a very talented and hard-working person. I'm sure Americans lost jobs to that too but that's more fair competition and those people would only feed further high tech dominance. It's far more dangerous to think that you can outsource the bottom of the pyramid and don't think the juniors will eventually become seniors and team leads and architects and managers and take over. That already started with the outsourcing wave and now the bright people are going home too to sit on top of that pyramid. That they're leaving is only great if you want to work at Wal-Mart or be Bill Gates' manservant, there won't be much except retail and services left.

His error was more subtle.

[dtmos]

Dr. Roth didn't disclose any "secret" information from a "black" DoD program. He discussed an export-controlled technology on the Commerce Control List with Chinese and Iranian nationals -- graduate students actually doing the research. He also had export-controlled information on a laptop he took with him on a trip to China, and was convicted of its export too, even though forensics showed the files had not been opened during the trip.

What's on your laptop? Checked it against the CCL lately?

I think most people would be surprised to see the list of technologies on the Commerce Control list, and to learn that one can be charged with an export violation merely by talking about one of them in the presence a foreign national. Actual transport of a physical good is not required -- see this comment.

Re:His error was more subtle.

[ScrewMaster]

even though forensics showed the files had not been opened during the trip.

You're assuming that the drive was accessed using an operating system which would update timestamps. There's absolutely no way to prove that, and any intruder with half a brain would have taken steps. For example, had the drive been cloned while he was there, there'd be no evidence of it. Dollars to doughnuts that's exactly what happened, and the mere fact that he took the equipment with him includes the presumption that his files could have been compromised. No way around that, and yes he should have known better. Laptops are one of the biggest security risks ever invented by the hand of Man, and rightly give security people nightmares.

Re:His error was more subtle.

[dtmos]

Perhaps I wasn't clear. My points were:

1. Dr. Roth was not convicted of espionage: He was convicted of export control violations. The information he had could have been given to any US citizen without any violation of US law whatsoever.

2. No evidence was presented at Dr. Roth's trial that the controlled material on his laptop was given to any Chinese national, yet he was convicted of exporting the data anyway.

3. A close examination of the CCL would reveal that the laptop of almost any engineering researcher, in any field, would contain controlled material.

I'm not stating that Dr. Roth did not violate the law -- the law, while not concise, is exact and specific, and he clearly did violate it, in multiple ways and at multiple times. Rather, my point is that "There, but for the grace of God, go you or I." As China develops, it hosts more and more of the world's largest scientific and engineering conferences, and the CCL is so long, and so poorly written, and so outdated, that it's a near-certainty that a randomly-selected US attendee at one of these conferences can also be found to have violated it. Who keeps a second laptop at hand just to take with them to those meetings in China?

And it's not just those meetings in China -- Chinese nationals visit meetings outside China, too, in vastly increasing numbers. One can violate US law by speaking at one of these conferences if (a) a national from the controlled countries list (China is the most prominent) is present, and (b) the controlled material is not presented to the "public", meaning the meeting is a private one, like an industry consortium, and is not intended for publication. Short of having a receiving line before the talk, where all meeting attendees show the speaker their passports, it's almost impossible to avoid this violation. Did you know the nationality of everyone in the room the last time you spoke at a Wi-Fi meeting?

Re:I think the worse problem is the other way arou

[edittard]

Can someone explain what "maximum average" means in the link above?

from the other side of the fence

[vacarul]

"Does it make sense to invest in their training if they will do their major work elsewhere?"

or from this side:

Does it make sense to invest in their 0-18 years only to find out they want to emigrate to US?

US's technology lead?

[loufoque]

What lead? They lost it ages ago.
Usians really need to stop thinking they're the best. This megalomania is getting their science nowhere.

The best science and jobs?

[Hurricane78]

The best science and the most intellectually stimulating jobs are in the US.

That’s the thing. Soon they won’t. Because the Chinese government is working hard, to get up to US level, and the US government is working hard, to get down to China”s level.

Re:I think the worse problem is the other way arou

[Tellarin]

I agree with you and I also know people that have this happen to them, so they are now doing research in other countries.

What I think is interesting is that US policy always (officially) favours an open market and competition. But in this area (grad-school-educated people) they have these weird protectionist rules. It is not as if the US even has a lot of unemployed PhDs laying around to begin with...

Re:I think the worse problem is the other way arou

[Hurricane78]

What is Germany doing in there? We might be worse than before all non-Nazi-friendly scientists fled to the USA, but we’re still top-notch here.

Besides: What’s all the us against them mentality about? In science there no place for this. That’s the nice thing: Scientists do not care for stupid politics. Iranians, US, Chinese, Russians, Israeli, etc, all work together, and don’t even think about if some power-greedy suit/gunswinger is thinking they “shouldn’t”.

Whatever. Not really our problem

[smchris]

Our problem is why science has become so unattractive to U.S. students. If our idiocracy depends on foreign brains, we deserve whatever comes our way.

Educating the Chinese

[Lonewolf666]

In one way it has actually worked:

China is pretty capitalist these days. Not to the point that the ruling party listens to Big Business when making laws like in the US and Europe, but according to Wikipedia free markets have mostly replaced the planned economy that is characteristic for communism.
Of course China is still a dictatorship, so the idea that free markets would lead to more freedom has not worked out (yet?).

Re:Educating the Chinese

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

I wish (for the love of God) that for once no-one invokes Godwin's law.

But (here goes nothing) : a communist (centrally controlled economy) country that allows big companies to exist as juridically separate entities, but controls them directly by controlling upper management ... that style of government has a name : fascism. It generally fails after the first wave of technologies that get exploited by those large companies becomes obsolete. The companies are unwilling to invest in change, and prefer to use legal and physical force to keep inefficient business models going (and before anyone claims how "rightist" this is, in Germany this was done as least as much by the unions as by the government)

I wouldn't like living in a govt. like that, but then again I hear it makes the trains run on time. Of course it has the same problem as any centrally controlled system : if the central control doesn't like you, it might be wise to develop an obsessive fear of showering.

Re:Educating the Chinese

[quax]

This comment shows a surprising lack of understanding of what actually happened in China since Deng Xiaoping started the market reforms. The situation of government controlled business and the subsequent decline that you describe was exactly what China faced in the eighties. Deng's reforms allowed more economic freedom and subsequently started China on its path to transform itself into an essentially untethered capitalistic system. The large, old and still government controlled mostly heavy industries are only allowed to remain because the government feels that they have to phase them out slowly in order to not put to too many workers out on the street at the same time. This regard for the workers' welfare is of course not motivated by any intrinsic good will but rather by a paranoid fear of the ones in power of social unrest and revolt.

view of a biotech scientist

[cinnamon colbert]

In a historical view, the post WWII, and in the longer view, the post industrial revolution era, are anomolous, in that there was an unusual conc of science in the us and western europe; for large swaths of human history, China was the dominant, or at least a co dominant science technology country.
There are still living people who remember when Germany was THE leading science power, and if you were a serious scientitst, you went to Germany to finish your education; people like Willard Gibbs were celebrated precisely because genuwine US science hereos were so rare.

The post WWII period, when our wealth dominated world science, is coming to an end. So, the correct view is not that we are loosing our dominance, but that an unusual situtation, where an unusual amount of science was concentrated in the US, is coming to an end.
That we offer free training at what are still the best universitys in the world, because of the specious theoretical economic arguments infavor of globiliazation (see samuleson) certainly doesn't help the US.

I don't know about physics or chemistry, but life science is a labor intensive field. Right now, I make a pretty good living as a PhD scientist in boston area biotech; how on earth am i going to compete with someone from china, just as smart and well educated, a lot hardworking, and a lot cheaper ?
And this is not theory - it is happening; all of the major pharma and RnD firms (eg, Invitrogen) are setting up shop in china with large numbers of scientists.

One other point, which people outside of life science research may not understand. Life science research - basic science as practiced at our universitys - is almost a pyramid scheme; it is based on the idea that very hardworking, intelligent people willl spend 4-8 years at very low salary (graduate school/postdoc) and the carrot for this low wage job is that you can become an independent researcher - similar to the idea behind interns and residents.
So, every university professor depends, critically, on having a group of graduate students to do the actual work; if you are a prof, you must find young people willing to work long hours at relatively low pay.
The problem is that independent researchers are very exspensive, so most of the people who go into phd programs will wind up trashed - they will not have a career in science, at least not a good paying one.
so a large part of the driver for chinese scientists at our universitys is as cheap labor that is "expendable" - you can send them back to china at the end of their grad work; I emphasize that this is driven by the selfish economic needs of university profs; basically, chinese and indian grad students are guest workers, and the great thing is, you can send them back, so you can get new pools of young, cheap labor.
Thus, in the univeristy community, there is tremendous pressure to maintain the flow, and you have people claiming that there is a "shortage" of scientists; of course, in a free market system, by definition, a shortage means you are not paying enough..

Re:Finnish education system

[Tellarin]

Oddly, the same also kind of applies to the system in Cuba.

Interesting correlation...

Not wanted in the US

[altomelto]

From a foreign Ph.D. student perspective it is pretty clear that we are merely tolerated in the US, and there is no interest in keeping us. Capping the number of H1-B visas and making the visa and green card application process a nightmare is a clear indication of the lack of interest from the US government (or probably the US public opinion) in retaining highly educated and skilled professionals. We clearly feel unwanted, unappreciated and tolerated as an "evil" necessity by the general population. We are given much less consideration and opportunities in comparison to our US-born colleagues, often regardless of merit (see the admission statistics of US/nonUS nationals for HOT Ph.D. areas such as biomedical engineering). Anyone that has an even decent opportunity in his country of origin (or continent of origin for Europeans) will definitely go beck unless they have political or ethical issues with their home country.

Re:Not wanted in the US

[altomelto]

It is neither bad nor good per se, but it explains why Ph.D. don't stay.If the US is really interested in keeping foreign Ph.D. students they should change this policy, if they are interested in preserving "national integrity" they should continue this way, it is simply a matter of which policy they want to pursue, there is no moral judgment involved.

Re:Gearing up for war?

[mikael]

If they were planning to ramp up their military infrastructure, they would be building the high-speed train lines underground and not on the surface.

this is not a new problem

[buddyglass]

In the graduate CS department I was a part of in the late 90s, the problem was foreign students who would indicate that they intended to earn a Ph.D., get a fellowship that covered their first two years (during which it was typical to earn a Master's degree), then leave once they'd earned a Master's. They didn't always go back to China, though; typically they got industry jobs in the U.S.

Interestingly, a large donor who almost singlehandedly funded the Computational and Applied Mathematics program at this same university created a fellowship for CAM students that was available only to citizens, and was ridiculously high-paying. The department actually lobbied him to drop the "citizens only" requirement so they could use the money to attract a higher quantity of top students, as opposed to being limited solely to the crop of U.S. citizens. So far as I know, he refused.

Meh

[McGiraf]

"Does it make sense to invest in their training if they will do their major work elsewhere?"

Does it make sense for the government (public expense) to invest in their training if they will do their major work for corporation (private profit)?

Re:Whatever. Not really our problem

[Dr.Dubious DDQ]

"why science has become so unattractive to U.S. students."

Aside from the fundamental human problem that "people are lazy and thinking is work" (as I like to say), I think the major problem is an oversaturated job market.

There are actually, I would argue, too many people being shoved through the science-and-technology-degree pipeline already. A bachelor's degree seems to more or less be the new GED for low-wage science and technology jobs due to the huge number of people with them on the market. "Postdocs" who slave away for 5-10 years to get a PhD end up getting paid what I recall an entry level "BA in business" job tends to make. The "real job" market for PhD's, even with practical skills, seems to be awful, at least for geologists from what I can see.

You'd think that an oil-hungry country like the US would have a huge demand for geologists, but every time the price of oil drops below $90/barrel or whatever the limit is, the oil company executives appear to panic at the thought of having to give up the gold plating on this year's fleet of Hummer® H3®'s or filling their pools with "sparkling wine" instead of real Champagne (or whatever they spend all that money on) and they fire all the geologists to cut costs.

So apparently, right now there are very few jobs available, and those few that do pop up are swamped by thousands of out-of-work geologists, not only ensuring that getting a job is almost impossible, but also driving down the salaries offered.

I imagine the situation is similar in other scientific and technical fields. Biotech doesn't appear to have died yet in the US, at least if you live in California or Massachusetts, but given the cost of living in those places it seems like it'd be hard to find a job that pays enough to cover the cost of packing up and moving to either place if you don't already live there - and you still likely have to somehow survive on graduate student stipends for half a decade or more before you can get a job above the level of "used labware disposal technician" or "pipette monkey".

(honestly, if I could find and afford to take a job as a "pipette monkey" I'd likely do so - wages for jobs at that level appear to be on the "Wal-Mart® Greeter" scale, though.)

But I'm not bitter...

It's inevitable

[autophile]

Does it make sense to invest in their training if they will do their major work elsewhere?

Well, the US is a major exporter of education. See, for example, Fareed Zakaria's book, The Post-American World. The US graduates the most PhD's in the world, and students from all over the world are fighting to get into the US for higher education. However, once that degree is earned, the paradigm changes: now it's all about what to do post-education. And if the landscape is beginning to look better outside the US, then it's no surprise that people start leaving.

Different people make different arguments

[weston]

People who rely on employment to make money rightfully fear an increased and talented labor pool leading to more competition in the labor market. People who rely on talented and affordable labor to make money rightfully fear a decreased and talent-drained labor pool, leading to scarcity in the labor market.

Re:they go home - Because there is no Visas to sta

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife married a US citizen (me) and STILL can't stay. She came to the US originally on a Fulbright grant prior to her graduate studies, which requires that she stay in her home country two years before she is eligible to stay in the US, now that she graduated with her PhD. Due to the instability of the situation, that basically makes her unemployed until we can finally get this "prison sentence" out of the way.

Sometimes they make it tough even when you marry a US citizen...

No direct war with China will ever happen

[gatkinso]

it would last about an hour. Say 700 million dead on their side, 100 million on the US side after the initial exchange.

Re:Reverse Brain Drain

[inflamed]

A diploma in Europe is often the equivalent of a Master's degree, not a two-year associate diploma.

Not in the interest

[amightywind]

It is not in the US interest to subsidize an enemy, which is what we are doing by educating the Chinese, while we lose another generation of males here at home. Don't be deceived by the muzzy thinking liberals who say otherwise. Let the US and China each educate their own.

Re:Not in the interest

[St.Creed]

I couldn't agree more. I applaud your sentiment and wish that everyone was as smart as you!

Thank you,
The Dutch Institute of Education.

(currently competing with the USA for the chance to educate the top Chinese students)

welcome to our world

[po134]

this has been Canada's (more specificly, Quebec) problem for a long while now, many (if not most) of our phd/md/etc. are leaving our province for another province/country in which they will be better paid or to join some big company, here their tuition fees are minimal but they're expected to work here afterward, it's a suppose to be giving-giving, but many come to Canada to study and then leave afterward...
I personally think this shouldn't be possible, maybe with something like in the army that say you have to serve at least 4 years before you leave after you get the iniial training.

Re:I think the worse problem is the other way arou

[xirusmom]

Exactly. I am finishing my PhD in about a month. A few years ago, I have actually repaid my home country about 80k of my scholarship so far, so I could stay in the US.
Now that I am done, I am looking for a Job but I need to get a work permit that is almost impossible, especially with the cuts on research funding. So, although I want to stay, own a house, have an American born son and a husband with an H1B, I will have the choice of: staying at home on an H4 that does not allow me to work, go back or just do consultancy outside the US. Did I heard China is hiring?

Re:I think the worse problem is the other way arou

[Grishnakh]

It's funny, because we send home smart people who would really contribute a lot to our economy, but we insist on keeping uneducated people who snuck over the border and if they don't become criminals, don't do anything useful besides landscaping.

Re:I think the worse problem is the other way arou

[Grishnakh]

Yep. If it were me, we'd be bringing in all the super-smart people we could, because they contribute a lot to the economy. And we'd be keeping out all the uneducated, stupid, criminally-inclined people who do nothing but subtract from the economy. We need to be more selective about who we let in: smart people with high-paying jobs: good. Stupid people with no job or minimum-wage jobs: bad. We have all the stupid people we need here already, a lot of them on welfare. Eliminate welfare, and put these lazy morons to work picking crops, and we won't need undocumented immigrants any more. But we can use all the smart people we can get.

Re:I think the worse problem is the other way arou

[kmac06]

I think it's explained in the comic. Each state as a different maximum they'll pay out, and when you average the maximum for the different states...you get the maximum average.

Is this the Seventh Sign?

[LifesABeach]

"But, if more Chinese students go back, it could damage the US's technology lead.", the Chinese PH.D's are all going home to the middle kingdom. Yup, that confirms it. Not another new invention will be created, and the secret of making fantastic Pork Bun's will weaken this country into chaos. Maybe I can get a job as a steel worker over at the middle kingdom?

Corruption

[troll8901]

steps are taken so that as little money as possible is wasted by corruption.

I always wonder how do leaders clean up their countries and governments. It seems like a mighty difficult task, given the circular dependence.

1. To stamp out corruption, governments need more money to pay their officials, hire auditors, investigators, and so forth.
2. Governments don't have money due to corruption (either siphoned, or the people see no point in paying their taxes).

Not to mention the inbred mentality among the officials that they should engage in corruption:

1. There's little consequence, and they're being stupid if they don't engage in it.
2. Their superiors are always screwing them, and the whole system is screwed up, so they should take revenge on the system.

Aim at foot. Fire!

[colleesu]

In the past 10 years, flying into the U.S. for foreign graduate students has become excrutiatingly painful. The number of academics who are willing to fly into the States for conferences is dwindling. The recent uptick in security means... well... who wants to go through that if you can choose not to? In a letter this past week, the interim President of University of Illinois said that the institution has received only 7% of their budget from the State since July, and that staff furloughs may not be enough. In other words, administrative and professors may be layed off. This despite the fact that more Americans than ever are going back to school (probably because they can't find jobs). Other schools may not be so direly affected, but things are looking a tad bleak. The American economy has been severely affected by the housing crisis, moreso than other countries. All of this = a university and research in the U.S. could well be on a downward spiral. Who the heck wants to stick around for that?

The upside for the U.S.

[Shane dot H]

It's not an unambiguous bad thing that some new degreeholders return to their home country. We want at least some of them to go back and become successful leaders in their respective fields. In fact, we want a decent number to go build careers in their home countries.

For one, geopolitics and international economics isn't a zero-sum game. There are things that are good for everyone. A rapidly developing trade partner helps us, too. For another, when we educate a large number of their big players, we have basically imparting our values on the most influential people in that society. In addition, those guys, being educated in English and having made contacts with many in the U.S., will naturally be more inclined to do business or collaborative research with Americans in the future. Even when a Chinese company does business with an Indian company, they will be collaborating in English. That's a natural edge for our citizens, especially their fellow students in grad school. As a small example, my time spent with Indian, Eastern European, Chinese, and Korean TAs in undergrad really enhanced my ability to understand their accents.

So, I think it's pretty obvious that there is an ideal number of students educated here who immediately return to their home countries. Whether that ideal is higher or lower than the actual number today, I don't pretend to know - but I think we'll be fine as long as we have world-class universities located on our soil. If we really want more of them to stay, we need to be able to streamline the visa/greencard process for educated people. We also may want to make financial incentives (e.g. loans that are forgivable upon attaining permanent residency/citizenship) to keep them around. Either way, this "problem" is not much of a problem at all, and even so has easy fixes.

Re:I think the worse problem is the other way arou

[interkin3tic]

You're right that the tuition does get paid, but in terms of "taxpayer investing in grad students" that doesn't count: it's money changing hands -within the university-, not going to the grad student. In terms of "are we as taxpayers giving chinese grad students all this money and then they're running with it back to china," no, we're giving them below unemployment for valuable work.

To the lab itself, that's a big difference, yes. I understand there are other benefits to hiring grad students rather than just lab techs, such as tenure for professors, but that's beside the point.

Re:I think the worse problem is the other way arou

[edittard]

What you said is not what the comic says. Learn to read.