As a US grad student, I'd like to point out that DARPA is not some malignant blackhole consuming academic knowledge at the detriment of other of the known world.
1) DARPA pays the bills. It's one more source of grant money, without which many grad students would not have funding. If I didn't have a tuition waiver, I might not be in school; I'm sure this is true of many others.
2) Not all DARPA research is clandestine. All the whitepapers published by my research group are available through journals, etc.
3) DARPA research isn't soley military in nature. For instance, I work on task planning for UAVs. This problem parallels the machine shop planning problem, and has many industrial applications.
Now, I'm not saying that a lack of NSF fuding is good, as with most anything the optimal formulation requires balance. So, yes I'd like to see more NSF funding out there.
By observation I must concur that most grad students are internationals. I have no problem with this, but it does suggest that their are fewer US residents than internationals pursuing advanced degrees (unless of course there are countries where they have more Americans than locals) Now if most research comes from acedamia (and I'm not sure if it does) this means US research is essentially a leased commodity, it depends on other countries exporting students to us. If this commmodity is important to the US (and it should be) we need to take steps to make sure we have good trade agreements (ie non stupid visa laws) and are not overly dependant on others (send more locals to school)
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As a US grad student, I'd like to point out that DARPA is not some malignant blackhole consuming academic knowledge at the detriment of other of the known world. 1) DARPA pays the bills. It's one more source of grant money, without which many grad students would not have funding. If I didn't have a tuition waiver, I might not be in school; I'm sure this is true of many others. 2) Not all DARPA research is clandestine. All the whitepapers published by my research group are available through journals, etc. 3) DARPA research isn't soley military in nature. For instance, I work on task planning for UAVs. This problem parallels the machine shop planning problem, and has many industrial applications. Now, I'm not saying that a lack of NSF fuding is good, as with most anything the optimal formulation requires balance. So, yes I'd like to see more NSF funding out there. By observation I must concur that most grad students are internationals. I have no problem with this, but it does suggest that their are fewer US residents than internationals pursuing advanced degrees (unless of course there are countries where they have more Americans than locals) Now if most research comes from acedamia (and I'm not sure if it does) this means US research is essentially a leased commodity, it depends on other countries exporting students to us. If this commmodity is important to the US (and it should be) we need to take steps to make sure we have good trade agreements (ie non stupid visa laws) and are not overly dependant on others (send more locals to school)