Welcome, STEM immigrants!

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-administration-makes-visa…

**Biden Administration Makes Visa Changes to Retain Foreign STEM Students**
**Moves are designed to boost innovation in the U.S. while keeping pace with competitors such as China**
**by Michelle Hackman, The Wall Street Journal, 1/21/2022**

**The Biden administration is making a series of policy changes aimed at easing the path for foreign students and professionals in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math to remain in the U.S. on a long-term basis.**

**The new policies, the likes of which have long been called for by Silicon Valley and other companies, are designed to retain foreign students educated in the U.S. in STEM fields to boost innovation while keeping pace with competitors such as China...With the change, students in new disciplines will be permitted to work in the U.S. for three years after graduation, rather than the one year offered to all international students....The administration is attempting to create opportunities for scientific researchers to work for businesses on J-1 visas, providing an alternative to the popular H-1B visa for foreign professionals. ...** [end quote]

On one hand, attracting STEM talent from all over the world has been great for U.S. innovation and productivity. On the other hand, importing STEM talent from all over the world will create additional competition for U.S.-born students/ professionals and may depress salaries.

The impacts are likely to be individual and hard to track.

But it’s probably a sure bet that keeping U.S.-educated STEM foreign professionals in the U.S. instead of sending them to potential competitors is good. I know many of them. Not only do many become outstanding U.S. citizens, their kids do, too. I see this as a real benefit to the U.S.

Wendy

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I think we know we have some of the best universities. And they prefer to enroll the brightest and best whereever they come from.

Keeping that talent in the US is a competitive advantage.

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During the past half-decade, international-student enrollment at U.S. colleges and universities has fallen, as more students opt to study in other English-speaking countries such as Canada or the U.K., where education is cheaper and the path to becoming a permanent resident is clearer cut.

Though many international students dream of studying in the U.S., the uncertainty around whether they can build lives here after graduation—often determined by visa lotteries or other arcane criteria—has driven some would-be students away from making the attempt.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-administration-makes-visa…

What about all the STEM educated DACA students in the United States. When are we going to give them a legal status?

Jaak

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The cons

These students are the leaders the risk takers leaving behind dictators very often. The authoritarian regimes do not have a counter balance in their voices. That creates two problems, one for the people left at the mercy of a dictator and two for the young Americans who might end up in combat against an authoritarian regime. In other words our young American lives can be lost.

The wages for Americans are definitely depressed in just about any line of work or profession. The except being medicine possibly.

Funding for the education of American children continues to be denied. Why bother other countries are paying for some of it. If a child is middle class or poor in America denying many of them definitely will happen.

That last point leads to American poverty in part. Definitely a lower standard of living. And possibly leads to more crime.

That last point feed racism as people who have been here for centuries are denied monies for education and blamed for failures. Meanwhile the suburb that I live in spends on the good ship lollipop for every student. Including plenty of immigrant students going to the front line as if only by sheer intelligence they are gifted and worthy. Those kids are not in any way more gifted than anyone else. Some folks are given things and definitely others are being denied things and faulted.

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I think we know we have some of the best universities. And they prefer to enroll the brightest and best whereever they come from.

If we are talking state colleges, and we have many excellent ones, they prefer to enroll those qualified who come from abroad or out of state because they pay much higher tuition. Eldest’s alma mater, Georgia Tech got push back from the state for not accepting enough in-state students, to which they pointed out the ever decreasing taxpayer support and the need to go to bigger pockets for students. The universities of course market that as diversity.

I remember clearly sitting through graduation, a class large enough to be a multi-day event separated into majors. As they called the computer science grads up to receive their degree, I was impressed at the number of foreign students, and wondered just how many of them would go home and be the source of cyber attacks that Eldest would be defending. You don’t need a large army for a cyber war. Though I couldn’t tell the difference between citizen or foreigner just based on name, there were many names from China, other parts of Asia, and Russia. What better way to prepare for war against your enemy than to have your enemy train your soldiers?

IP,
realizing it’s another observation without a proffered solution

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The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

That’s a fundamental aspect of democracy. Politicians respond to issues that get media attention and popular support.

That’s not always fair. And some do know how to manipulate the system.

The result is out of balance allocation of resources. But its still all about voters expressing their view.

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The STEM students in the new rule are in college, not children. Many, if not all, pay “full price” tuition. This is especially important in community colleges, where many of the American students are given lower tuition. The foreign students help support the college and keep tuition lower for the Americans.
Wendy

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…to which they pointed out the ever decreasing taxpayer support

Wonder if Georgia has been defunding education at the rate Michigan has?

The chart in this article shows the funding trend for the University of Michigan 1960-80% state funding, to 2004-less than 30%.

https://ur.umich.edu/0304/July19_04/00.shtml

The chart in this article covers 1983 to 2013. It shows the downward trend of state funding continuing, to less than 25% of college revenue in 2012-13.

https://www.mlive.com/education/2013/03/report_shows_michiga…

There is an interesting chart in this article about inflation adjusted pay rates for non-college level work, 1976 vs 2016. In real terms, pay for construction laborers has been cut in half. Assembly line worker pay has been cut by a quarter.

What many older people don’t realize about college costs today
Updated: May. 20, 2019, 11:14 a.m. | Published: Sep. 11, 2017, 2:30 p.m.

https://www.mlive.com/news/2017/09/what_many_older_people_do…

Steve…it was good to be a young USian, in the 70s

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No criminals, psychopaths, or sociopaths, though - please.

So where we going ro CEO’s and politicians?

Cheers
Qazulight

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Agree with Wendy and Notehound.

It may have been Tom Friedman who has been on record for years advocating that every graduate-school STEM diploma given to a non-citizen have a green card stapled to it.

I also realized in late adolescence that had I been born a couple of hundred miles south from where I grew up, that sometime around age 15-16 I would have kissed my mother goodbye and headed across the border. Hard to blame others for doing something you would have done yourself.

(I’ll add here that I attended some of the demonstrably worst middle- and high-schools in the US. Now at 99% Hispanic, my high school community at the time was in transition from 1940s Caucasian blue-collar to 1980s Hispanic blue-collar, and so at the time was around 50% Hispanic, 30% Caucasian, 15% black and a few everything else. Around 450 ultimately graduated each year from an incoming ninth-grade class of just over a thousand, with around twenty of us going on to universities (rather than nothing, trade schools and community colleges in order of likelihood). Two others in my class became physicians: one Korean arrived in 8th grade, one Vietnamese in 10th, each coming in without a word of English.

Yes, green cards. Yes, open-ish borders with a clear path to citizenship. Yes to English for everything except emergency and social services: we want assimilation in a generation or two.

–sutton
linear ancestors in the colonies since the 17th century

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realizing it’s another observation without a proffered solution

“You graduated with a STEM degree? Don’t have a criminal record, here or in your home country? Congratulations, here’s your immigrant visa and green card.”

The US benefits highly from an appropriate level of legal immigration, particularly those with advanced degrees and similar qualifications. (I don’t claim to know what that appropriate level is. I do know the appropriate level of illegal immigration: zero.)

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*The STEM students in the new rule are in college, not children.*a

Wendy,

I appreciate your response because I went back and forth talking about he entire process of educating children first and then into college students in STEM. The denial starts before kindergarten and follows all the way through. It is purposeful. It is very nasty.

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The US benefits highly from an appropriate level of legal immigration, particularly those with advanced degrees and similar qualifications.

That is a long held assumption. Easy to prove if you look at lower corporate costs.

It is probably not true.

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I remember clearly sitting through graduation, a class large enough to be a multi-day event separated into majors. As they called the computer science grads up to receive their degree, I was impressed at the number of foreign students, and wondered just how many of them would go home and be the source of cyber attacks that Eldest would be defending. You don’t need a large army for a cyber war. Though I couldn’t tell the difference between citizen or foreigner just based on name, there were many names from China, other parts of Asia, and Russia. What better way to prepare for war against your enemy than to have your enemy train your soldiers?

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I am less concerned about this potential threat of training foreign enemies than the real threat posed by our military training thousands of white supremacists in combat tactics, electronics, cyber warfare, weapons, bombs, drones, and much more.

Obviously, the military does not want such recruits, but it also does not have a comprehensive system for screening them out. All recruits go through a criminal-background check when they enlist, but this only detects extremist membership if they have been charged with a crime related to such beliefs. Those who have no associated convictions can slip through. Recruits’ medical records are reviewed for signs of significant mental illness, but there is no formal psychological assessment that might detect extremist views.

Furthermore, the military (particularly the active Army, National Guard and Reserve) is finding it increasingly difficult to achieve required goals for recruiting and retention. This discourages both recruiters and even commanders from digging too deep into the background of potential recruits.

The vast majority of our military does not support such fringe ideas. But it is aware of the problem. A recent survey conducted by Military Times reported that 22 percent of service personnel had seen signs of white nationalism or racist ideology within the armed forces. This was the same as the results from a similar survey conducted in the aftermath of the 2017 clash between white supremacists and counter protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The military offers much to its members — skills, training, education, societal respect, and admiration. It also requires them to carry the burden of their oath to be the ultimate guardians of democracy. If the guardians fail, where does that leave democracy?

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/inside-u-s-military-s-…

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jaagu, good post!
I am less concerned about this potential threat of training foreign enemies than the real threat posed by our military training thousands of white supremacists in combat tactics, electronics, cyber warfare, weapons, bombs, drones, and much more.
100% That is an accurate assessment of the situation on the ground.

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The military offers much to its members …

We will have to agree to disagree on this one. While there are certainly carrots that are dangled in front of recruits to get them to sign on the line, the trauma many come home with from active duty is not properly handled, often not even acknowledged by the gov’t who put them in harms way. Veterans make up a significant portion of our homeless.

A military career can certainly be good for some people, but until our gov’t properly supports their soldiers who have been physically and or mentally wounded by their service, I will be discouraging our kids from joining up. There is plenty of service they can do right here at home.

Not discussing it further.

IP

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I think people who think training foreign STEM students in our universities is a danger to our country are totally whacky!

Foreign and minority students have the stamina and fortitude to tackle STEM subjects and master them. That is why we have more foreign and minority students in our STEM programs than white students.

In my 30+ years in Nuclear Engineering at Westinghouse Electric Company and Nuclear Engineering at Bechtel Power Corporation, we had more than 75% of our Engineers being from foreign countries and/or minority groups. One of the most distinguished Nuclear Engineers at Westinghouse and in the nuclear industry in the 1960s-1980s was Dr. L.S. Tong. Other companies in the nuclear industry had similar high ratios Engineers from foreign countries and minority groups.

Westinghouse and Bechtel in general had Engineers from all over the world including Israel, Poland, Hungary, Netherlands, Italy, France, Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Spain, Iran, Greece, Canada, Turkey, Egypt, Japan, Korea, Viet Nam, Philippines and so on but the largest numbers of Engineers by far were from China and India.

Jaak

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I am less concerned about this potential threat of training foreign enemies than the real threat posed by our military training thousands of white supremacists in combat tactics, electronics, cyber warfare, weapons, bombs, drones, and much more.

Jaak,

Yeah but it is not an either/or is a neither/nor.

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Foreign and minority students have the stamina and fortitude to tackle STEM subjects and master them. That is why we have more foreign and minority students in our STEM programs than white students.

Jaak,

I generally wont listen to anyone who claims reverse racism. Not worth my time.

The problem with this statement with 40% of workers including plenty of white parents making less than $15 per hour and making $50 per hour not really positioning parents to send kids to college…how do you say white students can’t do it? When first many cant afford it? Many parents can not afford childcare. Many parents can not live in a good zip code where the schools are better. Regardless of white or black.

Children are being born and thrown on the scrapheap.

Meanwhile in much poorer countries there is the decency to educate people from start to finish. Some of those guys historically come to America fully educated. It is not just foreign college students.

The risk takers come here. They leave behind more powerful unchecked authoritarian regimes in many cases. This ups the risk of war for the US over the long haul.

Foreigners weaken the tax base by taking lower pay in many cases.

Listen I am the son of foreigners. I am just stating the cons. They matter. This is not a bed of roses.

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Foreign and minority students have the stamina and fortitude to tackle STEM subjects and master them. That is why we have more foreign and minority students in our STEM programs than white students.

Or maybe it’s because with all the fully funded max tuition paying foreign students coming in, there is less reason for schools to fund the qualified students who can’t afford to pay.

It’s a well known strategy to apply to out of state universities to get your kid in if they are on the fence. While GT was Eldest’s first choice, tied with Carnegie Mellon, his high B grade average was competing against 4.0+ applications. While he did step it up after visiting GT Sophomore year, realizing he was screwing himself out of going to his first pick if he didn’t get out of coast mode, I am sure that the double tuition GT got from us over what a local kid would pay is what got him into that school.

IP

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