"Why Is US Grad School Mainly Non-US Students?"

[BlooInBloo]

Asked by a slashdotter:

http://ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/07/09/29/2027210.shtml

I am a new graduate student in Computer Engineering. I would like to get my MS and possibly my Ph.D. I have learned that 90% of my department is from India and many others are from China. All the students come here to study and there are only 7 US citizens in the engineering program this year. Why is that? I have heard that many of the smarter Americans go into medicine or the law and that is why there are so few Americans in engineering. Is this true?

Aside from obvious and trivial quibbles with the wording, there's a live question at hand. Many DUers know my feelings about this - I was just wondering what everybody else's were. (Also partly inspired by the why-do-old-people-suck-with-computers thread.)


EDIT: The vast majority of the /. comments are about what I would expect from Americans.

[AZBlue]

1. Because other countries actually care if people are educated and ours doesn't anymore?

[emilyg]

27. Bingo.

[Deja Q]

51. Who defines who cares?

Many kids in school always seem to think "smart isn't cool". Nerds and geeks are evil, don'cha'know...

Corporations seem to don't mind raising prices on everything, offshore jobs, and then wonder why Americans aren't signing up for classes. Surely ROI and TCO aren't perks limited solely for CEOs?

The truth is in the middle and perhaps more Americans should have faith. But in 2007/8, that's quite a big leap of faith. Plus, the unease people are feeling isn't going to help them concentrate and earn the grades they'd otherwise achieve. I don't mean fear of terrorist activity; fear that all the money they are spending is for naught. That is a legitimate, correctable concern.

And as these Indians and Chinese are running over here to get educated, they don't feel they're being exploited in their home countries...

[baldguy]

57. Those other countries offer subsidies for gratuate education.

[Vincardog]

2. Do you think it has anything to do with the COST and lack of jobs?

Why go half a million dollars in debt to qualify for a job that will not be there?

[BlooInBloo]

3. I didn't have to pay a dime for the 2x I went to grad school. I wasn't aware that anyone did...

... until recently. Certainly if you're paying for grad school in an academic field, it means they don't really want you there.

EDIT: And I haven't noticed a lack of jobs for qualified people (grad mathematics) for several years at least.

[rockymountaindem]

5. Try studying the humanities

No big money for corporate profits here, so yeah, I'm paying for grad school. All but one of the 13 people my department let in this year is, too.

[BlooInBloo]

9. (shrug) I thought my Ph.D. in philosophy WAS humanities. My mistake.

[rockymountaindem]

11. Guess I'm just an idiot then n/t

[pnwmom]

24. Mathematics people have job possibilities that other humanities majors don't.

[Hardrada]

100. Unless it was all mathematical logic.

Then we might have to do some redefinition here.

[BlooInBloo]

110. A healthy chunk of that, but as much Rorty and Hegel as anything else...

... And Witt and Frege and Kuhn and and and....

[Hardrada]

121. And Rorty is now gone alas. Just last year I believe.

We read a fair amount of Hegel. ( But mostly Husserl, Heidegger & a good bit of Bertrand Russell too).

[BlooInBloo]

135. Rorty: Yup - I believe mine was the first DU post on it, in fact...

Russell: except for the inconsistency of Frege's Grundgesetze is pretty much worthless to read - other than as an introduction to the concept of being both super-smart AND super-wrong. Maybe the smartest never-right guy in human history. /editorial.

[Orangepeel]

145. aren't all Ph.Ds in philosophy?

;-)

[nam78_two]

20. I have certainly gotten the impression that the humanities aren't well-funded

My Poli Sci roomie from first year of grad school was very very bitter about it. Like you said not much by the way of corporate profits in there. A lot of the research done in both the hard sciences and engineering is funded by corporations.

[Bill McBlueState]

71. or by the government

All or nearly all of the grad students in my department are funded by the government. The teaching assistants are funded by the state. The research assistants are all funded by money that ultimately comes from NASA or the NSF.

Corporations are only interested in science and engineering research that has the potential to make a profit.

[BlooInBloo]

78. (shrug) My philsophy degree was very well funded.

[Bill McBlueState]

79. is that a counterexample to what I said?

[BlooInBloo]

81. I thought you were in agreement with whoever said that humanities weren't well-funded.

[Bill McBlueState]

87. no --

I was responding to this part of post 20:

"A lot of the research done in both the hard sciences and engineering is funded by corporations."

by pointing out that government funding is at least as important as corporate funding in the natural sciences. I find there's a common misconception among grad students in the humanities that those of us in the sciences must all be sucking at the corporate boob for our money. But in fact, there are plenty of science grad students doing research that's not immediately profitable, and we're ultimately relying on the same tax money that funds students in other disciplines.

[Posteritatis]

98. History here

My whole department - fifty-someodd graduate students, from first year MA students to doctoral candidates - are pretty much getting full funding. I can cover rent and most of my other expenses, and had to give the school about $600 for books and the last dregs of my outstanding tuition. Then again, I'm in a Canadian school, but my experience here has been pretty close to all of my friends who've attended graduate programs in the US, whatever the field. I can't think of any who didn't at least get one year's full funding.

It more or less gave me the impression that that's actually typical of graduate schools these days. U Toronto accepted me but refused to give any financial aid (I told them where to stick the offer) and all my colleagues/profs/etc were shocked and outraged that they'd even dare do that.

[kineneb]

118. my (almost*) MA in Music was not

My step-father paid for it, and I studied at a "cheap" school, SF State. Most people in the department were there on their own nickel or on loans. There were a few scholarship students, but they had to do work-study in exchange. There were a few foreign students, but most were Bay Area residents who commuted in for classes. Other departments had more foreign students, but the Performing Arts and Fine Arts Departments were mostly just locals.

The arts are very poorly supported.

*I completed all the classes. but never did write my thesis. Hubby's job loss (WorldCom), two moves, and then his illnesses rather got in the way. Then I just became too depressed to even think about it.

[nam78_two]

108. You are quite right

That is a big chunk of it too, but at least in my area of biomedical research there is lots of funding available from Pharmaceuticals, the Chemical industry etc. I was funded by NIH throughout grad school, but the NIH has faced so many funding cuts recently, I am wondering what the situation will be like 5 years down the line when I hope to start my own lab. Many people haven't been getting their R01s renewed :-/. The govt. funding situation is looking rather bleak right now.

[Bill McBlueState]

88. it's not quite as simple as that

In my experience, there are quite a few TAs and some RAs in the humanities. Where graduate employees are unionized, the bulk of the union staff and volunteers are humanities grad students. To be a union member, you have to have an assistantship, so they're clearly available in the humanities.

But there are important differences. In the natural sciences, students are typically admitted with guaranteed funding for at least a year, the TA work is almost trivial, and more advanced students can usually find RA support for their thesis or dissertation work. Their hourly rates also tend to be the highest on campus. In the humanities, funding is rarely guaranteed for more than a semester at a time, the TA work is onerous, and RAs typically have to do work unrelated to their thesis/dissertation. Hourly rates on my campus are about 5% less in the humanities than in the natural sciences.

Still, assistantships and their associated tuition waivers are common in almost every college on campus apart from the professional schools.

[NutmegYankee]

101. I guess your RA isn't my meaning of RA?

I know RA as Resident Advisor, the students (undergrad) in the Dorms who keep the place under some sense of order.

[Bill McBlueState]

111. ah -- a common source of confusion

RA = Research Assistant

The union I'm in represents both types of RA, so we're always tripping over that as well.

[cgrindley]

123. I didn't pay a dime

for my MFA or PhD. I only had to pay for my BFA and MA. I did those in Canada, so it was no biggie.

[Flying Dream Blues]

6. Gee, the 2X I went to grad school, EVERYBODY paid for their own.

I guess I should have gone in an academic field instead of the purely fun and trivial stuff I was studying. Then perhaps they would have wanted me there and offered to pay for it.
:sarcasm:

[Captain Hilts]

34. Funding varies dramatically from field to field. nt

[Occulus]

13. Sounds as though you were really really lucky, then

When I was in school at WMU (Michigan), in the music program, I don't recall ever hearing about anyone getting 'free' grad school, unless they were on some sort of scholarship or grant program or some such. The grad students I knew, IIRC, were paying either out of pocket or through loans.

edit: this was in 1993, which is when I started my freshman year there.

[BlooInBloo]

19. Huh. Everyone I knew in grad school was on fellowship/research or teaching assistantship...

... Every single one of them. Hmm.... Maybe I knew one or two walk-ons a long time ago - not sure.

[pnwmom]

25. That's true in fields like math, science, and engineering.

Less true in most humanities, although teaching assistantships are certainly possible in any field. But I don't think at most universities there are enough to support every grad student in every term.

[One_Life_To_Give]

82. Company/Employer Paid Tuition

I think most of my classmates getting masters at night were paid by our employers.

[Chomskyite]

28. When?

Tuition waivers for teaching assistants in the humanities are becoming a thing of the past.

[BlooInBloo]

45. 10-15 years ago. But there's a more recent one just below this post.

[Phillycat]

58. I find the best thing is to take my personal anecdotal experience

and make huge sweeping generalizations from them, while simultaneously insulting and patronizing everyone to whom I am speaking.

[RandomKoolzip]

74. Zing!

:rofl:

[BlooInBloo]

84. lol! Some people have low standards about what counts as a zing.

[pitohui]

61. everyone i knew was on fellowship/research also

however the problem being that fellowship/research didn't actually pay enough to live on, so people would still become indebted unless they were being fed and housed by a spouse or a parent

fellowships actually seem to be healthier these days but maybe it's just the folks i happen to know

[distantearlywarning]

37. Everybody in my program is fully funded, including a tuition scholarship.

I applied to 12 grad schools, and this was the case for all of them. I don't know anybody in my field from other schools that isn't fully funded, either through a fellowship, or research, or a teaching assistantship.

Being fully funded is the norm in my field. I'm in psychology, BTW.

[BlooInBloo]

83. It was the case for all ten or so programs I was accepted to....

... and all the programs that anybody I know even applied to.

[SmokingJacket]

56. That's true at many schools -- at my state school it was.

I didn't pay a dime either. I got paid for doing TA work. But maybe at big Ivies it's not so true. I mean, how many Engineering TA's do they need??

[WinkyDink]

106. What?! Not every Masters candidate can be made a TA.

[robinlynne]

4. My mom was the dean of the school of education at a university. The answer is very

simple and sad. As the federal govt in this country cut off money to the universities, they had to look elsewhere for funding. Foreign countries pay a fortune to send their students here. One of the saddest things is that some students were not allowed to be flunked, although they were terrible students, because the universities don't want to give up the money they are receiving from their governments.

[alittlelark]

7. That is SCARY ... and very sad.

:-(

[BlooInBloo]

8. Thanks for school of education's perspective.

[rockymountaindem]

10. Yeah, because, why would we want to pay for education?

It's better to just not pay for anything, then complain about the unskilled workforce and use it as an excuse to outsource jobs. Then all that money will come back to us in the form of more foreign grad students paying with government funds!

See? Everybody wins!

[nam78_two]

17. I find it hard to believe this is true of *graduate* school in Engineering and the sciences

Which was what was being addressed in the OP?
Is that really true?
Maybe this is true in the big picture (all fields and when you throw in undergrad as well) and you are probably right, but wow that isn't the impression I got from grad school.
At least my general impression with all grad students ( foreign and American) that I have come across in the hard sciences and engineering is that all of them were fully funded by their research advisors. At least all the PhD students and mostly even Masters students.

My impression was always that the only people who were generally treated as cash cows by universities are the undergrads. I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship for undergrad, but in general that seems to be the big money-sink with regard to getting an edumacation. Getting your way paid for through grad school is pretty easy, especially if you are getting a doctrate.

[BlooInBloo]

46. Consider the source.

[robinlynne]

49. nope, she taught phds.

[TahitiNut]

72. There's another reason. Visas. Foreign students at US universities escape quotas.

Thus, it's a "side door" to staying in the US ... one that corporations like.

[tabasco]

12. US graduate school is not mainly foreign students.

Google is your friend. Or is it your enemy?

[BlooInBloo]

16. Accounted for in the OP from the get-go.

[Captain Hilts]

31. It is if you don't count law and med. nt

[Rosemary2205]

14. Because that's where the jobs are????

[Swamp Rat]

15. Our Comp. Sci. Dept. has mostly foreign students, and 3/4 of the teachers are foreign.

Chinese and Indian, and Pakistani. Same goes for the Engineering Dept, though the Civil Engineering division has more native faculty. The EE's are mostly foreign.

There is only one faculty member for my current area of specialisation and he is from Pakistan. Half of my class is comprised of foreign nationals.

Mind you, this is New Orleans, where foreigners may be less inclined to come since Katrina. Nevertheless, even after an massive exodus of foreign students over the last two years, there is a significant number of foreign students attending science and math courses.

Personally, I like the foreign students and faculty, and welcome anyone who is interested in helping our city.

[hfojvt]

18. I personally believe that a large number of Americans cannot find

Iran on a map because they cannot afford maps.

How the heck are we supposed to know? Do we work in an admissions office. I cannot follow the /. threads. They started arguing about dentistry and the cost of a home and the definition of lower middle class. :wtf:

I might answer the question like this. In my freshman physics class, the prof, for some reason, read the names of the top five students in the class. Except for my name in fourth place, the other names were all obviously foreign. This was 25 years ago. The prof who signed on my minor program asked me "So we can't convince you to goto graduate school?" I asked "Why would you want to?" He said something like "It's nice when we can get a graduate student who is a native English speaker."

[Lydia Leftcoast]

21. When I went to graduate school in the 1970s,

not getting financial aid meant that they didn't really want you but were willing to take your money. Financial aid was given in order of the student's perceived merit rather than on financial need.

My degree was in the humanities, by the way.

When I was teaching on the college level in the 1980s and early 1990s, few American students in the sciences and engineering went on to graduate school, because they could get well-paying jobs with a four-year degree, especially at (boo! hiss!) military contractors. One of my best language students got a job working on the Star Wars project. When I chided him for it, he said, "Sure, I know it won't work, but it will be fun to work on the details that might work, and the pay is great."

In the meantime, as someone above mentioned, foreign governments do pay to send their students to grad school in the U.S. During my teaching career, Malaysia had an affirmative action program for ethnic Malays to study abroad, so there seemed to be Malays everywhere one looked.

[BlooInBloo]

47. That was my experience in the 90s.

[Piltdown13]

130. Interesting!

Reading this thread, I'm starting to think that a *lot* of the differences in people's experience boils down to the handful of programs they've had experience with (applied to and/or attended). In my graduate program (which I started in 1997), funding wasn't, by and large, given based on perceived merit -- there were a couple of university-wide fellowships your department could nominate students for, and a couple of merit-based scholarships (good for a couple of years) attached to the department, but beyond that, the criteria for assistantships had more to do with your status in the program than anything else. Of course, you had to be making satisfactory progress toward degree in order to be considered. The end result was that most people did end up having to take out at least some loans, because it was unusual to be funded for your entire grad school career. Almost nobody came into the program with full funding; I seriously doubt that means that the department really didn't want any of them!

ETA: I should mention that part of the problem was a quirk with the state in which I went to grad school. No matter how long you'd been there, if your primary purpose in coming to the state was to attend school, you could *never* qualify for in-state tuition, and out-of-state grad tuition was 3x the in-state rate. They were so hard-nosed about this that even folks who came and worked for a year or two before starting grad school got hassled about it.

[JCMach1]

22. Computer science and engineering jobs have disappeared from the U.S.

A BA in Engineering in Dubai will earn you only 2-4000AED each month. That's $500-1000 each month. That's rather typical of the Asian salary levels currently.

Parents here have this rather insane idea that everyone should go to school to become an engineer, or a medical doctor.

Engineers are a dime a dozen. That's why so many companies have moved to India and China.

[pnwmom]

23. And the ones that are here aren't very secure. n/t

[Emit]

26. For us DUers who don't know your feelings about this,

can you fill us in -- if even just briefly? I'd like to know more about where you're coming from. TIA. :hi:

edit typo

[BlooInBloo]

48. I have a low opinion about Americans' intellectual abilities and interests.

[Berry Cool]

29. It depends entirely on the area of study.

Yes, there are tons of engineering grad students from India and China. But that doesn't mean that journalism grad school, for instance, has mostly Indian and Chinese students. (I went to journalism grad school quite some time ago, but when I did, the majority of my fellow students were Americans, and of those who were not, the majority were Canadians. Some of them were already employed in the field and had been sent by their employers, but others were there just because they had majored in English undergrad, hadn't been able to find work or were concerned about finding work, and decided a master's in journalism would help.)

The USA has of late been a popular place for Indians and Chinese to earn an engineering degree. Most of them take it back home; some don't. It's also a place where some Indians and Chinese find good university teaching jobs after they get their degrees.

[Captain Hilts]

30. The Feds stopped funding grad school in the 60s because of the draft, except for law and med...

the majority are foreigners because most United Statesians can't afford it.

Too many people go into debt paying for private undergraduate educations also. Nowhere in the world can undergraduate education require four years instead of three and so expensively too.

[Silver Gaia]

33. They work it so it takes longer than four years in a lot of cases, too,

by teaching core classes that are only taught in certain semesters with very small class sizes, and are pre-reqs for each other. If you happen to not get into a particular class when you need to, you're stuck there for another semester (or more, in some cases), just because of that one class.

[Silver Gaia]

32. I'm currently in grad school in the Humanities.

There's NO money for us. Everyone I know is paying through the nose for grad school in our department. I looked all over for something. Nothing. I'm also working as a T.A. in Humanities and Religious Studies for no pay. For credit only, because there's no money to pay me. So they say.

[Captain Hilts]

35. English programs are huge exploiters of grad students. They accept them to get folks to teach...

freshman composition, then they ditch them a few years later.

[Bill McBlueState]

112. that's pretty astounding

that your university would rely on unpaid labor to teach courses. I wonder if the parents of the undergraduates, who are probably paying thousands of dollars for these classes, know that their kids are being taught at no cost to the university.

[BlooInBloo]

113. And literally taken, probably illegal.

[The2ndWheel]

36. Since it's an increasingly integrated global economy

What difference does it make if the students are "American", "Indian", or "Chinese"? If the same job can be done next door, or 4,000 miles away, why does it matter?

You either have globalization, or you don't. You don't get to cherry pick the good parts.

[Romulox]

42. Um, because education is a *publicly funded* good paid for by the taxpayer and ostensibly

for the benefit of the American people?

You laissez faire types sure enjoy public education. :eyes:

[The2ndWheel]

43. I'm not a laissez faire type

If you think there is still an "America", then you're living in some other century.

[Romulox]

44. Hoookay. But back on this planet, the entity formerly known as "America" continues to tax me

to pay for a public education system.

[The2ndWheel]

52. In theory

But since we live in this globalizing world, where everyone won't get everything, but anything can be done anywhere, it'll be a give and take.

[Romulox]

54. What you have posted is nonsensical

The funding for public universities and colleges is not "give and take". It's provided by the US government and the various states where these colleges are located.

Your globalist's cant doesn't change the basics of government funding for higher education.

[OzarkDem]

38. That's a good question

If engineering is an example, it appears the jobs don't pay as well as they once did. Are we sending too many of these jobs overseas or is the H1B visa issue partly to blame?

OT: I didn't mean to insult Boomer folks for not having skills in computers.I'm a Boomer myself. But felt the need to point out that a lot of them need to catch up on their skills to stay competitive in the job market.

[NewJeffCT]

39. I think in a lot of "engineering" type fields, Americans often feel they can't compete

with students from China and India, so many top students do to turn medicine and law. Those top students in India and China really go through an academic meat grinder - my wife's nephew in China is in middle school, and his school day runs from 7:30am to 6:00pm, then he does homework from 7:00pm to 11:00pm each night. He also has a half day of schooling on Saturday.
I can only imagine what will happen when he gets to high school.

There were a lot of foreign students in those fields 20 years ago as well. However, 20 and even 10 years ago, those students often came to the US and stayed and became contributors to our economy. Now, with rising middle classes in China and India, a lot of those foreign students are returning home when they finish their schooling. I'm sure the Bush economy and Bush's America have also helped contribute to many of them wanting to return.

[ThomWV]

40. You want the real answer? Its because they have engineering jobs back at home, americans don't

[BadgerLaw2010]

41. University of Wisconsin has surprising ties to Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Absolutely incredible number of Chinese here, considering that you're in a state capital and college town in the Midwest.

Why? Because the primary university ranking in China ignores most of the "reputational" and "private school" bonuses that US News uses to favor certain private schools over public universities, and so Wisconsin is ranked ~ 15th in the United States and 17th globally.

http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2007/ARWU2007_Top100.htm

The Chinese *revere* the chance to get top American education. Their parents pay tremendous amounts of money to send their kids here. And it isn't cheap for them. Wisconsin is only cheap for in-state residents. For an out-of-state, it's as expensive as any private school. And people will pay it.

The law school and med school are still almost completely American, but that's because of the quirks of those professions. Law school in particular - an American law degree doesn't translate well overseas unless you are working in very specific international business tied tightly to the US, at a very specific transactional level.

[AngryAmish]

50. In technology, that is true

Engineering is a grind. Law school is a lot easier. Engineers top out income-wise pretty soon unlike law, Wall St., etc.

Where will America get it's engineers? We will import them. Many of the grad students stay in the US and become citizens. It is a brain drain that helps the US.

[JHB]

53. I think that's a major part of it.

Coupled with the fact that for all the bluster about "American ingenuity" and all the tech gizmos around us, actually understanding any of it is still strictly "nerd" territory. There isn't much support for building the necessary skills and mindset that would make these fields viable options for a bigger slice of the general college population, so it falls to the portion does so only through their own initiative.

And yes, math, science, and engineering are a grind and far less susceptible to "bullshiting your way through" than many other fields. And in most cases, medicine and law pay better.

[Romulox]

55. If lawschool is so much easier than engineering, why don't foreigners dominate there too?

Especially since the pay can be so much better?

Your theory is illogical.

[AngryAmish]

59. 100% english proficiency is required in law school, not so in tech

Foreign born lawyers are not readily hired by American law firms.

If you come over on a student visa you get a green card by doing a job that they are having trouble filling with Americans. There are plenty of Americans to fill lawyer jobs.

[Romulox]

64. This is absolutely not true.

In fact, my local law school provides significantly more time for test-takers for whom English is a second language.

Moreover, there are thousands of unemployed computer engineers in the US. This has no impact whatever on the issuance of green cards and visas for workers in these fields.

[BadgerLaw2010]

89. Just try following a Socratic lecture with mediocre English skills. It's a serious disadvantage.

Law school is time consuming enough. I can't imagine doing it in either a foreign language or with weak English skills as a native speaker (although the LSAT "takes care" of most of those, at least at the top tier level). Your classmates don't have this problem and law school is very brutally curved.

You might be able to do it, but you'd need to be significantly smarter than most of the rest of your class. Since there's little foreign interest in going to non-elite US schools, that's just not going to happen. People that are that intelligent are statistical oddities.

At a minimum, a foreign student would need to be fluent in English to really be competitive.

Then there's the issue of what you are going to do with the degree. Unless you are planning on living in the United States, your options are limited. Bar association rules make it a bit difficult to move around the *country* at the drop of a hat until you've got reciprocity. Foreign law differs drastically from US law in most areas, and the "rules" classes would be entirely inapplicable. Are you going to use American rules of evidence in India?

Then there are the US bar exams. That material is completely worthless overseas, and frequently worthless across the country. You do need to review for one and pass one.

You can't practice law over the phone from China. And even if you held bar membership, you could still only practice in certain states over that phone. And even with all that, people like being able to actually meet with their lawyer at anything below the pure corporate level - and EVEN THERE you are still meeting with people.

Law degrees can be used as MBA substitutes, but that's a real backwards way for an overseas applicant to try to get US business credentials.

[Romulox]

95. There is no bar to foreign nationals practicing law in the US

Just as there is no bar to engineers practicing their trade in the US (visa requirements notwithstanding).

We have thousands of foreign born engineers working in the US, and almost no foreign born lawyers. Lack of linguistic skills is one likely reason for this, but cannot explain the entire difference.

The argument that medical and law schools are not dominated by foreign students because they are simultaneously "easier" and better remunerated than other endeavors is absurd on its face.

[Tigermoose]

62. A degree in U. S. law is not very useful in India or China. (nt)

nt

[Romulox]

65. This is also 100% not true.

Aside from blatant outsourcing of legal services (see e.g. http://www.legalaffairs.org/issues/May-June-2005/scene_brook_mayjun05.msp ), knowledge of US patent law could be extremely lucrative for a China-based attorney.

[AngryAmish]

77. The things I have seen outsourced in the legal community

1. Typing.

2. Document review.

I think American jobs in litigation are safe for a while.

[Romulox]

86. This doesn't answer why lawschools are not dominated by foreign students...

Economics is the answer.

[fujiyama]

91. A US law degree isn't as useful to international students

I have a relative that came from India based on some court case that was pending here. She's quite reputable there in India, but the simple fact is, even though Indian law is largely based on English common law and India has a written constitution, she wasn't able to provide very much advice to the person here.

Law is a field peculiar to each nation - and in the US - each state, hence a bar exam. Unless you have some particular expertise in international law, I don't see how a law degree (aside from a high ranking institution like Harvard or Yale) will be very useful overseas.

Also, it's worth keeping in mind that law school in many countries is an UNDERGRADUATE degree. The same goes with medicine. Many international students would not like to study four years in their native country and study the same thing over again here.

[Romulox]

93. A US law degree is a prerequisite for practicing law in the US

It could also be invaluable for persons seeking to conduct legal-related business in the US (a dirty little secret is that as many as 50% of lawschool graduates never actively practice law--why should it be different for international students?) Moreover, you assume that no international students wish to practice law in the US, but this is obviously not true of other foreign students, e.g. engineers, many of whom stay in the US to pursue their careers after graduation.

Again, if international students are superior, and there is money to be made in the field, their lack of success in the legal field will have to be explained in terms of economics. That the phenomena resists simple analysis indicates the underlying theory is probably wrong.

[BadgerLaw2010]

90. Paralegal slave labor (US or elsewhere) don't have law degrees

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paralegal

There is an economic argument for outsourcing legal research, so long as quality doesn't suffer *at all*. Bad legal research is a tremendous false economy. And, due to ABA rules, lands squarely on the lawyer's head, in addition to whatever the bungled case cost the firm in fees and work.

But none of that has bearing on actual American law schools, who don't train paralegals or secretaries or typists.

[Romulox]

96. No one but you has mentioned paralegals. nt

[Manifestor_of_Light]

122. I couldn't get a paralegal job with a Juris Doctor.

Applied to about 250 law firms and individuals, used my school's job placement office, had great references, got one interview. Also had spent my entire working life in law and the court system. Worked incredibly hard, worked all nighters and weekends, went to grad school at night, didn't think I was superior, didn't gossip, didn't backstab, was always cordial and professional, even to people who were not nice to me, typed perfect transcripts. Got me nowhere.

Overqualified.

Guess that bachelor's and doctorate were a waste of money. Way too many lawyers out there. They crank them out regardless of demand.


So I'm going to do something meaningful with the rest of my life. That's a lot more fun and a lot more satisfying than paper shuffling.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

140. Law school, med school, business school are "professional schools", not the same as grad school. In

professional schools, you learn your profession (trade) and are not usually teaching classes or generating useful work for the university, although you might be a resident adviser to undergrads to make money or room and board on the side. In return for paying big bucks for tuition, you can usually make a high salary in these fields after graduating, so there is usually not much financial aid if any.

In grad school programs you are usually both teaching classes AND, especially in the sciences, generating useful work for the academic department in the research you do for your thesis. That's why it's typical in grad school, at least in the sciences, to not pay anything and in fact to make a salary (albeit a very low salary) while a grad student. Grad students in the sciences usually represent cheap labor for their department, generating much more value in their research and teaching work than they are paid for.

[piedmont]

60. Because American universities are able to cherry-pick the top 0.5% or so of students...

from China, India, etc. Half a percent of the college grads from a population of 2.5 billion is more than enough to populate American grad schools. And those students come here for the same reasons other immigrants come here: better pay (T.A. or R.A. stipends), and better education. As far as I know, there's no requirement that universities give more consideration to U.S. citizens, other than they don't have to take the TOEFL.
And using international students has certain benefits from the university's and professor's perspective: they'll put up with lower pay and longer hours and poorer overall treatment. So if you're a prof trying to crank out as much research as possible and land as many $500,000 NSF grants as possible, you'll prefer to get students that don't have a life outside the lab, who you can work like dogs for $11,000 a year. Not many American college graduates are going to want to do that instead of going directly into the "real world" and make 2 to 4 times that salary.

[BlooInBloo]

63. But I see the same in the real world - the white folks aren't there EITHER - lol!

When I worked in mathematical financial programming, it was primarily indians and chinese. Of course, those positions required advanced technical degrees.

[piedmont]

69. "Of course, those positions required advanced technical degrees."

Well, there ya go. If our universities are producing more M.S. and Ph.D. grads from other countries than from this one, and then the H-1B visa adds even more indians and chinese on top of that, then I would expect that those jobs would be dominated by indians and chinese after a while.
Skilled workers are just another "value-added" product that companies and universities need. Just like with toys, wheat gluten, consumer electronics, etc., China has become a cheap and plentiful source of both.

[BlooInBloo]

73. Well, except that companies aren't paying them cheaply.

[piedmont]

75. They are paying them more cheaply than if they had to rely on U.S. citizens only.

[BlooInBloo]

76. So say you. I was there with them - we were getting paid top dollar.

[obnoxiousdrunk]

120. These guys

can't be that cheap...

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/19/60minutes/main559476.shtml

[BlooInBloo]

136. In America at least, they're not. Despite what disgruntled conventional wisdom may say.

[uncertainty1999]

138. more on cherry picking...

IMHO it's not so much about American students being unwilling to slog through long hours and tough tasks, but it's also about preparation. One of my former grad school colleagues (from Mexico) said that as a foreign student, he made sure he was ready for anything before going to grad school in the U.S. - did not want to go so far away only to fail. Many of my foreign grad school colleagues started the program master's degrees (vs. the Americans who had bachelor degrees) AND even had more incredible prior experiences like TEACHING at universities in their home countries. Most of the foreign students were laser-focused on exactly what they wanted to do and with whom they wanted to work from Day 1, which was not at all like the American students. The American B.S/B.A. in Math is simply not equivalent in terms of depth as the same degree from many other countries, which was also a source of aggravation - I could not help but feel up against it during some of my courses.

So, no surprise re: advisers cherry-picking the best & brightest students, who are often foreign. That said, I've heard of discrimination against foreign students, too, but in my personal experience I've seen how the system benefits foreign students given their (over)preparation relative to Ph.D program requirements.

[SoCalDem]

66. Grad school is expensive

By the time a person is of "grad school age", they may have family obligations that have dibs on the family money.

Maybe people in the US have figured out that al the degrees in the IT field won't help much if the actual JOBS in those fields are being done for half the price in South Asia, so why waste the extra money for the degree..

and maybe
we have finally realized that the USof A's future will probably be in hands-on type of jobs that cannot be outsourced..

Ironic? no? We were the leader and now we are falling back into manual labor to get any semblance of job security :shrug:

[BlooInBloo]

68. People keep saying that. I've not experienced it...

... The programmers I worked with at a large financial institution were getting quite large paychecks, as was I. Certainly NOWHERE NEAR anything that deserves to be called "half the price".

Just one of those things that everybody says, that I've never once experienced.

[DFW]

67. My nephew is at Stanford Engineering

And he's American.

Of course, my daughter is at Pace Law School, and she's German........

[Dan]

70. Reading this thread has been interesting

My son is one of those "Best and the brightest" in a top ten engineering school going for his PhD, having graduated Summa Cum Laude from one of the top ten Universities as an undergrad in the hard sciences.

From what he has shared with me - this is true, most of the students are foreign born (and no, they are not staying in the US after they graduate). Sadly, I am getting used to the idea that my son having seen the movie SICKO has decided to leave the US when he graduates.

The Empire that Bush envisions is on the decline....

For those that have to pay, why pay literally $100K + for a degree - when America outsources or hires from outside the U.S. - maybe our kids can do cost benefit analysis at a very early age.

[lovuian]

80. I actually think this is a important issue you talking about

Education of Americans

[BlooInBloo]

85. Or not, as the case may be. But yah - about as important as it gets, in my book.

[fujiyama]

92. Blaming this on outsourcing is an easy cop out

The simple fact is, even before corporations ramped up the outsourcing of work, a large number of Masters and PhD students in engineering and the hard sciences were foreign born.

Why is that?

Well, in their home countries, they don't quite have the resources in those fields so they came here. Universities here can be very picky and get some very bright students from some of the top universities abroad. Funding isn't easy for foreign students, but sometimes they get loans from their home countries or just work their asses off, either through a fellowship if their lucky or a part time on campus job.

Those Americans who graduate with a bachelors in engineering often get well paying jobs right after undergrad not necessarily needing a Masters Degree. Contrary to what some people think, it's not easy for foreign student to just "get a job" in the US after getting educated here.

Also, the simple fact is, we don't do a very good job educating students in math and science at the elementary level...

[Deja Q]

94. Thank you much for posting that.

:thumbsup:

[Posteritatis]

97. Because I'm going to grad school in Canada. *rimshot* (nt)

[tigereye]

99. hmmm - I don't know if that's true

I encountered both US and non-IS citizens while in grad school. THere wasn't a predomination of one or the other when I was in grad school.

[KoKo]

102. My family has two Engineering Professors at Cornell & U. of Rochester

they've taught for over 30 years and been heads of their Departments. They said the Government gives money to foreign students because of "good will/peace efforts" and they get their research paid in good part by Gov't Grants. They also say that in the "pool of talent" foreign students seem to work harder.

:shrug: (My read is that if the Govt. sponsors these students as part of "Spreading Democracy" then they are getting better treatment than our kids who are American Students who can't bring in "Democracy Research Grants to their Professors" and have to take out LOANS they can NEVER REPAY.

My two BIL's say that it's "the way the system is structured since the Cold War and has grown under Reagan, Poppy, Clinton and Bush II. They are old enough to know.... :shrug:

[nam78_two]

104. I am not sure this is how it generally works

Not to contradict you, but that just doesn't seem at all like how any graduate education system (ok strictly Engineering and sciences-I don't have much familiarity with others) I have ever known works. Undergrads are a different matter.

Most professors get their grants funded by agencies such as NIH, NASA, NSF, DARPA etc. and I have assisted my former advisors in writing grants (this was at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor) and am currently writing post-doc grants for myself and I have never seen a slot where you can claim brownie points for hiring foreign students. Most of the research at big institutions is funded by US government grants and most professors with research grants make their hiring decisions independently of foreign governments, funding agencies etc.

I have to admit that a lot of the information in this thread just sounds outright wrong to me on the basis of my personal experiences :shrug:. Unless it is specifically undergrad that is being talked about. Graduate school for engineering just doesn't work this way (ok at least not in my experience). This is not something I have heard about from other people. It is what I know from my experience with all the professors I worked with and writing grants myself as a graduate student and now as a postdoc.

The idea that their is some conspiracy involving foreign students as
a source of secret wealth is just wrong. There is no sacrifice of American students at the expense of foreign ones etc. The vast majority of those who pay are undergrads and they usually seem to be from wealthy families all over the world. Of course there could be these govt grants etc. coming into play there. But this is not true of graduate school.

The vast, vast majority of foreign students coming here for a graduate education are not getting a free pass so to speak, from anyone. Everyone I have worked with has hired RAs and TAs solely on the basis of merit. Someone's nationality has never come into the picture.

[KoKo]

109. It's not a conspiracy and both Professors I talk about deal with Graduate only...but

the Deparment Heads and Board of University know where the money comes from. So, it filters down silently. If you get a great application (wonderful credentials) from a foreign student and stack it side by side with American student applicant and you know where the funding from your crucial research comes from....your decision is based more on the funding that you can get some $$$$$$$$$'s for from the Government (which is the biggest funder, these days) than it is from taking some kid who might need "partial pay scholarship and their own loans" before a foreign student whose family might pay and you get the Government perks for having "diversity...and money from Dept. of Commerce" for funding a "Democracy Candidate." These are the issues both my Brother-in-Laws have been faced with.

If one has Applicants of equal credentials but you get more funding for your Research (which means your standing in the University...tenure...all that) which one would YOU PICK...? That's the hard choice our Universities are faced with. Many American Students who are 'needy' drain resources from Colleges and Universities who need to provide 'part scholarship/part loan.' Why not take an "Outstanding Foreign Student" who could fund themself and bring in Govt. Grants for Democracy Efforts for the University on top of that?

I'm not saying Universities/Colleges only take those Foreign Students who can pay...for this scheme...they do take needy students ...but they get BIG BUCKS from our Govt. to fund those they take and it works out to benefit the Provost's office of the Institution.

Colleges and Universities these days are run on a "business model" since Reagan. It's considered a better form of management. Amazing that College Tuitions are up 75%, though...isn't it...:-( And that many students leave so much in debt they are strapped with those loans the rest of their lives.

We had to pay off one...and when we had problems they came after us and threatened...they would garnish our salaries...and that was YEARS AGO! I can't imagine what graduating students stuck with maybe over a hundred thousand in debts THESE DAYS go through. :-(

[KoKo]

114. BTW...here's an article posted in DU Finance Section you might find interesting...:

High-priced student loans spell trouble

The near doubling in the cost of a college degree the past decade has produced an explosion in high-priced student loans that could haunt the U.S. economy for years.

While scholarship, grant money and government-backed student loans — whose interest rates are capped — have taken up some of the slack, many families and individual students have turned to private loans, which carry fees and interest rates that are often variable and up to 20 percent.

Many in the next generation of workers will be so debt-burdened they will have to delay home purchases, limit vacations, even eat out less to pay loans off on time.

Kristin Cole, 30, who graduated from Michigan State University's law school and lives in Grand Rapids, Mich., owes $150,000 in private and government-backed student loans. Her monthly payment of $660, which consumes a quarter of her take-home pay, is scheduled to jump to $800 in a year or so, confronting her with stark financial choices.

-cut-

Rocketing tuition fees made borrowing that much more appealing. Consumer prices on average rose less than 29 percent over the past 10 years while tuition, fees, and room and board at four-year public colleges and universities soared 79 percent to $12,796 a year and 65 percent to $30,367 a year at private institutions, according to the College Board.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070930/ap_on_bi_ge/student...

[malaise]

103. Why don't you post the data on foreign re

American grad students. One swallow does not a summer make. What's more graduate intake from overseas has held steady and not increased since more than a few students can't bother with the terror hassle. Numbers were down for 04 and 05. Indeed US universities are recruiting foreigners.

http://xpress.sfsu.edu/archives/news/004205.html

<snip>
Fewer foreign students are choosing the United States as a place to get their higher education.

The enrollment of International students at SF State has dropped by 7.3 percent since last fall, according to a statistical summary released this week by the Office of International Programs (OIP).

"Most universities since Sept. 11, 2001 have experienced a decrease in International student enrollment," said Coordinator of International Student Services, Jay Ward.

"Since then, our government has not really been very International student friendly," Ward said. "Many International students feel that the U.S. is no longer the place to study and they basically began to look at other English speaking countries ."
Edit: corrected and link added.

[BlooInBloo]

107. I wondered when someone would bring up 9/11.

[bonito]

105. Kick and recommended!

[Sparkly]

115. Are American students less qualified?

If that guess is wrong, I don't know the answer. :shrug:

[BlooInBloo]

116. How un-Amercian of you to suggest it.

:P

[Mend]

125. no, definitely not...I know it is hard to believe but the faculty, all foreign-born,

encourages and hires mostly foreign-born males. There is discrimination going on to US kids (white, Black, and Hispanic). The outrage is the excuse that "they (Indians, Turks, etc)" are smarter and more ambitious and better prepared. The exclusion of women seems cultural and you don't see any US women mentors on the faculty. I never thought I would say this but I wish Lou Dobbs would take a look...you would be astounded at what is going on.

[Bill McBlueState]

126. which faculty?

Individual departments hardly provide the data needed for a representative sample, but in my astronomy department, only about half the faculty are from other countries. And the admissions committee has historically been almost entirely made up of white American males.

There is certainly bias in admissions decisions, but I don't think it's a pro-international-student bias. My department has actually been vocal about its interest in admitting more Americans.

[BlooInBloo]

128. They're just making shit up. Funny how white folks are the FIRST to cry "racism"...

... at the smallest whiff of things going against THEM. But black folks, who genuinely HAVE had an entire country against them, are called "oversensistive".

:rofl:

[Geek_Girl]

117. The IT field is filled with HB1 visas

which has driven wages way down. Allot of folks have left the IT industry and have gone on to do other things. Very few grads are graduating with degrees in Computer Science because it's just not worth it. Honestly if I was just starting out I would go into another field.

[BlooInBloo]

119. Yah - people keep saying it - I never see it...

... Our wages for grad math/physics/finance/maybe-cs were in the 80k-150k range.

If you say those are low, so be it.

[Geek_Girl]

131. I'm talking specifically in the IT field

wages have greatly diminished. Programmers use that use to make 100k 7 years ago, where I live, are lucky to get 65k these days. I really think anyone thinking of getting a computer science degree should consider something else.

[LisaL]

65K a year? That really is awful. Now, where is my little violin?

Give me a break.

[LisaL]

133. 65K a year?

Seriously, I think a lot of people would love to make that much.

[BlooInBloo]

139. The term "IT" boilerplates an ambiguity that's worth untangling....

... There are IT folks properly so-called, who do things like install new computers when they come in, set centralized permissions, and stuff of that nature. OTOH, there are software developers - programmers. They both spend a lot of time at a keyboard, but they differ radically in what's functionally required from them. I have no real idea what IT (proplerly so-called) people's salaries hover at. Programers, otoh, routinely make between 80k and 150k. There are a host of variables, naturally, not the least of which is the "seriousness" of the programming. "Web devs" are typically on the lower end, while c/cpp folks are commonly on the higher.

But despite the manifold variables, the distinction between IT and programmer is a qualitative difference in *kind*, whereas the distinctions between programmers is more of a difference merely in *degree*.

[Mend]

124. happening here in Fl in engineering specialties...and when the PhD is granted,

the teaching jobs go to the foreign-born given by a faculty all foreign-born. It looks and feels like discrimination.

[BlooInBloo]

127. Hm. Funny that I never experienced it either in school or professionally...

... And I was schooled among many indians/chinese folks, and worked almost exclusively with them.

[Gormy Cuss]

129. Some info on rate of aid in graduate schools.

Since that's become a subthread issue, here are some stats from NCES/Dept of Ed for academic year 1999-2000:
Only 59.7 % of all graudate school students (full and part time) received some aid
82.2% of all fulltime students received some aid.

Only 20.2% of all students had an assistanceship (TA,RA, etc.)
Only 46.9% of doctoral program students had an assistanceship.

29% of all grad students had Stafford Loans.

source and more data at this link:
http://nces.ed.gov/das/library/tables_listings/nedrc_table.asp?sbj=student%20aid

[BlooInBloo]

137. When I have time, I'll extract the conditionalize that data to what's relevant here....

... e.g. advanced degrees in the professions (mba, md) aren't relevant - I specified *academic* fields from the get-go, I believe (i.e. *hope*). If somebody else beats me to that specification, that's fine too. Also, advanced "degrees" in education aren't relevant just on general principles.

Thanks for the data-source!

[LisaL]

132. My guess would be-it's because a lot of non-US students apply,

they are qualified, and they get accepted.

[BlooInBloo]

134. Which of course eagerly invites at least two obvious, relevant further questions.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

141. U.S. culture glorifies the investment banker making 800K a year on Wall St. much more than

the physicist or biochemist making 90K but actually solving the problems of science. Ditto the corporate lawyer or surgeon making 300K plus.

Thus the American kids who are smart will have more of a tendency to go into those areas than science.

It's primarily a problem of smart American kids not applying to the graduate programs (science) as much as talented foreigners.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

142. American born engineers are tired of getting canned all the time. No job security.

American born engineers that I've known have suffered from corporate cheapthink.

Engineers are not supported by R&D investment by the government in theoretical research. Lots of people majored in math and science during the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo years. They thought this country would invest in theoretical research for the space program, since Sputnik being first in space scared the U.S.

For example, the Superconducting Supercollider that was to be built near Waxahachie, Texas, was defunded by Congress and shut down. That would have made Texas a high tech theoretical physics center like CERN. Instead the engineers all have to go into the oil and gas business. The oil business is always poormouthing about how they can't afford to give raises to engineers, etc., even when they are making tons of money. They go thru fits of canning people every couple of years, and some people get tired of it and leave the field.

If you can't get a raise, your income is going down due to inflation.

And now they say they can't find engineers or oilfield workers to work for them. Well, boo fucking hoo!

[hedgehog]

144. There were big layoffs and hiring freezes about ten years ago.

Guess what? There is a big gap in engineers with 15-25 years experience.

[LisaL]

146. A biochemist would be lucky to make 90K, even with a PhD.

Then, working in academia, scientists are normally funded by NIH.
NIH budget hardly keeps up with inflation right now, leading to many people not being able to support their research. So, it's a struggle.
Maybe that should explain a mystery as to why so many non US citizens are in graduate schools.

[Romulox]

148. I notice that the OP *still* has no theory as to why foreigners don't dominate Med and Law schools

He seems to be ignoring any inconvenient data. Perhaps he's an economist by trade? :rofl:

[BlooInBloo]

149. I'm sorry - I missed where I undertook the obligation to theorize about anything you want.

[Romulox]

151. Especially when the point you refuse to address destroys your thesis, eh? nt

[BlooInBloo]

153. Umm.... yah.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

150. Grad students provide cheap labor to their university departments. Professional school students

(law, med, business) are in "gateway" degree programs to professions that typically have high salaries, the school admissions are more competitive as a result and have more smart American applicants trying to get in.

If you are a smart student from India or Taiwan and can get admitted to physics grad school at MIT or University of Michigan or wherever, you will usually produce a ton of work in terms of research and teaching for the measly salary you are paid while a student, so usually the cost of your education is covered and you make a small salary in return, and it's still a great deal for the schools.

If you are applying to, say, medical school in America, there is often little or no aid (except for some state schools) and tuition may be as much as 40K or more a year, in return, the degree grants you admission to a profession where you can make hundreds of thousands a year. The student in medical school or law school is usually not grinding out research in the way a doctoral science student does (with exceptions like M.D./PhD programs), they are simply getting through their degree program.

In medicine, once you get out of school and get to residency training, the situation once again becomes more like grad school - residents produce hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in clinical work for the hospitals in return for the training experience, at a measly salary (for the work produced) that might be 40Kish or so. Once again, you will see that if a specialty or a residency has trouble filling their spots with applicants (most specialties go through cycles like this), they will often fill the spots with foreign doctors rather than let the spots go empty or hiring expensive doctors who are already trained to do the work.

Because of the desirability of the high paying professions in America, students are fighting for all the spots and the U.S. students will get first preference.

I don't think most of the science doctoral programs in the country would get filled with qualified applicants from the U.S. students who are interested. I certainly don't think there is any special PREFERENCE for foreign students in the science grad school programs, if there were equally qualified U.S. applicants for each spot I'd assume they'd get at least equal preference if not first preference for the spots. I don't know what the charters of the public universities say on this, but I suspect that they are supposed to favor American applicants if they are equally qualified but I wouldn't know.

[Romulox]

152. "[professional] school admissions are more competitive..." BINGO!

Basic economics.

[hedgehog]

143. My son graduated with a double major - chemical and mechanical

engineering. He looked at grad school, but by the time he paid for grad school and took the further hit of not working those three years, he would have had to work 20 years to break even. The pay differential for an engineer with a graduate degree just isn't there. There may be an initial bump, but in ten years the differential fades.

BTW - what makes everyone think that the learning takes place only at universities? Engineers out in industry apply for patents every day. Any engineer worth his or her salt becomes an expert in his or her field and is constantly learning. This is fine until the engineer wants to or needs to switch to a new job because every personnel manager is convinced that an engineer who worked on widgets with two wheels couldn't possibly be of use working on widgets with three wheels. As a result, we hear constant whining that there aren't enough engineers in the US while engineers with 20 -30 years experience can't find work. It's been very tough with entire industries folding due to globalization.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

147. Yep, show the boss how your new technology can help them.

Then they tell you to go away and ignore your idea.