Drop in foreign applicants worries U.S. engineering schools | Hacker News Reader

Drop in foreign applicants worries U.S. engineering schools

sciencemag.org

20 pointskawera11 comments

It seams like they are trying so hard to blame Trump

> he and others suspect the cause is President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric during the campaign and his election,

But then they say things that counter the title

> engineering applications overall are up 3%

and then offer a different more logical theory that can explain it

> international students at public universities pay tuition rates that are much higher than for in-state students.

I wounder when applications have to be sent in, because Trumps temporary ban on 7 countries only happened in January. Is there enough data from then until now to make any sort of correlation between the ban and the amount of applicants? During the campaign he was given an estimate of 0.1% chance of winning. Also, the article wrote that in a school that specifies in oil, only 9% of the foreign applicants are from those Arab countries.

As someone not living in the US, planing on studying for a masters degree, I barely even considered the US. Only the top schools offer funding that makes tuition be next to nothing. Other than those, the unrealistic costs and other issues that have been around with the US for more than one month make studying in Europe much more appealing.

It sounds like you're implying that the article blames the ban, which contradicts the context around that first quote:

> Given the timing, he and others suspect the cause is President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric during the campaign and his election, rather than the White House’s 27 January travel ban against seven Muslim-majority countries

Many graduate programs have application deadlines in January, which would leave sufficient time to consider Trump's immigration rhetoric after his November victory.

Don't the disadvantaged youths who are already resident in underprivileged US communities deserve priority over affluent foreigners?

The rising cost of US education was already prohibitively expensive for people of other countries (who suffer double whammy because of rising dollar against their currencies).

Trumps uncertain strategies is just the nail in the coffin. Who wants to be a student with insane debt and an uncertain future in the country they studied in?

If I were a Canadian or Australian university, I would aggressively target attracting bright kids from around the world. 5 years of such recruiting and you start developing a reputation of being a hub for bright students.

More likely is the rising USD. Australia and Canada have cheaper fees, and better pathways to permanent residency for some students. Also of note is their universities are mostly in urban environments whereas in USA you're usually in a small college town in the middle of nowhere. For a Chinese student, living in a high-rise in Melbourne CBD is infinitely more preferable and familiar than a dorm in Columbus Ohio.

That's all been true for several years, no? It's odd that schools would have seen a surge in international applicants over the last decade only to have the trend weaken now.

Well, what did they expect?

A drop in foreign grad students will negatively impact the capacity of professors to conduct research. That can't make America great, ever!

Given that much research is from American public financing, why pay foreign grad students to perform research when salaries could be raised enough to attract US resident students.

Except it's not really attractive to many capable people in their right mind who wouldn't wanna go down that rabbit hole called academia with low salaries, uncertain future, require you to constantly look for a new job and move around every 2-3 years (typically year-based contracts with 0 guarantees about the next year), and maybe a very small chance of getting a real job at the end that doesn't have an expiration date from day 1 in your mid-40s with mediocre salary comparable to what a junior dev would get in a small IT company. The strain this puts on a family is a whole another dimension of the issue.

There is a reason why physics departments are populated with Chinese and Indian researchers: it still beats the opportunities and life awaiting them at home. For people in developed countries? Not so much.

BTW, an answer to your question is this brain drain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital_flight

Being a Research Assistant (RA) or a Teaching Assistant (TA) is not a job per se but part of ones training while in grad school. Whatever you're paid while performing such duties is just a stipend, and not a salary in the traditional sense.

So, no, universities are not going to hire Americans to RA and TA positions if they have no incentive to be in grad school.

Foreign students come here because they want to come here to learn. Being paid for RA and TA responsibilities is just a bonus. Professors reap the benefit of having some of the best minds from around the globe around them.

Top universities (Stanford, MIT, Ivy League) don't have a money problem, and they don't have a supply-demand problem. Prospective students would gladly join and work for free, be they foreigners or US residents. They do pay though, although it's not clear what drives their level of pay. Maybe one factor is that if they paid more, it could end up being counterproductive, as the post about f-u money that has been on HN recently can attest.

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