And for what? Any money we "saved" by killing our research pipeline has already wasted in a pointless, self-destructive war.
I’m being somewhat sarcastic, given I see an overwhelming representation of internationals in the American grad/phd programs I’m familiar with. But I honestly don’t have insight across every department. I’d be interested what people have to say about this across STEM throughout the country. Anyone have a rough idea on the trend lines?
https://facts.mit.edu/enrollment-statistics/ https://hai.stanford.edu/assets/files/hai_ai-index-report-20...
I know international representation has generally increased in academics due to their cash cow status with higher tuition rates and most restricted employment options… but I don’t know if this applies specifically to PhD and grad just the same
If so, then the bigger story here is, why is America producing fewer and fewer high academic achievers (PhD, grad, high school reading level, all the way down to lower ed)
Scientists are notorious for believing in things like observable reality, truth, scientific and academic integrity, etc. That puts them in opposition to the people currently running the US government — who absolutely do not want "experts" pointing-out the deficiencies in their policies and scams.
Ron Suskind's quote of a Bush2-era politician sums it up:
"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [...] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'." [1]
Trump etc want to create a non-reality reality in which their grift and social engineering are so normal that they're unnoticed. Their contempt for, and dismantling of science, is part of that.
I’ll add, the perverse incentives of publish or perish is also responsible for an aimless and irresponsible churn that lead us into the reproducibility crisis. So really the ship has been falling apart in every regard for a very long time. Not it’s just impossible to ignore. Not to mention, the obvious cost and waste of the institutions and life ending debt… it’s just all a mess
Where you’re right is that the rights attach is, well, that… an attack. The cruelty IS the point.
The progressives are just bumbling do gooders who push things too far. But this is kind of treating them with kiddie gloves. Again, look at the major international story today.
The right is trying to tear something down that they see as broken.
Both parties are, as usual, culpable and ignorant of their own contributions to the degradation. They are both childish in their own way, and both willing to put themselves and their beliefs before the mission of academia, which of course, if not about “you” (them)