• [FORBES] America Is No Longer Attracting The Top Minds In Physics
    9 replies, posted
America Is No Longer Attracting The Top Minds In Physics Technically an opinion piece, but it's based on actual statistics and data. Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, America emerged at the pre-eminent place to be for physics research in the world. Of the 209 people to ever win the Nobel Prize in Physics, a whopping 93 of them claimed United States citizenship: triple that of Germany, the next-closest country. This was reflected not only at the highest levels of prestige and accomplishment in research, but also in education. The United States of America became the most desired place in the world to study physics at the highest levels. From fewer than 20 PhDs a year in 1900 to around 500 per year in the 1950s, we now award nearly 2,000 PhDs in physics every year. Moreover, since the 1990s, international students, representing some of the best and brightest talent the world has to offer, represent almost half of those degrees. Yet, according to the American Physical Society, the past year has seen an alarming, unprecedented drop in the number of international applications to physics PhD programs in the United States. In an extremely large survey of 49 of the largest physics departments in the country, representing 41% of all enrolled physics graduate students in the United States, an overall decrease of almost 12% in the number of international applicants was observed from 2017 to 2018. ... Upon completion of this survey, it was found that although some departments noted no decrease at all, many of the most prestigious institutions saw a drop of up to 40% in international applications. ... According to the American Institute of Physics, which compiled all available data from the International Graduate Admissions Survey administered by the Council of Graduate schools, international applications and first-time enrollment rates rose every year from 2006 through 2016, inclusive, with a tiny decline (~1%) from 2016 to 2017. Cumulatively, that has translated into an 87% increase in international applications from 2005 until last year. Which is why the unprecedented, across-the-board drop of 12% is so troubling. It is well understood that the best places in the world to learn and research physics and astronomy are the places that ought to attract the best students. But the converse is also true: the places that attract the top students from around the world also rise up to become the best places for education and research as well. ... The elephant in the room, of course, is the tremendous shift in United States politics and, specifically, the country's attitude towards foreigners and non-citizens since early 2017. This policy shift has affected far more than just physics and astronomy, of course. "The current administration's 'America First' mantra is causing [international students] a great deal of anxiety and fear," said Earl Johnson of the University of Tulsa. Across the board, international enrollment is down across colleges and graduate schools in the United States, as the number of F-1 visas precipitously dropped by 17% last year. From 2016 to 2017, the United States saw a decrease of nearly 80,000 F-1 visas in a single year, with the largest drop coming from China and India. The government's tougher stance on issuing H-1B work visas, making it more difficult for international students to remain in the United States and find work, may play a role as well. The US basically became the predominant country in scientific advancements because of the mass expelling of Jewish German scientists and mathematicians in Nazi germany who all emigrated to America in the 1930s. Now the best and brightest international students from all scientific fields are being discouraged from traveling to the US for their education, while the most of the intelligent people from what the President calls 'shithole countries', i.e. Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia, are being banned entirely due to the travel bans enacted by the administration.
About twenty years late, this started under Bush Junior
Over a third of Republicans don't believe in higher education, not unexpected under the orange administration.
But it's only in the last two years that there's been an actual decrease in the number of international students applying for education in the US. And only in the last year has that decrease been large enough to warrant a great deal of concern.
america is a shit stain on the planet
I'm looking at getting out of the US, and I know a lot of my colleagues are planning on doing the same. Why stick around in a country that seemingly despises you when you have a highly desired skill set? Right now Amazon warehouse workers are paid more than your average graduate student. A shift manager at McDonalds makes about as much as a post doc. State funding cuts and out of touch administrators keep putting pressure on institutions to exploit freshly minted Ph.D's through VAP positions. The proposed changes for the NSF of "one proposal per PI" is pretty much guaranteed to stifle collaborations and snuff out a lot of cutting edge work. The current situation is downright hostile to people early in their academic careers. It wouldn't take much for another country to systematically poach the best and brightest from the US.
we should be throwing as much money as we possibly can at science and education but nope, we need military and more of it every month
No one from either party can oppose the military-industrial complex. It is unstoppable.
its ok, we'll pray to Jesus and he'll make the brown people dead
Of course it's not. Why the fuck would you travel all this way just to have the populace disregard everything you fucking say? Speaking, of course, about the rampant anti-intellectualism that's been brewing for the past several decades.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.