
The U.S. is risking an academic brain drain - prostoalex
https://www.axios.com/trumps-political-uncertainty-risks-an-american-brain-drain-2474420200.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axioslogin&stream=technology
======
CorvusCrypto
While I don't feel that there is risk of brain drain because of the reasons
listed in the article, I do believe there is that risk. To be honest, even
though many European countries don't pay as much as the US for the same job, I
found much more comfort around the ideas pushed in those countries.

The culture I found in Sweden for instance is one that is much better for the
employees than the fast-paced top-gun style of programming expected in the US.
Sure my peak will probably be 60k, but that 60k will also come with a much
better social quality of life. That's the problem with the US that would risk
brain drain in my opinion. Money attracts people, but treating them well will
keep them and the US is starting to fall away from treating its workers well.

Edit: just think about this. Most Americans talk about how they have so much
work to do they don't get vacation. Well in Europe you usually get your 2
weeks and in many countries you get 4 contiguous weeks without question.
Couple that with better healthcare options, and yeah the US is not looking so
great.

~~~
derping69
Europe is able to do this because the US subsidizes their existence.

1\. Pharma companies develop drugs with US subsidies and make their profits
off US citizens while European countries put price ceilings on their drugs.

2\. US essentially defends the world, allowing other countries to spend money
elsewhere.

[http://www.ibtimes.com/how-us-subsidizes-cheap-drugs-
europe-...](http://www.ibtimes.com/how-us-subsidizes-cheap-drugs-
europe-2112662)

~~~
bauerd
>US essentially defends the world, allowing other countries to spend money
elsewhere.

You really think that? I mean come on

~~~
derping69
US spends more on military than every Euro country combined. If they are
attacked we have to defend them and they know it. They would contribute a
relatively insignificant amount if we were ever attacked.

~~~
dragonwriter
> If they are attacked we have to defend them and they know it. They would
> contribute a relatively insignificant amount if we were ever attacked.

If? In the entire history of NATO, the mutual defense provisions of the treaty
have been invoked _exactly once_ , and that in response to an attack on the
US, and the non-US NATO contributions were not insignificant.

~~~
plantain
>the mutual defense provisions of the treaty have been invoked exactly once

 _that 's the point_

~~~
dragonwriter
Sure, deterrence is the point of the treaty, but the claim upthread was about
the significance of contributions that would be made in the event of an
attack, a claim which contradicts the facts of the time when an attack
resulting in the mutual defense provisions being invoked actually occurred.

------
rdtsc
> The U.S. is risking an academic brain drain

He got a good offer from his home country. Isn't that a good thing that he
gets to go home to his country and contribute there? he fact they can spare
$250k for him to buy a house and $1M in grant money says a lot about China.

Having been in academia for a bit, it seemed there was an oversupply of PhD in
some fields. There are just not going to be enough university teaching
positions and not enough Googles or Teslas or other companies needing that
many employees with such advanced degrees.

He mentions it's Trump's fault. Let's criticize Trump but not sure if
attaching it to this particular case makes it productive. I think they meant
this H1-B overhaul

[http://www.npr.org/2017/04/18/524569185/trumps-latest-
execut...](http://www.npr.org/2017/04/18/524569185/trumps-latest-executive-
order-targets-high-skilled-worker-visa-program)

Another Axios reporter seems to think the update to H1-B overhaul is mainly
targeted at abuse by India-based staffing companies like Tata, Wipro and HCL

[https://www.axios.com/changing-h-1b-rules-computer-
programme...](https://www.axios.com/changing-h-1b-rules-computer-
programmers-2344818625.html)

~~~
spikels
Hard to say what is really going on here or if there is even a problem at all.
Academic positions have always been in short supply in many fields,
particularly hard science. However I do get the sense it has gotten worse in
recent decades but have no hard data.

Are there actually fewer positions available?

If so, what is the cause?

There is lots of evidence that our universities have become less effective in
both teaching and research - prioritizing administrative and income generating
functions for example. Perhaps this results in fewer jobs available. Or
perhaps professors are simply retiring older (I have heard this too).

I agree that blaming Trump seems wrong. While media reports have been
hyperbolic little if anything has changed so far. The proposed new "points"
system actually gives highest priority to people like that young Chinese Ph.D
mentioned in the article.

[http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/02/politics/cotton-perdue-
trump-b...](http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/02/politics/cotton-perdue-trump-bill-
point-system-merit-based/index.html)

~~~
deong
It's a combination of mainly two things.

1\. More people are getting PhDs, which means if the job supply remained
constant, higher percentages of people won't get a job.

2\. There are fewer "real" academic jobs, because universities have evolved to
focus on cost-cutting business practices, tenured faculty are expensive, and
an endless stream of abused adjuncts has no down side except the quality of
education provided by your university, and who cares about that anyway.

------
monksy
What is the point of this article?

They've claimed that the person in the article is going back home because he
received no teaching offers. That's standard practice for foreign individuals
on a visa in the US. You have to be doing something to stay here. We're not
going to let you live here just because you felt like you wanted to.

\---

Other than the politicking going on in the article: "OMG TRUMP IS SO BAD
AMIRITE?!" (Paris accord disagreement, etc) What I think up for debate is:

Should foreign contribution in the economy on a national level be considered
fair and healthy for our economy?

My concern is due to depressed wages competing on non-equal levels causes more
long term harm to the consumer and the businesses involved.

~~~
wightnoise
To me it's less about visas and more about jobs. Why aren't their more
research jobs? Why isn't the govt doing more to bolster research and create
opportunity for talented minds?

~~~
ptero
Government funding for research is important, especially for the pure science,
but government should not blindly increase funding because some people are not
finding academic jobs.

With the (IMO pretty broken) tenure system in the US, research-track academic
jobs can be very lucrative and with many researchers un-fireable regardless of
what they do academically makes research both more expensive (folks goofing
off) and less valuable (sharp researchers cannot find positions) for the
society that it can be. I think we need to tune the system before we talk
about more funding as a solution

~~~
ylem
I'm curious, what makes you think that people are goofing off? I suffer from
selection bias, but most of the tenured faculty (in the sciences) that I know
are extremely driven people who work nights and weekends...Have you seen any
studies that would suggest otherwise? As for lucrative, I'm still biased, but
I would say that academic jobs can be comfortable financially, especially
given the stability of tenure, but outside of superstars, I wouldn't say that
they are outside the range of say a software engineer...

~~~
ptero
Mostly my observations when I was doing my PhD at one of the pretty good
schools (one that considers itself in the top 20, but may actually be in the
top 50). I might be suffering from the selection bias as well (as I decided
not to pursue an academic career), but I did see professors who had no Ph.D.
students, did not publish or present and just took it easy with a minimum
teaching load. I do not doubt their teaching skill, but they were doing the
job of, say, a senior lecturer at 2-3 times the salary and half the workload.
There were not many (maybe 10-15%), but not a single case either.

My experience was on a "pure science" / paper and pencil side. Maybe it was
the fact that one does not need grants for labs, etc. that takes pressure off
as well. Among the grads (at least in physics) the split between experimentals
and pure would be crystal clear any weekend: the first were in the lab, second
played warcraft :).

------
QML
Are scientists only valued when the United States is against a country of
equal education?

I haven't had much time to read into this, but it feels like the advantage the
United States has over other countries in terms of academic institutions has
stagnated.

Where are the Bell Labs, PARC, Los Alamos Labs of the 21st century?

Where are the Neumanns, Heisenbergs, or Einsteins of this era?

Probably not here.

The agitation of identity politics and growing wave of anti-intellectualism is
keeping our best minds apart.

------
kevinalexbrown
Because the article just offers a single example, and seems to center on the
lack of available tenure track positions, I'm going to take a more holistic
view that gets at the major issue: is current research funding at the
appropriate level?

What would happen if we increased research funding by X percent? How did we
settle on the current funding levels? I would be curious to see a reasonable
source for this. A cursory google search mostly returned opinion pieces that
we should increase funding for science. I agree, but hard(er) numbers would be
better. It would be great to see a back-of-the-envelope ROI for X percent
funding increase in T time. Obviously funding can be applied in many ways, and
the ROI is difficult to measure, but someone must have studied it.

For the immediate future, the US remains the best place for research. But
dominance can begin to change before the effects become obvious, like a large
company that's still profitable long after it's become irrelevant.

~~~
HillaryBriss
the article notes that US universities take 50% of a professor's research
grant as operating overhead! (in China it's 10%.)

maybe US universities are just not efficient enough. maybe US universities are
basically bloated, government subsidized fat-cats that cannot compete in the
global marketplace.

~~~
deong
The university system was the envy of the world when it was run like a
government program. It was only when we started running them like businesses
that the system has gone pear-shaped.

~~~
HillaryBriss
i was going to say "maybe US universities are basically bloated, greedy
corporate fat-cats that cannot compete in the global marketplace."

but it raised a question i couldn't answer: how do such unproductive blobs of
corporate greed survive at all? i mean, if it's not government subsidies. is
it some sort of protectionist regulatory regime (e.g. sort of like the TBTF
Wall Street banks enjoy)? some kind of collusion? a secret cartel?

------
dajohnson89
Is this exodus even remotely close to the net influx of talent coming from
other countries? If not, it really can't be called a brain drain.

~~~
rothbardrand
Not yet, but the trends are not good. Closing borders will cut off the influx
and increased regulations are going to increase the exodus.

Biotech or anything related to "Stem cells" or "Cloning" are the past ones,
future ones may be AI.

And cryptocurrencies and that entire area of research is quickly becoming
untenable in the USA.

------
Spooky23
The academic brain drain starts in middle school. Why are we pushing US kids
into bankruptcy and importing brains who come with dollars?

~~~
Overtonwindow
Perhaps I'm too optimistic, but I think everything America needs to succeed
and grow can be found right here in America. The problem is that it's
sometimes cheaper to import foreign labor, or export domestic production.

~~~
robotresearcher
Einstein, von Braun, Musk, Brin.

Immigrants are more than cheap labor.

edit just for a bit more diversity: Madeleine Albright, Schwarzenegger, Ang
Lee, Tesla, Fermi, Audrey Hepburn, Sataya Nadella, Jerry Yang, Cary Grant...

edit 2, correction: Ang Lee's Wikipedia page says he's a resident and not a US
citizen. Another alien undercutting US labour like James Cameron and Ridley
Scott.

~~~
rpiguy
Bad examples. Legal immigrants are different from "cheap labor" (H-1B and
seasonal/temporary workers for example) which does depress wages. Once you
have a green card you can demand higher wages and threaten to pack up and move
to the competition.

I don't want to start an immigration argument, but the skills based system
that has been proposed and was in place in Canada would have let Einstein, von
Braun, Brin, Fermi, Yang, Albright, etc. into the country.

~~~
robotresearcher
You seem to be arguing something completely different to the grandparent
comment.

~~~
rpiguy
Just pointing out that cheap labor and immigrants are not synonymous.

------
notyourday
> U.S. universities take about half of research grants as fixed overhead,
> sapping up funding before it reaches a scientist's hands. In China, overhead
> is closer to 10%, allowing more staff hiring and equipment purchases, Li
> said

US university administrators are fat. Start cutting.

------
clairity
the real issue, unanswered by the article, is why didn't linsen li get job
offers here? because the premise that we want to keep all the smart people
here to generate more economic value for "us" rather than "them" is hard to
disfavor.

1\. was he deficient in some way that makes him unsuitable for the job?

2\. did the university not provide the needed skills for the teaching
positions he was applying for?

3\. is the supply of qualified applicants so high that many receive no offers?

4\. is there just not enough funding to employ every qualified academic?

5\. is the regulatory environment such that we force many qualified jobseekers
to look elsewhere?

...and so on. these seem to be the more pertinent questions in this case, not
the political "trump is xenophobic and his policy sucks" slant of the article
(whether you agree with that sentiment or not), because the uncertainty around
imiigration policy doesn't seem to have had direct bearing in this situation.
li didn't get a job in the US, so he's going to china, where he did get a job.
pretty straightforward.

with that said, i believe we should allow much more immigration, not less
(contrary to trump's position), but the light and disjoint reasoning in this
article was a head scratcher.

~~~
ylem
Let's say you apply for a faculty position at a good public university. In
physics, it would not be uncommon for there to be around 200 applicants.
Imagine that only say 50 of them are great...Teaching positions are also
competitive. That's one level. Now, the US is in an enviable position of being
able to skim top people from around the world who come here to study--so we
end up with a huge competition for a small pool of positions. The notion being
that all other things being equal, having a large candidate pool is more
likely to result in stronger candidates. That's what we risk giving up by
limiting immigration--especially after we (I am from the US) train people here
to do research.

------
nitwit005
For better or worse, a number of countries are going to be churning out far
more people with PhDs than can fill their academic or research positions. That
will probably include China, given the trend of education there.

------
sangd
Besides job offer salaries, we usually don't quantify other aspects such as
social quality, family, housing conditions, etc... It is actually very hard or
impossible in some cases to measure. US has definitely been winning with the
salary advantage, but it is lacking the rest compared to many places. This
would be the main reason that talents would eventually go away. There's no
war, life conditions have been improved in many parts of the world, why not
those places.

------
noetic_techy
250K for a house. How exactly do you expect any country, let alone the US, to
compete with that kind of offer.

Sure you can expand research grant money, as the article mentions, but what
more than that? A guaranteed job? A blank check? The author should have
spelled out some realistic reforms.

I'd hardly call 140+ out of 3000+ applicant returnees a brain drain. Sounds
like they don't offer this to foreigners either. Someone forgot to tell them
how politically incorrect that is. Plenty of smart people from other countries
would love to take their place.

And so what if they go to Canada, our friendly northern neighbor, ally,
partner in this hemisphere, and subscriber to our intellectual property laws.
I don't necessarily consider that a "drain", more like just living in
"alternative version USA". Not like they can't easily return to the US if a
better opportunity came up and or the political climate shifted more to their
liking.

------
rb808
> Canada, France and China have been most open and aggressive about seeking
> out foreign talent studying in the United States. Financially, China's
> offers appear to be the most attractive.

This was an amazing thing for me how China can pay more than Europe (and
America). How the world has changed in just a few decades.

~~~
WithHighProb
Not so surprising to me. The 1000s people plan and its version for younger
people ("young 1000s") have been there for years actually. The reward is much
more than what's listed in the surface. You can earn super high social status
and chances to get tons of privileges.

------
rothbardrand
I have spent many years living and working in countries other than the USA--
and while I found all of them had one advantage or another over the USA, the
cultural differences were enough to make me come back to the USA.

Alas, at the way things are going with regulations, particularly in tech, and
the increased... polarization and radicalization of politics here, I'm
starting to think that it's time to leave again.

And here's the thing-- I bought a car on a 5 year note and it's not even paid
off yet.

Pretty soon, any kind of innovative work in the crypto space (Eg: trust-less
atomic swaps between blockchains for example) is effectively illegal, UNLESS
you can raise $100M to hire enough lawyers to prove you never have custody of
the coins.

Much cheaper to move to a friendly jurisdiction, raise the same $100M and put
it into engineering salaries.

------
vostok
I don't see a brain drain happening. American academic pay is better than
European/Canadian/Australian academic pay by too wide of a margin.

As far as politics goes, I don't think America is that much worse (if at all
worse) than other high paying countries.

~~~
robotresearcher
Canada is getting some great talent right now. Americans, Brits, and people
who would have gone to the US or UK are coming here.

If we can keep them here, this will be a big boost for Canada long term.

~~~
9t3h4r3o5w1a4w2
Canada doesn't pay half as well as US when it comes to research in STEM. Every
country has great talent right now, except US has the money.

~~~
SubiculumCode
If there was money then why are there not enough research positions open?

~~~
vostok
I don't think this is a productive game to play.

If there's not enough money then why is academic pay better in the US than
almost anywhere in the developed world?

------
0xfaded
I'm leaving after 3 years working for SV start ups. It's time for me to do my
own thing, and there's just no viable way for me to stay here during the
"figuring it out phase". Spain, France and the Netherlands have attractive
entrepreneur visas, or I could easily go home to Australia, to New Zealand or
Canada. I will miss living near Stanford and the people around here, but there
are other top universities to go camp out next to.

There was similar discussion on proberts AMA, there's simply no easy way to
hang out here to work on cool side projects. The closest thing is the E2 visa,
which would require all of my savings.

------
forgotAgain
Seems more like the tub is overflowing rather than draining.

------
anotherbrownguy
Are the people who applied for research positions and got the job staying? I
guess so. So, those who didn't get the job weren't the "brains" that the US
needed? And apparently, China is paying big compensations for him because
these are the "brains" that China desperately needs. It seems like everyone is
happy.

What is the point of this article?

------
forapurpose
Another way the U.S. is risking a brain drain: I've read that in more than one
state college enrollment is going down. Education seems to be going backward.

People assume the U.S. is a first-world country, but there's no reason it
can't be like Russia or other nations with poor government, corruption, and a
culture that doesn't value education.

~~~
asclepi
That's not necessarily true if it means that more Americans are pursuing
skills-based training instead of college. Many of our vacant jobs do not have
a college program to prepare for them [1]. Valuing education doesn't mean you
need to chase ever-increasing college enrollment numbers, especially if you
are unable to provide every college graduate with a matching job.

[1] [https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/22/help-wanted-americans-
don...](https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/22/help-wanted-americans-dont-need-
more-degrees-they-need-training/) (featured on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14651019](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14651019))

~~~
forapurpose
That assumes that the only purpose of college is job skills, a recent
phenomenon. College is to teach people about the world and how to reason - the
ability that separates humans from beasts, civilization from barbarism, the
Enlightenment from the Medieval, fact from fiction (a skill desperately needed
these days) - by studying the great reason and 'reasoners' of the world,
current and past, in all different fields from science to literature to math
to political science. If you think you can reason as well without that, with
only coding school, I think you're kidding yourself.

Also, the lifetime wages of college degree holders shows demand is pretty high
for them.

Finally, when people say college isn't necessary, they meant 'not necessary
for lower class kids'. I assure you that every Senator who proposes cutting
education funding is sending their own kids to college, as is almost everyone
reading this on HN.

------
3nki
risking? it's been happing for years already. both in the "drain" sense, those
leaving the US, and with fewer "brains" coming to the US from other places.
also, with the decline in US academics, fewer are being created in the US to
begin with. altogether, three different factors making a "brain drain".

~~~
SubiculumCode
There are fewer permanent positions being created,not fewer academics. Hence
the post-doc crisis. The risk is that a paying country might win a big portion
of US born post docs ifthe situatio doesn't change.

~~~
3nki
i would argue there are fewer qualified academics being created in the U.S.,
because our educational system is declining and has been for some time,
relative to other countries.

------
hosh
My father was a postdoc in the 90s, having gotten his master's and Ph.D. here
in the states. Mother has a Ph.D. as well. My family and Taiwanese, and I knew
about this issue growing up. This doesn't just affect our family, it also
affects the other Taiwanese families I am aware of.

The difference was that, back then, if we were to go back to Taiwan, there
wasn't a guarantee that a US-trained Ph.D. would get any sort of employment.

It is similar, yet different with China: in the past 5 years, I have seen
China, flushed with cash (from, you know, Americans) aggressively investing.
Infrastructure investment is the most obvious -- for example, ambitious rail
plans that not only stretch across China, but also into Europe and Africa.
There is also an aggressive investment in cultural influence as well. (For
example, trying to get Wushu recognized as an official Olympic sport).

And then there is advanced research. There are two teams in the world that
researches quantum tunneling communication, and one of them is a Chinese team
who was a protege of the PI of the only other team trying to pull it off.
There is massive investment into AI/ML, into space, into military (both a
carrier program as well as asymmetric military technologies such as drone
carriers).

A postdoc in America doesn't really get much respect, not in the way the
Chinese and Taiwanese do. You could struggle here in America, writing research
grants, and your family doesn't know or doesn't even care. Or you could be
offered being a director of a lab with a lot of funding. Family members and
neighbors might not know the science behind what you do, yet they admire and
respect you.

I remember this documentary about the creation of the Three Gorges Dam and the
displacement of some families along that river. They showed a girl in a family
who was sent off to work on the cruise ships for tourists who wanted to see
the Three Gorges before it got flooded. The family needed money so they sent
their daughter off -- a very Chinese things to do. The girl didn't want to
work and the mother is telling her, sorry, this is for the family. You know
what dream the girl was giving up? It wasn't an entertainer, or an
entrepreneur. She wanted to become a scientist. She saw scientists as the
heroes.

That's something I never hear in America.

I think a lot of people in the West forget that (despite the Cultural
Revolution), the Ming dynasty Chinese at its ascendent had more reach,
technological prowess, and industry of any other society ... and they
deliberately turned inward: completed the Great Wall of China, recalled the
exploration fleets, shut down their massive network of steel foundries, just
before the time the Europeans were starting to explore and to colonize. China
has had many cycles of empire expansions, consolidations, and fragmentations.

And I see America making the same mistakes ...

~~~
jackpirate
>shut down their massive network of steel foundries

I'm only passingly familiar with the Ming dynasty's attempts to isolate itself
from the outside world. But I've never heard anyone describe it as a rejection
of technology the way you're implying here. I'd love to read more about
"Chinese Ludites" if you have links.

~~~
hosh
You can ask these guys: [http://historum.com/asian-history/2373-why-did-ming-
dynasty-...](http://historum.com/asian-history/2373-why-did-ming-dynasty-
close-its-doors-isolate-others.html)

------
3nki
risking? it's been happening for years.

------
9t3h4r3o5w1a4w2
To where? US is basically where most of the capital is when it comes to
research in the western world.

------
2OEH8eoCRo
Nothing that another World War won't fix. Knock China down a peg or two /s

------
otherbrownguy2
Seems like a great way to grow the Chinese economy.

------
ayh
Academic positions are different than getting a job.

The US will always be the beacon of innovation in the world. These are just
doom and gloom clickbait articles.

~~~
SubiculumCode
If I can't get a research position in the States, but can in Europe, that is a
problem.

~~~
stevenwoo
How does the job market for research positions and potential employee pool in
the States versus Europe compare?

~~~
ylem
My impression is that it's rather difficulty in a number of European countries
as well. Chatting with friends, it seems that there are a number of term
positions in countries like Germany, but permanent positions are hard to come
by.

------
eighthnate
That's funny. Everyone I know in academia, from CS to Philosophy to Biology,
is complaining there is a glut of "academics". They had PhDs but they can't
positions in labs or get assistant professors to get on track for tenure
because there are so many PhDs in academia.

Maybe a brain drain is something the US needs. An oversupply of "brains" isn't
a good thing. We need a balance.

~~~
flamedoge
From outsider pov, US has been draining talent from foreign countries for
ages. Perhaps those talent going back might be a net positive.

