Is there a shortage of STEM graduates in America? Is it ethical to continue to recruit foreign STEM students?

America does not need any more science and engineering graduates, either native born or foreign. However, we are under the belief that there is a deficiency of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) majors. The President holds this belief as well, “A 2012 report by President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology… stated that over the next decade, 1 million additional STEM graduates will be needed” (Charette 13). The president’s staff is claiming that we need to increase the number of STEM graduates, which means spending more money. As a result of this report, the President wishes for, “government and industry to train 10,000 new U.S. engineers every year as well as 100,000 additional STEM teachers by 2020” (Charette 29).The president, industry and politicians are consistently pushing for an increased number of STEM graduates. They either do not understand or are not aware that America has a surplus of scientists. We cannot even properly fund the NIH, yet we want to pour money into science education.

As a way to compensate for our “deficit” of American scientists, we recruit foreigners to fill the laboratories of our graduate schools, government agencies and industrial corporations. In addition to rising numbers of foreign students in graduate science and engineering programs, “a significant number of university faculty in the scientific disciplines are foreign, and foreign doctorates are employed in large numbers by industry” (Matthews 1). I do not mean to sound racist, but if someone were to visit the NIH or FDA, or Johns Hopkins Medicine or the University of Maryland Medical Center, they would see an overwhelming number of foreign doctors, researchers and faculty members, which contributes to the idea that we lack American scientists.

Congress has been instrumental in bringing foreign students into our scientific workplace. In Matthews’ Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, she mentions that the nationwide shortage of scientists in the 1908s,

 …may have contributed to the decision by Congress to expand the skilled-labor preference system contained in the Immigration Act of 1990.12 The 1990 legislation more than doubled employment-based immigration, including scientists and engineers entering under the H-1B visa category. The act raised the numerical limits or ceilings on permanent, employment-based admissions, from 54,000 to 140,000 annually.13 In addition, the legislation ascribed high priority to the entry of selected skilled and professional workers, and simplified admissions procedures for foreign nationals seeking to temporarily work, study, or conduct business in the United States. (2)

As the report states, the shortage of scientists in the 1980s marked the beginning of the changing of immigration laws to better facilitate foreign STEM students.

An increased prevalence of foreigners in our schools and workplaces invites ethical issues which need to be addressed. One issue is funding. Foreign students receive most of their funding from their university, usually in the form of “research assistantships or teaching assistantships” often resulting from, “federally funded research grants awarded to their home institution.” The 2007 report, Doctorate Recipients from United States Universities: Summary Report 2006, “reveals that institutions of higher education provide a significant amount of support, primarily through teaching assistantships, research assistantships/traineeships, and fellowships/dissertation grants, to foreign students on temporary and permanent resident visas” (Matthews 8). The report shows that the percentage of non-U.S. citizen doctoral recipients receiving funding from universities is greater than that of U.S. doctoral recipients, and that is not ethical.

Another issue is the language barrier. According to Matthews’ Congressional Report, many foreign teaching assistants,

…do not communicate well with American students. Language as a barrier has been a perennial problem for some foreign students. There are charges that the “accented English” of the foreign teaching assistants  affects the learning process. A large number of graduate schools require foreign teaching  assistants to demonstrate their proficiency in English, but problems remain. Several states have  passed legislation setting English-language standards for foreign students serving as teaching assistants. (10)

Should American students in graduate, or even undergraduate school have to endure a teacher they cannot understand? Graduate courses in the sciences are complex and involve technical terms. Not being able to fully comprehend what the instructor is teaching presents a problem for students. I know that obtaining any sort of position in academia is competitive, and I know that we have Americans who would like those jobs, yet foreigners have priority for openings.

A consensus involving foreign students cannot seem to be reached. There are many people in the scientific community who “maintain that in order to compete with countries that are rapidly expanding their scientific and technological capabilities, the United States needs to bring in those whose skills will benefit society and will enable us to compete in the new-technology based global economy” (Matthews 13). These scientists believe that continued “scientific migration” has enabled the United States economy to maintain its stronghold on science and technology innovation. Others, (including myself) disagree. We have more than enough science graduates to fuel scientific research. Increasing the amount of H-1B visas given to foreign students is unnecessary as well as detrimental to American students in the sciences.

Contradictory to the belief that we need more science graduates, a science writer, Beryl Benderly, writes that,

The National Science Board’s biennial book, Science and Engineering Indicators, consistently finds that the US produces several times the number of STEM graduates than can get jobs in their fields. Recent reports from the National Institutes of Health, the National Academies, and the American Chemical Society warn that overproduction of STEM PhDs is damaging America’s ability to recruit native-born talent, and advise universities to limit the number of doctorates they produce, especially in the severely glutted life sciences. (28)

Benderly makes it very clear that we are overproducing scientists, and his article is not alone in attesting to the fact that America is producing enough STEM graduates. Many other articles and studies have shown that America has more trained STEM graduates than job openings.

Politicians need to start looking at the data and looking at the facts because their argument (we need 1 million STEM graduates) is unfounded and has been refuted by many studies. This fear, this paranoia that America will not be the world’s leader in scientific discovery if we do not have 1 million STEM graduates is unwarranted. There is no need to have a constant stream of foreign students flowing into our research organizations because we have an abundance of American students eager to learn and work.  Yet there are not enough opportunities for American scientists, and a scientific career has now become a dark, dismal path full of rejection and increased competition. Why should we have to compete for a research position with foreign students in our own country? Is it ethical to give priority to someone born in China rather than someone born in New Jersey? It is time for legislators to see what the real issue is here. We do not have a shortage of science graduates, we have a surplus.

In light of the limitations of the NIH budget as I discussed in my first post, this issue is relevant because the NIH is one of the biggest employers of foreign students and funds a great number of them in pre and post-doctoral training programs. Foreigners are taking up positions at the NIH that could otherwise be held by American scientists. It is already extremely competitive to get a job at the NIH, and being an American should not decrease anyone’s chances of getting in.

Word Count: 1241

Works Cited:

Charette, Robert N. "The STEM Crisis Is a Myth." IEEE Spectrum, 30 Aug. 2013. Web. 3 Nov. 2013. <http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/education/the-stem-crisis-is-a-myth>.

United States. Cong. Foreign Science and Engineering Presence in U.S. Institutions and the Labor Force. By Christine M. Matthews. 111th Cong. Cong. Rept. 97-746. [Washington, D.C.]: Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress, 2010. Web. 3 Nov. 2013.

Benderly, Beryl L. "It doesn’t add up." Columbia Journalism Review, 1 May 2013. Web. 3 Nov. 2013. <http://www.cjr.org/essay/it_doesnt_add_up.php?page=all&print=true>.