The US is a post-industrial, knowledge-based economy with a vast appetite for the kinds of specialized intellectual skills that help entrepreneurs take risks, and innovate – the driving forces behind the continued success of our economy and our national prosperity.
While the parlous state of our secondary school system remains a concern, our first tier universities continue to be the laboratories wherein the best minds are lit ablaze. Often these minds arrive from developing countries overseas, the Asian Rim and India – people drawn to the opportunity our first tier schools represent. The loss their home countries suffer from this brain drain is at least partly offset by the fact that in a global economy, a rising intellectual tide lifts all boats – here, intellectual dynamism can be directly linked to high tech production. The fact of the matter is that it may well be cheaper for us to import brilliance than it is to create it: Too few native born Americans are choosing to pursue careers in the hard sciences, or in the engineering disciplines. Too few, at least to satisfy the demand.
To look at the staff roster of major urban – and especially, rural – hospitals is to be educated in the rhythms and cadences of Southeast Asia, while those names also grace, in combination with Chinese and Korean surnames, the most challenging fields of applied mathematics and science. Those minds were brought here because schools like MIT, RPI and Stanford offered them a chance to realize their full intellectual potential, while an economy that rewards excellence offered them a chance to improve their lives.
The problem, as an editorial in today’s WaPo rightly points out, is that is now our de facto public policy, having educated the Yu’s, and Kims and Chakravarthy’s of the world – and having filled significant portions of the most precious intellectual real estate our country possesses to do so – we are denying them visas to work here. We’re showing them the door. We’re sending them home, or on to other, more welcoming societies – countries that compete with us.
ONE OF the more self-defeating aspects of this nation’s immigration policy is its insistence on denying work visas to thousands of the world’s most sought-after doctors, scientists, engineers and technical specialists, including those finishing their degrees at American universities. Understandably, U.S. technological corporations, which, unlike Congress, live in the real world of innovation and cutthroat competition for skilled workers, are furious that their own government’s visa policies give foreign firms a leg up. As Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp., told a Senate committee last week, “America will find it infinitely more difficult to maintain its technological leadership if it shuts out the very people who are most able to help us compete.”
That, unfortunately, is precisely the effect of current policy, which for the past few years has limited the number of visas reserved for skilled workers to 65,000 annually — many fewer than American firms would like to hire. The immigration legislation passed by the Senate last year would have increased that number to 115,000, but the bill died in the House. As a result, it is a certainty that thousands of highly trained workers, their hopes of staying and working in America dashed, are now giving firms in Europe or Japan a competitive advantage in some of the world’s most cutting-edge industries.
It is the nature of a MilBlogger to concern himself more with military strength than the educational system, and I will leave it to others more clever than myself to figure out a way to reach into our school systems and incentivize more brilliant minds to pursue practical careers – after all, how many more lawyers do we really need?
The national defense rests on a foundation of economic strength, which in turn rests in the labor of many hard working, clever people. Many of these people are immigrants who would choose to share their talents alongside us if we would only let them. These are people whom we as a nation should reward, and given the continued preference of college students for education in the humanities, they are also the only source of seed corn for our best universities’ future academic crop.
It is inevitable that the world marketplace will reward excellence – what isn’t inevitable is that it will reward it here.
I was watching a program about the space race the other day, and it was mentioned how many engineering graduates were being produced at the time. What has changed in the USA between now and then?
In the early 90s, the Airlie Council (I think I still recall the spelling), a group comprised of the top 13 software engineers in the country did a survey> The goal? Project the number of “hi-tech” jobs, and then look at current and projected rates of college/university graduations. Men and women readers of this great blog, know we had it “backwards” already in the beginning of the last decade of the last century. Obviously the tech job need line was looking like Lex going vertical in an F/A-18C, while the graduates we could expect in the hard majors looked like the flight profile of an F-4 Phantom with no heat coming out of the exhaust. Some discernible horizontal motion, but, gravity was gonna win much sooner than later.
So…here we are. “We” slide thru senior year, partying like rock stars (because mom and dad’s success paid the bills), taking business, history and English, yet…dreaming of the Bill Gates paycheck. That’s the disconnect. Dare I say the culture who didn’t want anyone to feel bad, and provided the expectation that everything will come to you may have had something to do with this all?
So, from behind the power curve, the nation faces a choice that will be carried out not by bigger government, but at dinner tables (assuming families still eat together sometimes), by either encouraging the coming generations to strive for a hard 4-5-6 years of digital logic, calculus, thermodynamics, electrical theory, yada, yada, yada, so we might “home grow” the scientists and engineers with names we might associate as “American,” or we can lie to them and tell them a “college degree” (no mention of the majors that statistically make the big $$$, versus the ones that have no real jobs for them, besides being professorial assistants) is the ticket to health, wealth and SUCCESS!
It sure wouldn’t hurt for Hollywood to show “success” in the form of those who go the hard road less traveled, either. So, at home and on the idiot (cable) box, the “image” is the rock star model of making it, complete with drugs and alcohol, too…of course some people think that’s how to go (“American Idol” mania).
We have been on the slippery slow coming close to at least 20 years now.
We need some sexy TV shows about smart engineers or physicists solving problems instead of shows glorifying lawyers. But that’s about as likely as a show glorifying hard work and real business skill.
State governments should be closing public law schools or raising the tuition price to astronomical levels- trust me, we’ve got way too many new lawyers out there.
There’s NUMB3RS….with the hot math geek! But then, I think that show, even with the fancy math tricks…..is a little….silly? formulaic?
ah, well….
the greatest minds didn’t go to Hollyweird, after all…….or to the TV networks!
Eagle 1, A query… Are you a Troll or an ignorant Horses A**?… or possably both? This bemused old Lawyer out here would like to know. Best
For the record (and for the benefit of SE, Eagle1, Michelle and JPSh, if he’s still around), I think we have exactly the right number of lawyers right now.
Meaning, of course, that we don’t need any more. For a while.
Shipmates,
Well, the real way to steer kids towards the sciences is to stop giving out Federal grants and loans for students who do NOT major in subjects of identified need. Run those programs the same way the military does with enlistment bonuses. Identify areas of need, and reward those willing to enter that area and stay the course.
Make the repayment options commensurate with employment in a related field, within the country, after graduation.
College is not now, and never has been a right. It is a priviledge, and available to those who can afford it. We need, as a nation, to reassert that notion. There is no “right” to own a car, or drive, or own a house, etc. Those are priviledges, or choices WE make, and WE can only make them if WE have the resources to do that.
Well, WE have a nation full of Colleges and Universitues that are nothing more than incubators for Socialism and Anti-Americanism. They are staffed by tenured monkeys whose sole goal in life is to gain that tenure, then use their unassailable position to infect the nation’s youth with lweftist drivel, all the while screaming for more money from the taxpayers.
Steer financial aid to those students who are willing to choose the needed profssions. Deny it to the rest. Let the “higher” education mills have to actually compete in the marketplace for a change.
Respects,
Thomas L. Friedman mentioned this strange policy in “The World is Flat”. I agree with his take. We should be attaching green cards to graduate degrees. Raise/eliminate the quota on highy skilled workers – these kind of immigrants produce wealth.
First Step: Do away with the immigration lottery of 50,000 every year and import 50,000 skilled individuals.
As a side note, my husband is a highly trained optical engineer. We married before going to college and I can tell you he worked his butt off to get his degrees. It is my opinion that the market doesn’t compensate him appropriately.
Well if the video a few posts down is right, we could use a few more properly trained climatologists at the very least…
Ensign Tim,
Well, for what it’s worth, if my own research is accurate, there isn’t a sigle bonafide Climatologist supporting the global warming theory.
There are lots of scientists whose research involves all sorts of environmental stuff, and even more “scientists” of various backgorounds, but by and large all of them stand to prosper from an acknowledgement of global warming (based on the human involvement) as indisputable fact.
Climatologists, actual ones workng in the field with peer-reviewed, published works are nary to be found…
Respects,
Ensign Tim,
“Nary to be found…” as in: supporting the Global Warming Theory as espoused by mssr’s Gore, et al,…..
I suppose that GWT (Global Warming Theory) might also be read as “Great War on Technology” by some as well…. heh…
Respects,
Canada appears to do the same thing – at least as far as denying work to foreign doctors and other professionals. And doctors, seems like we could definitely use more doctors here. “Criminally stupid” is a good term for it.
A couple of things. I did some on-campus engineering recruiting for my company during the fall semester for several years. (Note, if you’re going to tell HR that they’re doing a really crappy job representing the company at the campus engineering job fairs, be prepared for an additional collateral duty each September.) I would guess that roughly 25% of the students I saw were foreign students. At least half of the ones that I would have liked to bring back to the company for formal interviews were foreign students.
We did not see a single one of them. All these kids had F1 (student) visas. We don’t hire people with student visas. It’s not that we don’t want or need them, we do. The problem is that the State Department and INS rules about sponsorship are unbelievable. We’d have to triple the size of our HR department just to deal with the paperwork. The last thing we need is more HR people.
Even someone with an H1 or H1B visa is a major paperwork headache. We do hire these people from time to time but only at the PhD level and only then if they were graduate students of a professor that we work with. In other words, only if we already know what they can do. Even the much simpler H1 visa paperwork (to get a green card) is so awful that we are not willing to take the normal semi-blind hiring risk.
Today I was talking today to a guy who’s been at our company for six years. He’s been living in the US for 13 years. He got his PhD in EE at UT Knoxville. He’s had his green card for eight years and has been trying to get his citizenship since he got his green card. He’s from Turkey. All the immigration people will tell him that they have to finish his background investigation, the fifth one he’s had since he’s been in the US. They can’t tell him when this will happen. He did work (unclassified) at Oak Ridge Laboratory when he was in grad school for god’s sake. What else do they need to know? He’s tired of the run around. He said that if something doesn’t happen in six months, he’s outa here, either back to Turkey or somewhere that’s not insane.
As for US citizen engineers, it’s slim pickings out there. I guess that $51k to start with a bachelors and no experience isn’t good enough. Try finding a job that pays that salary with a history degree. Yeah, engineering school is hard but it’s not that hard. You do have to actually study and cut back on the drinking some (OK, a lot). That doesn’t seem to be asking too much but maybe it is.
All this insanity is why most of my company’s new engineering jobs are in Russia, China, India, Singapore, and the Philippines. We have design centers in all those countries. and that trend isn’t going to change any time soon. Cost and red tape isn’t the only reason we’re doing this, we do a lot of business in those countries. The nutty US immigration laws don’t make it any easier to keep the jobs in the US though.
Dale -
Frankly when you’re doing 30 hours of thermofluids and partial derivatives to come out being paid less than your mate doing 14 a week you do begin to wonder why you bother.
It’s one of the myriad of reasons I’m looking in another direction.
“The fact of the matter is that it may well be cheaper for us to import brilliance than it is to create it: Too few native born Americans are choosing to pursue careers in the hard sciences, or in the engineering disciplines. Too few, at least to satisfy the demand.”
And Nero fiddles on.
You have to get them while they are young. My wife is a school teacher, got started at PS 306 in da Bronx teaching 1st and 2nd graders. She said there is great potential in even the worst school environments, but you have to get the kids interested in learning instead of playing video games or watching TV, or worse. Roll models play a huge part of that.
Now that she is teaching in a suburban school district, she has a lot of parental indifference. Most kids have two parents working, so by the time they get home, they have no energy to help with home work, or spend some time reading books or whatever. Again, roll models play a huge part.
I think there should be some sort of an educational campaign for the parents, something subtle like “If your daughter asked you how to divide two fractions, could you tell them?” ect, etc.
Finally, the incentives for becoming an engineer or scientist are not as high as they should be. You can make much more money being a lawyer, accountant, stock broker, investment banker, etc than you can if you are a mechanical engineer. I am not saying that it is wrong, but as a previous commenter pointed out; why bust your hump on physics III or differential equations when you can take a class like business ethics instead.
Lex, To few…to many lawyers who really knows…our free market economy, not anyone commenting here, will thankfully decide that question. Best
PS,Appologize to you all for the stridentcy of my comment # 5 above.
One of the best teachers I ever had was my middle school science teacher Mr. Price. Science was never my strong subject, but I was competitive and he set the room up with the best grades at the front working backward left to right. I wanted that first chair, I needed that first chair and low-and-behold, I got it for one week. This man made science fun, exciting and rewarded hard work. I remember his energy to this day.
As a therapist, I see kids all the time who believe it is their birth right to receive a high paying job right out of college or high school. They have neither the experience, education or motivation to earn the position but believe they all should be driving a mercedes regardless of their skill set. It is a hard culture to combat and change, but one that starts in the home by setting limits and making children earn what they want and give them what they need.
As for the immigration laws, they were originally created to avoid creating a glut in certain markets and to protect American citizens from losing a job to a foreign student. The current problem is a shortage of qualified citizens to fill some positions, e.g. nursing and child psychiatrists and the laws have not changed to accomodate this change in the job market.
The consistent “dumbing down” of the elementary, intermediate and high school curriculum and the emphasis on “self esteem” (i.e., don’t challenge them or give them opportunities to fail/learn as you might frustrate them and damage their self esteem)are responsible for many of the education problems of today. The science day where everyone gets a ribbon & no one is better does not encourage those who might strive for a reward. Again, competition might injure their self esteen. I’ve always disagreed with this school of thought, knowing that genuine self esteem is built on real achievement and accomplishment. The class I learned the most in, in college, was the one I struggled to pass. Unfortunately, with the high school students pushed to achieve a high GPA to get into college, many of them make the choice to play it safe and take less difficult classes in order to keep their GPA high. Mainstreaming of all students has also inhibited and frustrated our brighter students as they were forced to wait until everyone understood a concept and could move on. Advanced placement and “gifted classes” help, but often seem to concern themselves more with assigning endless projects than actually teaching more and moving faster through curriculum because you have brighter students and can do so. As a teacher, I have watched over the years as the geography texts went from being about geography to covering “social” issues (only the positive ones – you must never mention the negative things that go on in any country other than the US). Global warming is now firmly entrenched in the textbooks and a sentence in the Government text makes this connection – (to paraphrase) “patriotism leads to nationalism which leads to fasciam”. (True, perhaps in Europe but not here.) You still have excellent teachers who inspire students and usually do NOT teach from the provided curriculum but their lives are not easy as they are perceived to be “bucking the system”, or not “team players”. Forgive the rant – this just frustrates me and is harming our childrens’ future.
From Feb 19th issue of The New York Magazine:
“The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids”
It’s about how kids know when sunshine is being blown up their skirts and ignore it. The ones who actually do well are the ones who receive “truth.”
In other words, THE SURVEY SAYS: “The Self-Esteem Movement is caca!” and doesn’t work….
Robin and Curt, I cannot agree with you more. Too many of our children have no self esteem because they have no genuine success or failure to learn from. One cannot underscore the need for allowing independent failure as a learning experience. It is where we develop resilency and problem solving skills necessary for each stage of life. By creating artificial success, the child develops an over indulged sense of entitlement rather than genuine confidence and self esteem.
Marty Schottenheimer once asked, “What comes first, success or confidence?” He argued success, because it is quantifiable. As success builds so does the confidence of the people in your charge. Certainly makes more sense as a measurable component than an amorphous concept such as self esteem.
[...] where the health care systems are ranked better than that of Canada. [Shades of Lex?
[...] where the health care systems are ranked better than that of Canada. [Shades of Lex’s comments in “Criminally Stupid” - so maybe we’re not all that [...]