International PhDs Will Drive Innovation into the Future

Higher education is booming around the globe. In China alone, the number of colleges and universities has more than doubled in the past decade. And it's easy to see the thought process behind the trend, says Maresi Nerad, founder and director of the Center for Research and Innovation in Graduate Education (CIRGE) at the University of Washington in Seattle. kind of thinking that has inspired many countries to invest in higher education starts with 'Where does innovation come from?' From ideas. 'Who produces those ideas?' It's PhDs- specifically PhDs in engineering and the sciences. The United States is losing its advantage in this key indicator. Although the nation still leads in raw numbers of STEM graduate degrees awarded each year, it will likely be surpassed in the next few years by China, whose numbers have rocketed up, from about 3,000 natural sciences and engineering doctoral degrees in 1993 to about 23,000 in 2006, not far off the nearly 30,000 science and engineering PhDs produced that same year in the United States, according to the National Science Foundation's Science and Engineering Indicators 2010 . Overall U.S. numbers have been holding steady, but a growing percentage of PhDs, and particularly science and engineering PhDs, are awarded to international students. In engineering, two-thirds of U.S. PhDs were awarded to foreign nationals in 2006 according to the NSF's Survey of Earned Doctorates, a growing percentage of whom return to their home countries to live, work, and innovate. Of course, some will stay in the country where they are educated-and that's exactly why Canada, Japan, and the United Kingdom have increased their recruiting efforts. The full importance of science and engineering PhDs in spurring innovation and securing U.S. leadership in the decades to come is well outlined in Rising Above the Gathering Storm, Revisited: Rapidly Approaching Category 5 , a 2010 report issued by the National Academy of Sciences as a review of the current status of issues addressed in the 2005 report, Rising Above the Gathering Storm . The new report, which surveys a host of issues affecting U.S. competitiveness, particularly focuses on the education system. The report strongly suggests, alarmingly, that unless the U.S. K-12 education system does a radical turnaround, the only substantial growth market for PhDs in the near term is to be found in international students: getting them here and plugging them into U.S. institutions that develop new and applied knowledge. In that 2010 report, the Gathering Storm writers suggested a number of U.S. policy changes that could build the stream of international PhD students. Some of those proposed changes: The U.S. should include international students in consideration for national funding of PhD fellowships, improve visa processing and provide preferential visas to STEM students, offer a one-year visa extension to STEM PhDs after graduation, provide citizenship preference to graduates, and remove other barriers to keeping foreign students here that have made their way into U.S. immigration law and policy since 9/11. Changes shouldn't stop at the policy level. We also need to make international students feel more welcome. Campuses should become more like global villages, nurturing more interaction between the visiting student and the local population. …

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