This specifically hurts foreign PhD students, because it routinely takes longer than four years to graduate from a PhD program. Considering some graduate students are overwhelmingly foreign (81% for Electrical Engineering, 69% for statistics, even Agricultural Engineering is majority foreign), what will this do for science and engineering? Will these students study someplace else, will they continue to study in the US regardless of this change, or will they simply be less educated.

If they study someplace else then the US loses some competitive advantage of attracting highly educated and motivated individuals into the country where they often stay.

If they simply don’t become as educated then the entire world suffers as the envelop of science and engineering isn’t pushed by as many minds. Having more PhD electrical engineers in the world is a critical piece to having more and better electronics in the world.

https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/10/11/foreign...