Hacker News Reader

Comment by bleepblorp | Hacker News Reader

Cutting the numbers of foreign PhD students is very likely the point.

There is a widespread view inside Washington that allowing foreign advanced degree students hurts US competitiveness because they "steal" US knowledge to take back to their home countries.

View on HN

Then give them incentives to become US citizens! Why aren't we brain draining our competitors? We had the perfect setup to do so. Now we may be too unattractive and too long gone.

Most foreign students aren't white. Letting them stay in America doesn't play well in states that have a deficit of educated people and a surplus of electoral college votes.

Wow, that’s definitely something that needs to change then. It’s shooting yourself in the foot to deny the usefulness of other human beings simply because they are not European.

That said... there is a historical record of people complaining about Irish, Polish, Italian, Greek, and Spanish immigrants. Essentially every wave of immigration has been met with hostility.

So it seems the whole they are not X like us, is just an excuse.

And yet they're basically super cheap labor compared to their skills that will probably stay in the US afterwards.

How much do PhD students make ?

are US citizens incentivized enough to go the PhD route vs a foreign student whose only path to the US is the PhD program?

As a PhD student this is heavily dependent on what grants you can get. Glass door says the average student salary is $27k, so $5k less than median salary in the US and less than half of what a high school teacher makes. A PhD graduate makes, on average, ~$100K, which is within 10% of the average Software Engineer salary.

There are a lot of incentives to become a phd for us citizens. You can be called doctor. You have some level of social prestige. You can specialize in something that really interests you. Some jobs that might be appealing require a PhD. The cash incentives aren’t there. There are faster paths for larger pots fo money.

For perspective PhD students I recommend The PhD grind. If that doesn’t scare you away than maybe it’s the right path for you. Link to a discussion about the book. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4179982

Dump of links where I got my dollar figures from.

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/us-phd-student-salary-SRC...

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/central.html

https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Degree=Doctorate_(PhD)/...

https://www.indeed.com/career/software-engineer/salaries

https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/high-school-teach...

That would make sense. 4 years is the right number to “not really” hurt UG and MS but for sure hurt all PhDs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com