The U.S. Is Driving Away Young Scientists
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
I’d want to compare grant funding and sources pre and post, as well as the diversity of institutions receiving funding, etc. my hypothesis would be that in order to build up institutions across the country politicians did try to steer grants to regional institutions, etc but it’s still a ton more money. (But I am not an academic)
If you're barely making ends meet, can barely afford gas, and hear that $390,000 just went to some scientists to stick plastic dinosaur tails on chickens to study walking dynamics, with zero practical applications for the knowledge gained, you're angry. Also this example actually happened, it's not hyperbole.
Again, if you are someone who can barely afford gas and hear about this... you don't care about strict principles, you just want to set those in power on fire. You're also not going to be easily convinced the government cares about spending your tax dollars wisely, or that all of this planning and research and science is worth it.
"What kind of IDIOT wants to WASTE valuable TAXPAYER MONEY on gila monster venom research" - man currently on a GLP-1.
Super easy!
"We shouldn't be funding all this frivolous stuff!"
"Okay, how would you figure out what to fund?"
"We could assemble a panel of experts in the field, who have proven their merit by doing impactful research, and have them decide ultimately based on the merits of each proposal, the people who proposed it, the institutions backing them, the likelihood of success, whether they're worthy of funding. We should also make them explain as part of the proposal exactly how this will benefit not just their research area but also the broader community and world. Finally, we should meticulously track how they spend their money to make sure there's no funny business, and only give continued support to researchers who have proven they spend it wisely and their research has impact."
(If people don't understand, this is currently how it's done)
This is not accurate. There is the first gatekeeper which is program managers and junior program managers which have to gloss over your project and pick you. They (especially the juniors) don't necessarily have a the sophistication to judge your project and so are easily swayed by hot topics or reaching claims of national security/health applications.
Grants get awarded to people in the habit of telling little white lies about what their research is good for, then its people who are awarded grants that get promoted, and then those are the people who are reviewing projects, so being dishonest becomes cultural. Disastrous for science.
so, you should really recalibrate being taken in by just-so stories of basic science being SUPER important.
Your rebuttal is that GLP was a highly desirable target for a long time before we stumbled upon a way to hit it... and this is evidence that the "stumbling upon a way to hit it" was not a super critical and super fortunate event...?
> How much did gila monsters buy? Maybe a year or two?
Why'd you put "a year or two?" here and not "a decade or two?" or "a century or two?" Do you have reason to believe it was a year or two away, sans Gila monster? If so, can you provide your reasoning? Per your own point, GLP was a desirable target for a long time without successful hits. We have plenty of targets that are desirable for decades without figuring out a way to actually drug them.
the earlier habener results that actually got us to glp-1s via anglerfish pancreas would have been similarly derided. substitute that in if it helps.
The funny thing about that is the controversial “impact statements” that are part of grant funding are supposed to be the part where you explain how your research matters to the broad community. But it’s become so political the only thing you can feel safe writing is “we will help people learn about science” because “we’ll start an after school program for disadvantaged youth to learn about science” is too DEI for some folks.
Then why are millions moving to the US every year?
The world doesn’t operate the way we want it to, and US salaries are head and shoulders above what you can get anywhere else in the world. That’s what people really care about, and not the news cycle surrounding the current administration.
Not from my group of colleagues. The only person who actually did end up going for a green card is actually the most politically unaware and least competent.
> US salaries are head and shoulders above what you can get anywhere else in the world.
This may be the case but the cost of health care, child care and homeownership are so much higher now than they used to be that for a lot of people it doesn't make any economic sense anymore.
I see a lot of people going for a few years, working their assess off, then leaving before they even have to start thinking about a mortgage.
Then why is it cold outside??
edit: That's the better interpretation, thanks!
I personally am still very bullish on living in America compare compared to a lot of places, but it's getting harder to ignore the stresses and costs of living here compared to the money that once made this place worth it
> In 2025, only 2.6 million people immigrated to the United States, a sharp decline from the 5.8 million who entered in 2023 and the 4.6 million who entered in 2024.
source: https://forumtogether.org/article/the-consequences-of-net-ne...
Yes, there are still people migrating to the USA, but it is a lot less than it used to be.
Key finding: "We conclude that net migration was likely close to zero or negative over calendar year 2025 for the first time in at least half a century. For 2026, we project net migration is likely to remain in negative territory."
How can you even pretend to discredit Brookings?
My point was there are other credible sources that come to a different conclusion (e.g. net inmigration). Most official trackers still estimate positive net migration rather than a net outmigration. Over the last year or so, Brookings estimates up to -300K, while US Census estimates +1.3M, CBO estimates +410K, Goldman Sachs estimates +500K, and CIS estimates positive (in)migration.
Does that clear up my comment?
But then the word "throwaway" in usernames has become an indicator of this, lately.
The US isn't the worst place to live, by any means, but we are currently machine-gunning ourselves in the foot and it would be nice to stop doing that.
Maybe smart folks don't want to be in racist xenophobic regime which marks them as undesirables from Day 1, run by publicly voted-in outright senile pedophile who managed to insult every single human being currently living at least once, mostly much more. It happens with narcistic egomaniacs, quite a lot in fact.
Since folks willingly voted in such person twice as the best person under the sun to represent and rule them, it tells something not-so-nice about future that even many not-too-smart folks catch easily.
At least that would be my logic if I would be in such situation. I never was since US was never an option for me, Switzerland offers much more for me than US ever could. And my taxes are not used for mass murder and start failed wars half around the globe, a small but significant detail. Most scientists have more morals than typical faaangs of these days from my experience.
QoL in the US is better if you are an average to above earner, and dramatically better if you are are high earner (like SWE's). In large part why the US brain drained so much talent from Europe over the last 30 years.
But would everyone except for "obscenely rich people" be better off somewhere else? If so, then where, and why aren't they leaving by the tens of millions for those places?
Because life is messy. Because leaving is expensive. Because being accepted into a successful country requires opportunities and circumstances.
If your information doesn't have those error bars it is just a feel good headline to make someone feel better about themselves by putting others down - this is EVIL and you shouldn't fall for it!
There are far too many subjective parts of quality of life to ever put a single ranking on them.
The idea that the US is "the best place to live" is a persistent cultural myth. It's mostly good for a lot of classes of people, but even that's changing as of late.
(Bias disclosure: grew up in norcal, moved to Europe from California in 2013. I like living here but it certainly wasn't great for my career. It's like living in a forgotten backwater. You watch the future being built from abroad.)
Realistically, the question isn't meaningfully answered in isolation. One would have to see the bigger picture to put it into context.
* Vacation time in the US is paltry and often downright exploitative.
* Our for-profit healthcare system can easily wipe out any wealth you've accumulated upon a major medical episode, depending on what kind of coverage your insurance provides. Said coverage is usually determined by your employer.
* Education in the US is a joke compared to virtually every other developed nation.
* The homocide rate in the US is higher than 75% of other countries.
* Consumer protections in the US are virtually non-existent.
* Food quality is poor - e.g., virtually all foods have tons of corn syrup and other sugars added.
* The country as a whole is overly car-centric. Your day-to-day in the US virtually requires the use of a car, as most cities are not designed with walking or biking in mind, and only a few have useful public transportation.
Food - well that varies. Dutch food is... unexciting, to say the least.
I entirely agree with this conclusion, especially if you don't plan to raise a family in the US, but still I think the difference isn't as great as what you say.
You have similar investment options in the EU vs US. Tax is high in California. And you probably won't retire at 40 with $400 a year unless you've been very agressive and lucky with your investment.
I can talk about my person situation, big tech in EU, I contemplated relocation in the US (which my company would sponsor). I'd be better off financially in the US after a few years but worse job security and WLB, but it's not night and day. Main issue in EU + UK is lack opportunities compared other US, but there are some.
And the ocean is empty, which is the most shocking part. You rarely see any ships outside the major ports. There are no ships, because it's not a convenient way to go anywhere. Because there is nothing out there.
https://www.cnrs.fr/en/update/choose-cnrs-opportunities-scie...
Eagerly recruiting doesn't translate to active recruitment imo, unfortunately. With the coming elections, it is even more tenuous.
https://www.heartaerospace.com/newsroom/mastering-the-shift-...
A month later they moved to USA
https://www.heartaerospace.com/newsroom/heart-aerospace-relo...
This is morbid.
Four years of this is a huge blow to the field, eight would mean a wipeout of a generation of talent.
The entire administration has done one thing: sell of all of the US's assets, and convert it into profits for the trump family. thats it. Every action taken since the first 40 executive actions signed, through doge, defunding USAID which murdered over a million children, or bombing Iranian schools, has been to enrich trump and his friends.
Thats it. It's very simple.
They traded away every piece of soft power they could find and exchanged it for cash in their pockets.
While government funding may not grow above previous levels I would posit this is actually a feature - I’d expect to see a better public / private blend that is more resilient.
I was pretty astounded and heartbroken watching my colleagues pass around a list of banned words so they could scrub their proposals. Then again, what options do they have? Either you get money from the government, corporations who have a very narrow idea of what they want to research, or you move to a country that takes research seriously.
The right was so concerned about what you couldn't say because it maybe damaged your credibility. But what we're having now is that same group doing find and replace cuts on grants that use a laundry list of banned words.
Top Astrophysicist Leaves U.S. After Trump Policies Affect Her Work
There's no longer a point in receiving academic training in the United States because no one will trust it. A prospective scientist won't want to define their research by hedging against zionism and fascism. I don't have an extensive publication list but I would rather not publish anything if I have to give Israel and Nazi's a seat at the table for every research project.
No, not really. I mean, we potentially could, but not at the scale needed to run our intended research programs, and not with the state of education as it is -- the top career goals for US highschoolers are athlete, youtuber, musician, actor... they want fame and fortune. And why shouldn't they, that's what America tells them is important.
Then, we load those who do go to college with so much debt, graduate education is not financially possible for most of them. Careers in research require higher degrees and a decade of study, it's just not worth it when you have $50k-$100k in debt upon graduating, and a graduate stipend is like $2k a month.
At my university, we fill our masters and PhD ranks with international students. Even if we admitted 100% of the domestic students who apply each year, we wouldn't have a full cohort. And if we did do that, and they all did attend, the 15 other schools they applied to would fall short.
Of course, now the goalposts have moved: American talent must be worse because they don’t have these degrees which are required of foreign students to get in the country. And, of course, grad school working conditions are notably terrible. Exploitable labor lowers working conditions.
Not actually though, most reasonable people know that the only solution out will be war and massive restructuring.