Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2005 11:17:04 -0700 From: Norm Matloff To: Norm Matloff Subject: ACTION Act of 2005 To: H-1B/L-1/offshoring e-newsletter As I have mentioned, there has been a flurry of articles and editorials (especially the latter) in the press during the last year, concerning the "problem" of the reduction in the numbers of foreign students applying to U.S. graduate programs in engineering and science. I use quotation marks here, because we've always been overproducing PhDs in those fields. But from the selfish point of view of empire-building universities, the foreign students are crucial, for the following sequence of reasons: 1. A university's prestige in engineering and science is mainly due to its research reputation, especially the amount of research funding it acquires from the federal government. The funding is used largely to pay graduate students to do the research work. If universities can't get the students, they can't get the money. Note that the number of students accepted to the PhD program is calculated on the basis of the amount of research money available, not on economic/societal needs, and we have indeed been overproducing PhDs. We are overproducing Master's degrees too. For example, in engineering our ratio of yearly production of Master's to Bachelor's degrees is about 2:1, whereas in China--claimed by these same lobbyists to be on the verge of overtaking the U.S. technologically--it is about 10:1. See William F. Massy and Charles A. Goldman, The Production and Utilization of Science and Engineering Doctorates in the United States}, Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research, Stanford University, July 1995; William F. Massy and Charles A. Goldman, The PhD Factory, Anker Press, 2001 and Anthony Ralston, "The Demographics of Candidates for Faculty Positions in Computer Science," Communications of the Association for Computing Machinery, March 1996; Digest of Educational Statistics, 2003, http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d03/ch_3.asp; and China Statistical Yearbook (Zhongguo Tong Ji Nian Jian), 2004. 2. The stipend paid to the students, around $16,000 per year or so, is not enough to attract many American students. A PhD produces a net loss of earnings lifetime for American students, due to having to go five years or more on this low stipend and forego industry-level salary during that time. See the congressionally-commissioned study, Building a Workforce for the Information Economy, National Academies Press, 2001. 3. Thus the universities "need" foreign students. The National Science Foundation, a federal government agency, actually promoted the use of foreign students for this explicit purpose, as well as for the explicit purpose of holding down PhD salaries in industry. See Eric Weinstein, How and Why Government, Universities, and Industry Create Domestic Labor Shortages of Scientists and High-Tech Workers National Bureau of Economic Research, Harvard University, 1998. Yet the number of applications to U.S. graduate programs in engineering and science are indeed down sharply. The reason is simple economics: In the past, the students used U.S. study as a steppingstone to a U.S. green card, because of the economic opportunities here. But recently, the tech job market has become abysmal, and the students abroad have the sense to see that this will be permanent. Meanwhile, opportunities in their home countries are soaring. See NAFSA Update No.347, "Action Alert: Stop S.1394!," National Association of Foreign Student Advisers Government Relations Department; Jen Lin-Liu, "A Chinese University, Elite Once More," The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 9, 2004; and Liz Reisberg, "Where Did All the International Students Go?", International Higher Education (pub. by Boston College), Fall 2004. The university lobby either doesn't see that, or wants to salvage whatever it can. Either way, seasoned observers have known that the flurry of articles and editorials in the press on this issue can only mean one thing--the articles and editorials are there to pave the way for Congress to enact legislation. Sure enough, a bill has been introduced. Here is a message which went out to foreign student advisers (who obviously have their own vested interests in this as well) all over the U.S.: http://econstituent.votenet.com/nafsa Ask your Senators to Co-Sponsor the ACTION Act of 2005 Today! (Senate Bill 455) On February 17, Senator Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) and Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) introduced legislation to reverse the decline in the number of international students studying at American colleges, universities, and high schools. The bill, the American Competitiveness Through International Openness Now Act of 2005 (S. 455), also known as the ACTION Act, was referred to the Foreign Relations Committee. The ACTION Act addresses the need for a strategic plan to enhance international student access to the United States, while addressing many of the barriers faced by students, scholars, scientists and exchange visitors. NAFSA staff has worked closely with the Senators' staffs on the bill and now it is your turn to act to ensure the bill has as many cosponsors as possible! It is time for the United States to take ACTION to reclaim our preeminent position as a destination for the world's Best and Brightest. The National Association of Foreign Student Advisers (NAFSA), is one of the most aggressive lobbying groups on immigration issues on Capitol Hill. (I've mentioned before that they are so aggressive that they once had the audacity to try to pressure me not to testify before Congress; NAFSA's president at the time, Clay Ballard, was director of our UC Davis office of Services for International Students and Scholars.) And as you can see above, they really rally the troops. What do they want? You can go through their various reports, at http://www.nafsa.org/content/PublicPolicy/NAFSAontheIssues/Issues.htm to see the details, but here are the more interesting (and brazen) goals: First, they want changes in U.S. immigration law. They are rather vague here. One thing they mention is that they want to repeal the current law that says that in order to grant a foreign student visa, the U.S. consulate must determine that the student does not intend to immigrate to the U.S. As mentioned above, and as admitted by NAFSA, this has caused hundreds of thousands of foreign students to engage in dishonesty in their very first interaction with the U.S. (They later must do so again after graduation, when applying for a Practical Training permit, again saying that they intend to use this training back home.) But I believe that ultimately this legislation will involve further liberalization of the H-1B program (beyond what was done last December; see http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/Archive/ProposedMSPhDExemption.txt for my comments on why it was unwarranted) and possibly of the employer-based greencard program as well. Second, they want the federal government to give financial support to foreign students. This is outrageous. It of course already occurs to some extent, via the stipends I mentioned above, but those go to the bearer, whether foreign or domestic, whereas now the university lobby wants federal money specifically earmarked to support foreign students. Once again, none of this would be warranted, and would produce further harm to U.S. citizens and permanent residents in the tech areas. Norm