← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Faust
Thread ID: 16791 | Posts: 12 | Started: 2005-02-16
2005-02-16 14:00 | User Profile
National Data, By Edwin S. Rubenstein Why Americans Donââ¬â¢t Study Scienceââ¬âIt Doesnââ¬â¢t Pay
There they go again. Claiming they canââ¬â¢t find enough skilled Americans, the high-tech industry has browbeaten Congress into allowing them to bring in another 20,000 foreign workers. The little-noticed legislation, inserted into an appropriations bill required for the government to continue normal operations, expands the number of foreign workers eligible for H-1b visas from 65,000 to 85,000 in 2005.
And the Davos crowdââ¬âBill Gates and GEââ¬â¢s Jeffrey Immelt in particularââ¬âhave beaten the drums for visa ââ¬Åreform.ââ¬Â
They and their shills point to dwindling enrollments of U.S. citizens in science and engineering programs as ââ¬Åevidenceââ¬Â for a high-tech worker shortage. (See, for example, the Hudson Instituteââ¬â¢s recent report Can Foreign Talent Fill Gaps in the U.S. Labor Force, funded by Compete America, a high-tech trade association).
But, contrary to what the high-tech industry claims, American enrollments in science and engineering (S&E) programs have risen and fallen in almost exact correlation with the job market in those fields:
Between 1983 and 1993: [Table 1] bullet The number U.S. citizens enrolled in graduate S&E programs rose by 18 percent
bullet The number of foreign citizens enrolled in graduate S&E programs rose 51 percent
bullet The average unemployment rate in S&E occupations fell from 3 percent (in 1983) to 1.5 percent (in 1989)
The job market cooled off in the 1990s. Potential S&E students were seeing the end of the Cold War, corporate restructuring, and layoffs.
But the response of U.S. and foreign students was markedly different:
Between 1993 and 2001: bullet The number U.S. citizens enrolled in graduate S&E programs fell 10 percent
bullet The number of foreign citizens enrolled in graduate S&E programs rose 26 percent
The foreign born share of graduate S&E students has risen inexorably through hiring booms and busts.
But native enrollment in graduate S&E programs peaked at 330,148 in 1993. Not coincidentally, 1993 was also the year in which S&E unemployment spiked at 3.5 percent. And, although unemployment fell during the 1990s boom, salaries in S&E occupations lagged those of other professional fields.
The reason Americans hesitate to study science and engineering is simple: pursuing an advanced degree in these fields is a bad investment.
For PhDs for example, the salary premium is not high enough to compensate for the five or more years of foregoing an industry salary while pursuing graduate study.
For U.S. citizens a doctorate in science or engineering causes a net lifetime LOSS in earnings.
For foreigners, of course, an American S&E degree remains attractiveââ¬ârelative to their options at home.
Allowing the importation of cheaper foreign workers is simply a form of corporate welfare for the high-tech industryââ¬âand itââ¬â¢s a solution that, by flooding the S&E market and discouraging potential native-born students, makes the problem worse.
Edwin S. Rubenstein (email him) is President of ESR Research Economic Consultants in Indianapolis.
If you want to email or print out, format by clicking on this permanent URL: [url]http://www.vdare.com/rubenstein/050215_nd.htm[/url]
2005-02-17 04:37 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Faust]National Data, By Edwin S. Rubenstein Why Americans Donââ¬â¢t Study Scienceââ¬âIt Doesnââ¬â¢t Pay
There they go again. Claiming they canââ¬â¢t find enough skilled Americans, the high-tech industry has browbeaten Congress into allowing them to bring in another 20,000 foreign workers. The little-noticed legislation, inserted into an appropriations bill required for the government to continue normal operations, expands the number of foreign workers eligible for H-1b visas from 65,000 to 85,000 in 2005. [/QUOTE]Little noticed alright. Anyone find any notice of this in their newspapers he's got sharp eyes.
2005-02-17 05:20 | User Profile
I am very sorry to say that I am a very good example that you can become someone without any need of schooling or college.
I found school to be boring and what they were trying to teach me as far as I was concern was a waste of time.
I feel that school should be like a fisherman using the right lure in order to reel in the students interest because as you know not all fishes are the same.
My best teacher was my own dad and he tought me so well that when I came to the states the math teach. used to give us problems where I was able to give the answer with touching a piece of paper and when the instructor asked me to do it on the blackbord I was unable to do it, the only thing that I knew was the answer and don't ask me why because I still don't know.
Up till this day and even at age 64 I know that I am heading somewhere but I don't know where, all I can say is that it has been a very interesting trip for me.
I keep calling home but as of yet there has been no answer. Oh well, may as well take another green pill.
2005-02-17 06:16 | User Profile
Ponce,
You are right. I learned more from my father than I ever did in school. I liked to read books but I hated school.
I mainly just got into fights everyday at school. I even got better over time. I would attack anyone who looked at me wrong. I never learned much at school it was a nuthouse.
2005-02-17 07:01 | User Profile
Why Americans don't study science and engineering could have something to do with a combination of culture and the requirements for science or engineering degrees. A lot of Americans go off to college not knowing what they want or what they should major in. Some majors you can fart around the first two years and then simply complete around 30-45 credits within a degree program and get a major in that. You cannot do this with science or engineering majors. If in the first year you aren't taking Calculus, Calc-based Physics, Chem 101, et al., forget about completing an engineering major within 4-5 years. You can still work on a BS in a science, but you've only made the subsequent semesters hellish. And by perusing career guides and stuff you have realized that with only a BS degree in science you won't get much above a technician level job. So, to end up a professional engineer or scientist means that either you are motivated to start sprinting at the beginning of your college education or are willing to go the long haul of 4 to 5 years of rigor and then 4 more years of rigor and bull in graduate school. And if you are having fun and the parents are paying for it, what the hell, live life and major in a much easier discipline, e.g., political science or history. Your parents will be happy you finished and got a diploma.
2005-02-17 14:40 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Jack Cassidy]Why Americans don't study science and engineering could have something to do with a combination of culture and the requirements for science or engineering degrees. A lot of Americans go off to college not knowing what they want or what they should major in. Some majors you can fart around the first two years and then simply complete around 30-45 credits within a degree program and get a major in that. You cannot do this with science or engineering majors. If in the first year you aren't taking Calculus, Calc-based Physics, Chem 101, et al., forget about completing an engineering major within 4-5 years. You can still work on a BS in a science, but you've only made the subsequent semesters hellish. And by perusing career guides and stuff you have realized that with only a BS degree in science you won't get much above a technician level job. So, to end up a professional engineer or scientist means that either you are motivated to start sprinting at the beginning of your college education or are willing to go the long haul of 4 to 5 years of rigor and then 4 more years of rigor and bull in graduate school. And if you are having fun and the parents are paying for it, what the hell, live life and major in a much easier discipline, e.g., political science or history. Your parents will be happy you finished and got a diploma.[/QUOTE]
You've hit the nail on the head. I worked my tail off to get a BS in Chemistry 20 years ago and mostly got technician jobs and got laid off alot because of plant closings. Engineering is not much better, even though the pay is much higher but there are few jobs due to downsizing and outsourcing. People, even if they loved their major like I did, are not going to work their tail off if there is going to be no payoff and I was expecting to use each job as a stepping stone to rise in each company that I worked for but it didn't happen that way. A BS in the sciences is a hard degree to place in the job market. You are worth too much and overquailified for technician jobs and in today's low income market it is cheaper to hire a tech school technician or train a high school graduate to do the job. On the other hand, it is not enough to become the head of a laboratory, for most are PhD's, so one has to endure 5-8 more years of school to get the PhD. A science PhD is much harder to get than a Liberal Arts PhD in that one not only has to produce a dissertation, but also original research. Even PhD jobs are in short supply.
If I had to do it all over again, I would go into nursing or some other hospital related job, but with the importation of 3rd world nurses that dream may be as gone as IT jobs, another field I would have considered. But if anybody is still considering getting a BS in The Sciences, then be prepared to go from one temporary job to another to long periods of unemployment in between.
2005-02-17 22:22 | User Profile
[QUOTE=skemper]You've hit the nail on the head. I worked my tail off to get a BS in Chemistry 20 years ago and mostly got technician jobs and got laid off alot because of plant closings. Engineering is not much better, even though the pay is much higher but there are few jobs due to downsizing and outsourcing. People, even if they loved their major like I did, are not going to work their tail off if there is going to be no payoff and I was expecting to use each job as a stepping stone to rise in each company that I worked for but it didn't happen that way. A BS in the sciences is a hard degree to place in the job market. You are worth too much and overquailified for technician jobs and in today's low income market it is cheaper to hire a tech school technician or train a high school graduate to do the job. On the other hand, it is not enough to become the head of a laboratory, for most are PhD's, so one has to endure 5-8 more years of school to get the PhD. A science PhD is much harder to get than a Liberal Arts PhD in that one not only has to produce a dissertation, but also original research. Even PhD jobs are in short supply.
If I had to do it all over again, I would go into nursing or some other hospital related job, but with the importation of 3rd world nurses that dream may be as gone as IT jobs, another field I would have considered. But if anybody is still considering getting a BS in The Sciences, then be prepared to go from one temporary job to another to long periods of unemployment in between.[/QUOTE]It seems alot of students nowadays are aware they must get the graduate degree or, ideally, the Ph.D. (a degree that is an invention of the 19th-century German universities) to do anything. So, as if the 130 credit curriculum isn't enough (with the killer courses like P-Chem, Calc-based stats, etc., in the upper-level course requirements), they are forced to study for the GRE concurrently. And if that isn't bad enough, they might do like I did and peruse the Peterson's Guide to Graduate Study and notice that even average grad schools have relatively low acceptance rates for qualified applicants (i.e., most schools have minimum requirements for application that are: 3.0+ gpa overall/3.5+ in major with commensurate GRE scores). And then most likely they will come across some Ph.D.'s who are desperate to get any teaching job because the positions out in the real world are limited and awful.
Before even considering a job in science or engineering (or any other demanding degree field) a person should ask themselves why they want to work in this field. Do they have illusions of grandeur and think they are going to make a significant contribution, or even get the chance to do so (rather than simply be a glorified cog)? Frankly I think alot of people in college would be better off studying a trade and working toward starting a business. They would have a greater feeling of accomplishment, have less stress, and would likely make more money. I have worked quite a few jobs in my relatively short life, including one job in an office with many high-level Ph.D. scientists (specifically, at the NCI and FDA with doctors and pharmacologists). I have not met a more credential-consumed, insecure, bitter, unhappy group these these folks. I think they did like their field and didn't regret studying for a dozen or so years to reach the academic summit, but I think they soon found out that in the real world you're required to do alot of stuff you don't want to do, and those things you do do go unrecognized if even noticed. And, given the personality of science and engineering types, I think there is a psychological and emotional letdown in the real world. These people thought they were "all that and a bag of chips" because they got A's in high school math and science. Then they go off to the university and they are surrounded by lots of the other people who got A's in math and science, and alot of them from much better schools. Then they get out in the real world and encounter people in their field who got their Ph.D.'s from M.I.T. at the age of 20.
2005-02-18 02:55 | User Profile
Jack Cassidy,
I think these days you need a 3.5 or higher GPA to get into any graduate school even Liberal Arts. I am still working on Liberal Arts B.A. degree. I failed out once, so I don't think I have worry much about graduate school, I don't think I could have done all the sucking up you need to do to get into graduate programs anyway. Collage seems like such waste a good part of the time. But we have been drilled that we need to go from birth and one just cannot seem to stop.
2005-02-18 03:42 | User Profile
I'm currently pursuing a B.S. in Electrical Engineering with a minor in biochemistry.
I realize that, most likely, many jobs will have gone over-seas by the time I graduate, so I'm hoping to get into a professional degree program (either DDS/DDM or J.D.).
Of course, this wouldn't be a concern IF healthy attitudes re economics prevailed-instead of the oligarchy we currently have (a true 'free market' if you believe the chattering classes).
2005-02-18 06:09 | User Profile
[QUOTE=2600]I'm currently pursuing a B.S. in Electrical Engineering with a minor in biochemistry.
I realize that, most likely, many jobs will have gone over-seas by the time I graduate, so I'm hoping to get into a professional degree program (either DDS/DDM or J.D.).
Of course, this wouldn't be a concern IF healthy attitudes re economics prevailed-instead of the oligarchy we currently have (a true 'free market' if you believe the chattering classes).[/QUOTE] An EE education, unlike most strict science degree educations, is inherently useful, and will always be in demand (if even in fields such as law enforcement). A J.D. would pay for itself within 10 years in this day and age. Plus, having it would open up that many more options for careers. I know some people who went into DDS programs and one who worked as a dentist for a few years. From what I can gather, it is the most miserable job and existence in the world.
But if we do spiral into a Mad Max-esque anarchy in this country, the JD education is worthless, while the EE and DDS education becomes much more useful.
2005-02-18 06:40 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Faust]Jack Cassidy,
I think these days you need a 3.5 or higher GPA to get into any graduate school even Liberal Arts. I am still working on Liberal Arts B.A. degree. I failed out once, so I don't think I have worry much about graduate school, I don't think I could have done all the sucking up you need to do to get into graduate programs anyway. Collage seems like such waste a good part of the time. But we have been drilled that we need to go from birth and one just cannot seem to stop.[/QUOTE]The BA or BS degree is nice to have in and of itself. It is a nice feeling of accomplishment irrespective of the specific major or goals for the degree.
2005-02-18 10:43 | User Profile
[QUOTE=2600]I'm currently pursuing a B.S. in Electrical Engineering with a minor in biochemistry.
I realize that, most likely, many jobs will have gone over-seas by the time I graduate, so I'm hoping to get into a professional degree program (either DDS/DDM or J.D.).
Of course, this wouldn't be a concern IF healthy attitudes re economics prevailed-instead of the oligarchy we currently have (a true 'free market' if you believe the chattering classes).[/QUOTE]
Patent attorneys make gobs of filthy lucre.
I went to law school with a couple of engineers who had that plan in mind, and they both made tons of $$$$$ since then. Paid off big time.