Engineering & The National Interest
Immigration Reform, But At What Cost?
The U.S. may be running its hopes of improved engineering research into the ground. Resurrected in part by the recent November elections and President Bush’s approval of an increased budget for immigration enforcement, immigration policy has come to the foreground of many political debates. Additionally, in light of the fact that Arizona and New Mexico have both declared states of emergency, policies have been proposed that would even further restrict immigration. Due to President Bush’s renewed fervor on this subject, it seems likely that there will be a comprehensive immigration bill in 2006 that will further limit the number of visas issued by the U.S.
However, it seems unfair to apply these new restrictions to foreigners with graduate degrees seeking to perform research in hi-tech areas, especially when those areas are already suffering. Between 2003 and 2004, applications from abroad to U.S. graduate engineering schools declined by 36%. This is not a statistic to be taken lightly. Without a steady stream of foreign minds, U.S. research and development will surely suffer as these bright minds turn to our competitors for work. As a counter to this trend, two innovation bills based on the Council on Competitiveness’ and National Academies’ recommendations should come up in senate within the next month. These bills aim to increase the number of visas available to highly skilled workers. But this is only part of the solution; in addition to visa complications and hassles, highly skilled workers face a less than receptive work environment once they do secure a visa, discouraging many from even applying to work in the U.S. Read more about the shortage of foreign minds in the U.S. and some of the actions engineers are taking to make life easier for those acculturating to the U.S. hi-tech sector in PRISM.
December 12th, 2005 at 2:57 pm
I don’t totally agree with the thesis of your article on the relationship between the visa difficulties foreign students face post-9/11 and the national interest. Granted faculty research has a greater difficulty in getting low-cost labor, but there is no clear relationship between that and the greater issues we face as a nation in benefiting our people from our collective national investment in R&D.
In by gone days, US funded research primarily benefited US industry and hence, American workers. One could justify the government investment because it clearly benefited Americans. I am challenging us to reconsider this assumption as I believe it is becoming less true. I believe in our global economy dominated by multinational (actually de facto countryless) companies, the benefits to US government investment in university research no longer necessarily accrue to Americans. Or if they do, the benefit is narrowly enjoyed by a few. The manufacturing jobs that will emerge from these investments will likely be located out of the US, for the reasons I stated previously. Take for example, alternate fuel vehicles. The manufacturing jobs spun off from that technology are likely going to be outside the US. GM is laying off 30,000 people. Ford is doing likewise. What is the probability of those jobs coming back? I would say virtually zero. Even so called “high tech” jobs related to programming and computer science are being outsourced or US companies are transferring that function to the foreign subsidiaries. IBM has moved many jobs to India.
If American universities want to continue to attract government funding, they will need to clearly demonstrate how that investment benefits middle class Americans. The demands of the government grow much faster than the resources available. Teachers are demanding larger investment in K-12 spending. As baby boomers retire, Social Security will be seeing net outflows. Health care is a big black hole. Where in the list of national priorities is research going to be when compared with food, shelter and health care? For Congress and state legislatures to continue to fund R&D, they will need data that shows that regular Americans benefit. Personally, I believe what matters to a large segment of American taxpayers is ensuring a supply of high quality, middle class jobs, as well as protecting our standard of living. As we see tens of thousands being laid off. Verizon and other companies eliminating pension benefits. Airlines demanding concessions. It’s not difficult to see that good middle class jobs are leaving the country. The service jobs that are replacing them do not pay as well nor do they enjoy the same benefits. We need a national conversation on how we can insure our technology investments benefit Americans first and foremost. There is not point in developing technology that benefits our global competitors to the detriment of our people.
Having spent many years teaching at a research university as well as working in industry, I see that much has changed. Academe will need to look at the issue from the perspective of their benefactors. What do they get for their investment? If we cannot lay that out with clear and convincing data, the people, through their legislators, are going to budget their limited dollars in more urgent areas — food, shelter, healthcare, and K-12.
We live in interesting times, but we really need to think very practically about relative competitive advantage and how we maintain that. I don’t believe the US can maintain a competitive advantage in education since the immediate benefits often go to non-Americans — at least at the graduate level.