CRA Bulletin

(There is a more recent bulletin item on this)

A concern that has been raised in the press and elsewhere is that economic growth outside the US might encourage foreign US-degree recipients to return abroad for employment. For a field such as computer science (CS), in which half of its doctorate recipients are not US citizens, this could cause a significant problem for employers. Only recently, however, has there been any evidence that more students are choosing to leave the US after receiving their degrees.

One of the best sources for data on stay rates among S&E doctorates is the series of reports prepared for the NSF by Michael Finn of the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education. Overall, the reports have shown that stay rates for science and engineering (S&E) doctorate recipients both increased during the 1990s and are surprisingly high.

Among temporary visa holders who received S&E doctorates in 1998, 61 percent were in the US in 2003. Among CS doctorates, 70 percent were still in the US in 2003.

Among S&E doctorates on temporary visas who received their degrees in 2001, 68 percent were in the US in 2003. (In 1989, the two-year stay rate was 41 percent). Among CS doctorates, 74 percent of the 2001 graduates were still in the US in 2003.

Stay rates for doctorate recipients from China and India are very high. The five year stay-rate for Chinese students with temporary visas who received their doctorates in 1998 was 90 percent. It was 86 percent among Indian students. China and India are the two biggest suppliers of foreign S&E doctorate students. The next two biggest suppliers have lower five-year stay rates: Taiwan, at 47 percent, and South Korea, at 34 percent.

As Finn points out, though, there are signs that these stay rates have plateaued and may begin to fall. The two-year stay rate for temporary visa holders, while at an all-time high, was the same for the 2001 class as it was for those who graduated in 1999. The one-year stay rate, on the other hand, declined slightly. This followed several years of steady increases. In addition, Finn mentions that according to a separate NSF survey, the percentage of foreign doctorate recipients with plans to stay in the US declined each year between 2001 and 2003.

Finn’s study suggests that stay rates among foreign students have leveled off and may begin to decline. On the one hand, this is not surprising: the rates have been very high and could be expected to reach a limit at some point. However, the next bulletin entry will discuss recent CRA and NSF data that show that the percentage of foreign doctorate students that have found employment outside the US has jumped in the past few years.

Michael G. Finn, Stay Rates of Foreign Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities, 2003 (175 KB PDF)