Despite facing greater challenges after September 11, 2001, in getting visas
and entering the country, foreign-born scientists working in U.S. academia have
increased in numbers in proportion to their American counterparts, according
to a new report by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS).
But maintaining the influx of visiting foreign students and researchers may
be problematic, the NAS committee found, despite recent improvements.
“This has historically been a very welcoming country,” said committee
chair Phillip Griffiths of the Institute for Advanced Study, in Princeton, N.J.,
at a press conference releasing the NAS report on May 10, and a “good place
for people to work for economic reasons,” as well as for innovation. The
committee concluded that foreign scientists have bolstered U.S. standings in
many fields, as American students’ interest in the sciences and engineering
has waned.
A main finding of the report is that the numbers of students and scientists
arriving in the United States increased fivefold from 1996 to 2003, mainly from
Southeast Asia. The NAS committee members also are concerned “with what
happened after 2002,” said committee member Samuel Preston, of the University
of Pennsylvania, at the press conference. “Between 2003 and 2004, there
was a very large drop of 28 percent in applications from international students,”
he said, with an additional drop between 2004 and 2005.
Perceptions that the United States is less welcoming, as well as the real and
perceived difficulties in getting visas, may have contributed to the decrease,
according to the NAS committee (see also Geotimes, March
2003). One indication is a falloff in GRE tests taken in India and China,
but a confounding factor may be tighter restrictions for taking the exam in
those countries. Some evidence shows that international students are heading
elsewhere, to E.U. countries and China, for example, where investment is higher
in science and engineering education infrastructure.
On the other hand, the committee found that the percentage of international
post-docs in the United States rose to 59 percent of the total in 2002, from
about 37 percent two decades prior. Also, visa entry procedures may be improving,
the committee found, as denial rates for visa applications have decreased from
25 percent to 22 percent in the past year or so, said committee member Alice
Gast of MIT in Cambridge, Mass., also at the press conference.
International-student specialists at a variety of universities agree that the
process has improved. “I was running 40 active cases a year,” related
to students having trouble getting visas in the past few years, says Marjory
Gooding, head of Caltech’s International Scholar Services department for
the science- and engineering-focused school in Pasadena, Calif. “We’re
now down to five at any one time,” she says, due to the streamlining of
some federal agencies’ processes, from the Department of Homeland Security
to the Department of State and consular offices abroad. Security clearances
that were taking nine months now take two to four weeks, says Adria Baker, director
of the Office of International Students and Scholars for Rice University in
Houston, Texas. “With the visas, we’ve seen some things get better,”
Baker says, but “there are still things we’re working on.”
Issues “potentially coming down the pike,” says Richard Tudisco, the
head of Columbia University’s international scholars department in New
York City, include policy matters in the new Patriot Act (pending this year
in Congress), as well as issues of technology transfer and access to technology
(which the Department of Commerce has suggested controlling), confidentiality
issues related to the Real ID act (concerning drivers’ licenses), and other
matters. Tudisco and others would like to see issues addressed for Ph.D. candidates
“who are here for five, six and seven years,” concerning “opportunities
to go to conferences, to travel home to see family, to deal with all the elements
of life that could occur over a seven-year stretch,” Tudisco says.
The NAS committee suggested a new visa category might ease immigration and visa
problems. “The best tend to stay in this country,” Gast of MIT said,
and it may be beneficial to ease their entry to begin with, while not compromising
security concerns.
Still, Tudisco says, he currently has no cases from Columbia University that
he is following, after several years of having tens of cases to track, and gives
“credit where it is due” to the responsible agencies.
Naomi Lubick
Links:
"Terrorism puts foreign
students in spotlight," Geotimes, March 2003
National
Academy of Sciences report: Policy Implications of International Graduate
Students and Postdoctoral Scholars in the United States
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