I like how the assumption here is that there are no domestic graduate students anymore.

In 1996 I was at a top US university getting a master's and was the only white dude in most of the classes. There was a probability class that could have been taught in Mandarin if it hadn't been for me.

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yodsanklai 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'd be curious to know the stats. My personal experience: I interviewed tons of candidates in the past few years for a big tech company, a small fraction are US citizens (at least from what I can tell from their resume).

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whatever1 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Not none, but very few in the stem fields (less than 40% from my estimates).

Why would you pursue a PhD with a 25k/year stipend when you can just start a near 6-figure job and start paying off your student debt?

Only the ones with financial freedom or commitment to research take the PhD pill. Or when you go through a recession and you want to delay the entry to the job searching market.

	▲	superdude12 4 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		This is exactly the problem with the system. If there are tons of foreigners willing to get grad degrees and work for a small salary increase over a bachelor’s, US students are not sufficiently incentivized to do graduate studies.
	▲	kelipso 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The percentage gets worse when you look at the top say 10% of PhD students. Go to AI/ML conferences and see who is presenting the papers; it’s almost all international students in US universities or students from outside the US.

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narcotraffico1 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

My compsci classes were 80% foreigners. Why? I'd guess because they pay full tuition and the schools love the money.