Asian Receive Most American S&T Doctorates!

I quote from The Economist:

Between 1996 and 2007, 28% of the science and engineering doctorates awarded in America went to Chinese; 11% to Indians; 9% to South Koreans; and 7% to Taiwanese. Japanese, by contrast, picked up just 2% of them. That stymies the exchange of ideas on which good science depends.

Some of the advantages of educating the new generation of PhDs from Asia in the United States are:

• They in turn may well produce a generation of their own students in their home countries who are more favorably disposed towards the United States than they might otherwise have been;
• Many of them on return to their own countries will enter scientific careers with strong collaboration with American scientists, thereby increasing the productivity of American science without increasing its cost.
• Many of them will serve as technological links between America and their home countries, opening markets abroad for U.S. technology and high technology products.
• Many of them will stay in the United States, contributing to American innovation rates and thereby creating jobs.

Of course, the utility of educating foreign scientists and engineers does not diminish the importance of educating American young people in science and engineering!