The US government is spending a lot of money training the next generation of PhDs so that the country can remain a leader in science. Yet each year, many American-born scientists are leaving the lab, perhaps because of the long hours, low salaries or low expectations of career advancement.
Why are the working conditions so bad? Blame the foreigners, says an anonymous American scientist in an online Science report last week.
This scientist complained that his poor working conditions are exacerbated when foreign scientists take similar jobs, and work longer hours for less money than he may be willing to do. Also, he argues, because there are so many foreign scientists wanting to work in the US, and universities have no limit on the number of scientists they can bring in, the overabundance of foreign labor keeps his salary low and discourages him from sticking with science.
I find it shocking that this scientist is blaming foreigners for the problems with American science. It would be much more reasonable for him to blame the US government for setting the typical postdoc’s salary so low, or for cutting the NIH budget, despite its supposed desire to keep America competitive globally.
In fact, according to the latest National Science Foundation survey, the number of American students enrolling in grad school for science and engineering is higher than ever. And the number of foreign students, perhaps because of visa problems, is dropping. Many American companies are actually lobbying for an increase in temporary visas so that more foreigners can enter the scientific workforce—a change that Congress is currently considering.
As we said in our June editorial, governments should set aside funding specifically for young American scientists. I also think that science can only benefit from diverse viewpoints, be they of Americans of all races, as we said in May, or of foreign scientists who can bring their perspectives and training to scientific problems.
The solution to this is not, and should not be, to limit foreign scientists from coming in. What do you think? Should Congress increase—or decrease—the number of visas issued to foreign scientists?
Posted on behalf of Eva Chmielnicki, Associate Editor, Nature Medicine