<p>It’s easier to get accepted to MS than BS including top private schools like MIT and Stanford.</p>
<p>I don’t think American students are discouraged from such fields due to an influx of immigrants or less wages. Rather Americans don’t wish to pursue such fields due to less motivation to do well in those fields. Also, wages in engineering fields have not gone down due to immigration in the past few years.</p>
<p>My understand of why there are so many foreigners getting doctorates is that they have more motivation in terms of their economic. However, Americans can do well with a bachelors or masters in engineering.</p>
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They can only get the Masters if they can manage to get a seat in the Masters program while competing for a limited number of seats against people from other countries. I don’t think it’s a matter that there are no non-foreign people interested in pursuing a Masters degree in various engineering fields at the top universities but rather that they need to compete with the foreigners for the fixed number of spots. It’s hard to say what the criteria is to be accepted since there’s a bit of apples and oranges comparing a candidate from various colleges in India, including a number of lesser known ones, with a candidate from a college here. I don’t really know how those decisions are made.</p>
<p>This has been going on for years. Post #8 got it right. American students can get a job with just a BS(usually.) They also have a cultural bias toward getting an MBA rather than a Master in Eng. The foriegn students need the MS to get the H1B visa and their cultural bias is toward STEM over business. Their mothers are more impressed with the degree itself. American mothers know that the MBA translates to higher salaries.</p>
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<p>This line of thought ensures the intellectual stagnation of the country - and goes against every principle the United States has been founded on. There is no worse thing to do than this.</p>
<p>Our own citizens should find a way to be competitive against others here in the United States. If they cannot do that, they have only themselves to blame.</p>
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Are you sure it’s a level playing field? I’m not. And even if it was a level playing field do we end up pitting the top 1% of countries with billions of people (China/India) against the, for example, top 25% (or whatever) of our country with a much smaller population? Is the selectivity fairly level - i.e. is the degree from some relatively unknown uni in China/India (I’m not talking about the top few) vs a degree from a top engineering school here properly weighted?</p>
<p>Regardless, it makes no sense to displace those most likely to be able to land jobs here after grad with people not likely to - mostly due to the laws and processes currently in place. The net result is fewer non-foreigner engineering students in the MS/PHD programs and eventually fewer MS/PHD resources available to work in this country.</p>
<p>The way it currently is doesn’t make sense and negatively impacts our society IMO.</p>
<p>Many of the international students on US campuses would crawl through fire if it meant that their chance of landing an H1B would be improved. Those that do score an H1B can’t change jobs like a citizen or a permanent resident with a green card can, because the new employer would have to get an H1B visa for them. Consequently, many remain trapped in exploitative working conditions because, again, they would crawl through fire for the chance to hold the H1B long enough to qualify to apply for permanent residence. </p>
<p>If it weren’t for the dream of acquiring a green card, I expect that there would be fewer grad programs in Engineering. The ones that would exist would be those that were attractive to the domestic students.</p>
<p>MS and PhD programs are fueled by grant money. MEng/MBA/MAT/etc. programs that lead to employment are paid for by the student’s tuition dollars. Don’t worry about your home-state being taken for a ride by a bunch of international students. Almost all of them are paying OOS fees at full-freight.</p>
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Assuming that’s true, i.e. that the amount charged by state Universities for these programs really cover them without taxpayer subsidies (which they might - I don’t know), there’s still a tremendous amount of displacement resulting.</p>
<p>I’m an electrical engineer, and am a double minority - as an American, and as a woman. I have an MS from a selective private school and a BS from a public flagship. Most of my fellow BS students were American, and almost none of my fellow MS students were.</p>
<p>As others have said upthread, BS engineering degree holders are generally able to find good jobs, without NEEDING a graduate degree. It is generally hard for someone with a BS from another country to get a job in the US. But, if they have good enough grades and test scores, they can get accepted to MS or PhD programs in the US. And once they have a graduate degree from a US University, they can find jobs in the US, and get a work visa. There is a special allocation of visas for STEM graduate degree holders from US Universities.</p>
<p>Throughout my career I’ve worked mostly with people who have Engineering or CS MS or PhD’s, and a majority of them are foreign-born, although many became US citizens over time. I think the US does benefit from all the talent coming to the US, and I enjoy working with a very diverse set of co-workers. Engineering graduate programs in the US would be a lot smaller if they didn’t have so many foreign students. Americans are more likely to get an MBA, if they get a graduate degree at all. </p>
<p>In my anecdotal experience, Americans with graduate engineering degrees are more likely than the foreign-born graduate degree holders to rise to management positions (myself included). I think it is largely due to better communication skills in English, which is important in management roles.</p>
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<p>If the international students coming to the U.S. can pay that kind of money (usually about $50K), why do they so desperately need an American degree?</p>
<p>Pretty similar to Masters in Industrial Engineering where I go. Not quite that extreme though. </p>
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<p>It’s been my observation that foreign students tend to be less intelligent and lazier than their American counterparts, especially students from India and Pakistan. Not the case all across the board, there are terrible American students and great foreign students too, but I don’t think there’s any problem with competition. As far as I’ve seen, we can hold our own academically against Chinese and Koreans and far exceed the rest of the world.</p>
<p>Bay, they are scraping their family pennies together to buy a chance on a green card. Go read through the threads in the international student forum and you will quickly learn how hard these people are willing to work just to be able to try their chances here.</p>
<p>Sacci, Happydad is in biotech. The only native-born US citizens in his group are the team leader/manager ( PhD), the animal facility manager (BA), and the animal caretaker (HS diploma). Everyone else is foreign born and complete at least their undergrad degree outside the US. All the other working groups are the same. Company management is entirely US-born. Almost everyone spent some time at the NIH, so many began their US lives as visiting scientists if they weren’t here in grad school. I don’t know if it is language skills, or different cultural notions of success that keep the immigrants out of management. Happyday is terrified of trying management, and isn’t interested in leaving the lab.</p>
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<p>How many years does it take to earn a masters degree in Engineering?</p>
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<p>Depends on the school but where I go it typically takes 1-1.5, some take 2.</p>
<p>Graduate degrees are not always ‘appreciated’ in a workplace full of undergrad degrees. As a minimum, they’re not the treasure they once were.</p>
<p>In many fields it’s having very specific knowledge of a particular technology that counts more than a Harvard degree (example :)). That’s what looking for purple squirrels is all about.</p>
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<p>Oh, $100K is a lot of pennies to scrape together!</p>
<p>i agree with gladgraddad</p>
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<p>Let’s not get carried away here.</p>
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<p>I’m not getting carried away in the slightest.</p>
<p>you are getting carried away–and it’s ridiculous. there’s a difference between being concerned that american students are being shortchanged and straight out bashing foreign students.</p>