We have plenty of bright students
But they are following the big money into law, health/medicine, banking, securities trading, etc. Everyone in science knows that long-term, secure, well-paying jobs are few and far between nowadays in scientific research. When the US returns to spending the same % of GDP on R&D as our competitor countries do (and as we used to do), you'll see those bright students shift into STEM fields.
All those patents are submitted by foreigners because our research is being done at universities by cheap imported labor (i.e., foreign grad students). But have no fear, Wall Street: the patents are mostly held by US universities.
