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US turning away talent needed for innovation: report

Now you know why America is falling behind, and world investors and scientists think that China will replace the United States as the top technology innovator within four years, replacing Silicon Valley: Americans don't have enough bright students and depend on foreigners to fill the innovation gap. Why aren't American young people as smart as foreign 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.

To the comment "Everyone in science knows that long-term, secure, well-paying jobs are few and far between nowadays in scientific research," I couldn't agree more. I have children who've made huge sacrifices and paid dearly to get Ph.d. degrees, and for what? Jobs are scarce, pay is terrible - let's take care of this country, create jobs for research and innovation and pay people a good salary.

Entrepreneurship -- not waiting to be hired by someone else -- may be the best course of action for many. That's often the path taken by immigrants and green card holders.

Entrepreneurship requires capital. And STEM entrepreneurship usually requires a lot of capital. A bad economy with few jobs also has scarce capital. In any case, fresh graduates (either foreign or domestic) are NOT generally going to be able to do a STEM startup.
OTOH, whatever you may think of Obamacare, it certainly does make it easier for young people to take chances with entrepreneurship after college. And a lousy economy means there is little opportunity cost for failing at a startup (since you would have just been working a McJob or unpaid internship anyway), assuming you can come up with an idea that requires little capital (not easy).

Powerful teachers unions that created and promoted a system of mediocrity in teachers. Excellence is discouraged and even punished while incompetent teachers are protected.

2 generations of pathetic politicians with stupid policy decisions that have turned the American education system into a sick joke.

The late Senator Ted Kennedy for his proudest creation. Immigration quotas.

Those old enough will remember when "brain drain" was an issue - 3rd World countries losing their best & brightest to the USA. No one at the time would have guessed that the "solution" would turn out to be the USA turning them away.
As others have posted, a generation of the domestic best & the brightest studied how to move money around instead of make things. Unemployment for law graduates is at a record high. I haven't seen the stats for finance degrees. It's only natural for people to choose health/medicine careers. It's a guaranteed growth industry given the aging population. And there's less chance of wondering if your work has contributed to killing people or wrecking the environment.
Finally, there's concern about why young women aren't choosing STEM education/ careers but I haven't seen anything yet about how that concern has led to changing those stats.

Agreed. It often takes a huge shock -- such as Sputnik in the 1950s and World War II the decade before -- to get bright young people energized to pursue STEM programs. Perhaps seeing the incredible advancements being made in China and India will motivate North Americans to step up on STEM!

I am sure there are a lot of bright people all over the world. It is funny though that this article comes at the heels of the announcement that the H1B visa cap has been met for the year (see quote below). Given the supporters and members of the board it is not a wonder that they produced such a report. These types of reports are heavily slanted and do not look at the available talent in the US. Probably because they are older and not requiring an H1-B visa are not slaves of the industry.
"The H-1B cap has been reached for the 2013 Fiscal Year. As of June 11, 2012, USCIS received a sufficient number of H-1B petitions to reach the statutory cap. The cap exemption of 20,000 for foreign nationals holding U.S. advanced degrees was exhausted on June 7, 2012. The agency will accept no further standard or advanced degree cap-subject cases for employment in FY 2013. "

At some point in life I think we choose careers based upon who we choose as heros. Thank God people like Einstein, Vernor Von Braun and Thomas Mann were allowed to stay and become heros for a generation who found sufficient value in the rewards offered from intellectual pursuits. The wisdom of perhaps more accurately the lack of it in pushing business degrees in American society while dismissing the importance of scientific careers is so interlinked with our economic decline and the rise of China belies the poor choices we are making. Today we celebrate the 5th anniversary of the iPhone. On July 1, China will celebrate the 15th anniversary of the return of Hong Kong. Its completely appropriate that the two events so closely coincide and its worth noting how these two events echo the choices our two cultures make. An over populated China has eagerly absorbed the people of Hong Kong because it recognizes the value they offer. Hong Kong's free enterprise system and economic success is the engine driving China's growth and the leaders of China are pumping the entire resources of their government into supporting the culture they have absorbed. We on the other hand reward a culture devoted to moving money while shedding good minds as if they were a drain on our economy because a few people with a lot of money and too much influence over our government see the future for their wealth in China. For them there is no value in supporting intellectual resources in America when the money has been moved to China. While most of us might desire a more diverse and gifted cultural community the economics may not support it. How do we convince our government to change its ways?

Maybe the problem is caused by all the poisonous chemicals that the Americam public is made to swallow: fluoride, chlorine, chemtrail constituents (Barium, Aluminum), numerous prescription drugs; to name but a few. This is not a joke.

These drugs and chemicals could have an adverse impact on our young. Emerging nations that compete for talent, such as China, have a very toxic and poisoned environments as well.

The USA has over 1.8 million able and willing US citizen STEM workers who are not employed to do STEM work.

Dozens of academic studies (Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, RAND Corp...) have concluded that there was and is no shortage of able and willing US citizen STEM workers. Several studies have concluded that execs have been employing a mere 35% of the able and willing US citizen STEM workers we've been adding in recent decades.

The article is also deceptive in that the State Department has repeatedly reported that they've been issuing over 110,000 H-1B visas each year via consular offices in addition to an unspecified number of changes of status to H-1B.

Even former cross-border bodyshopper has admitted that, by every measure (especially creativity, flexibility, dynamic application of principles and concepts to new situations and purposes), US STEM workers are the best, and that the core purpose of H-1B and L-1 visas is to obtain cheap, young, pliant foreign labor (and, we have good reason to believe, to undermine standards of professional ethics). Meanwhile, hundreds of US politicians are pushing to stab even more US STEM workers in the back.

> invented a way to transmit electricity wirelessly

That's already been done, first by Tesla, and more recently by the several firms which make recharging stations which do not require devices to be plugged in.

> water filtration membrane that used nanotechnology to desalinate water

Already done several years back.

At least you could come up with an example of something that was genuinely cutting edge, a real break-through in the state of the art.

This article is full of the kind of vagueness that sets my spidey-sense tingling.

"Many" innovaters are restricted - how many are we talking about? I'm guessing less than half, otherwise the author would have said "most". It could be 10%. Or 5%. "Many" is in the eye of the beholder.

Why do these innovaters have trouble getting an employment-based green card? We aren't told. Maybe it is because they aren't employed; I hear recent college grads are having a devil of a time finding jobs these days. The problem could be they aren't eligible, not that there aren't enough available (as the author suggests).

Just because you have a patent doesn't mean your invention is actually marketable. Lots of really useless stuff is awarded a patent; do I have to suggest performing a search? Maybe we are keeping the inventors of useful stuff and weeding out the losers.

Lastly, just because you aren't physically in the U.S. doesn't mean your invention can't be marketed. I hear you can do all kinds of things across the Internet these days - even have meetings with people all over the world.

Yes, we have plenty of brilliant "home-grown" people and that issue has already been discussed. There is room for both. But, instead, we are flooded with illegals and third-world refugees who provide little of value and end up taking more than giving. (Yes, there are exceptions, so don't go there). A good part of our problems are because of this. Diseases that were once eradicated are cropping up again. We've had problems with our food supply and they are responsible for a lot of crime. We used to have standards on who we let in. A potential immigrant used to have to provide value to our society. Not anymore. A country cannot continue to absorb millions of people who provide little in the way of being productive members of society and still survive. Immigration must be controlled to a certain extent. And most of these "immigrants" don't assimilate. They demand we conform to them. I say, why did you come here if you want to make us like the sewer you left? A country has a right to control who and how many people it lets in. You want to immigrate to the US? Fine. Do it the right way and provide value. Don't come here to sponge of the rest of us.

Joe, where have you been? Not in America?

Gripped by fear of science and propelled by religious fundamentalists waiting for god to carry them up, many Americans hate foreigners, hate science, hate the basic tenants of their religion (love they neighbor; do onto others....etc), and distracted with the business of consuming cannot figure out that patents, science, foreigners, and brains has anything to do with their church, their neighborhood, or their favorite TV show. So they continue treating their church like a club or gang of belonging. The insiders in their own decadent incestuous religous club would likely make Jesus spit.

Americans have plummeted to a new low IQ. America has been sowing. Soon it will have little more than moronic politians and bankruptcy to reap.

On the positive side, all this could be changed overnight when eyes and hearts are open and there is an informed populace, and willing political force. America has shown, however, that at least in recent times, this is unlikely.

So keep them furiners outta hare, cuz we're here Mer-e-cans.

The talent that's being turned away are the millions in "progressive education" in our public schools. Oh, sure, the best and brightest will succeed due to their own personal motivations.

The rest are victims of a planned result of progressive education - to turn out a middle class who are only educated enough to perform the menial tasks alloted them by the elite. As has been previously stated in this thread, success is penalized, failure is rewarded, and mediocrity is encouraged.

I'm guessing that most of these people are students or visiting professors here for a limited time. Most of the students come here to learn from the best and then go back to help their own countrymen develop a better life. But they get greedy and want to stay here where they can make more money. They are saying 'to hell with my country, it's all about me'. And we are complaining about this. What's wrong with this picture?

The general population in America is not concerned about brain drain or entrepreneurship. As long as Dancing with the Stars, or American Idol is not affected. As long as the next iPad, iPhone, or 4G device is available they don't really care where they come from. It is only when they can't find a good paying job they get concerned, and who do they blame, immigrants. It is easier to blame them, than work at getting a good education and working your way up.