Thread by @polotek

This is a weird conversation. I get why people are having it, but I'm having a hard time with it. And I think it's mostly because my own politics have shifted a lot and no longer align with most mainstream thinking.

If I understand things right (I may not), the issue is half of the graduate degrees from American Universities go to international students. People view this as a problem. Presumably because that talent is not staying in the US to participate in our economy. I think I get that.

I think I'm having a hard time with it for 2 reasons.

1) In a bunch of other areas of economics, people keep saying that everything is globalized now, and that's a good thing.

2) I don't view education as a national asset that we should be guarding jealously.

I’m not misunderstanding the point Aaron made. And I’m not disagreeing with him. I understand it’s not easy for international students to stay here after post-grad work. I’m responding to the general discourse and not Aaron specifically. (Discourse is more than just disagreeing)

I agree that companies developed in the US has a different impact on our economy than companies developed abroad. I don’t think anyone is successfully reasoning about the second order effects. I think the way these policies interact isn’t entirely based in reason.

I mean this country can’t even manage policy that avoids creeping fascism and authoritarian coups. Whenever people suggest that American policy seeks a grounding in reason, it makes me laugh.

Where I get confused is when people talk about making it easier for immigrants to stay here based on their assumed economic value. While we have a completely different conversation about immigrants who don’t have PhDs.

Okay, the thing that was bothering me just crystalized. We can talk about immigration policy and there are many things that can be improved there. But the piece that is missing is the conversation here at home. What I see is Americans devaluing college. And post-grad especially.

The conversation I see among Americans is how to break into lucrative fields without "wasting" money on expensive college degrees. So I'm not sure how to reconcile that with the convo about how not keeping enough immigrants with degrees here is impacting the US.

I don't think this is missing from the discourse. I think it's central to the discourse. It explains exactly why policymakers want to educate international students but not let them stay. Because we make money that way while also satisfying our xenophobia.

So let me ask folks a question to try to get at this in a more direct way.

You're saying we should value international students with post-grad degrees more highly. Fine. But are you also giving Americans the advice that they should go get post-grad degrees?

Very few people attempted to answer this question. And I know y'all read it. I'm not sure what to make of that.

Jeff has some worthwhile thoughts on what the calculus sounds like among Americans.