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Demand for U.S. Science PhDs Impacted by Strength of Foreign Undergraduate Programs
The expansion of undergraduate science programs within foreign countries positively affects the number of students from these same countries seeking advanced degrees at U.S. academic institutions. However, as foreign countries experience the maturation and growth of their doctoral-level programs, combined with growing employment opportunities in their economies, the flow of students to the U.S. changes. These insights, among others on the determinants of the supply of PhD students and the demand for PhD degrees, are discussed in the recent working paper, "Internationalization of U.S. Doctorate Education" by John Bound, Sarah Turner, and Patrick Walsh.
Asian countries grew to account for more than half of the total number of U.S. PhDs awarded to foreign students in 2003. Students from Germany, France, and Great Britain in that same year comprised less than 3 percent of the total PhDs awarded. Historically, students from China accounted for one percent of PhDs in engineering and the physical and life sciences from 1958-61 and 1969-71, but this cohort alone grew to 13 percent of the U.S. science PhDs awarded from 1994-96. Besides the growth of potential and interested students, the authors also found the flow of foreign students from year to year is impacted by changes in U.S. federal government investments for university research, the development of ethnic social networks, political transformations, and openness to trade.
However, the composition of foreign students at elite U.S. institutions differs from the general pool of foreign PhD students.
The authors examined the top five universities in several scientific disciplines and found Asian countries - notably Taiwan, South Korea, and China - are underrepresented in top PhD programs in the U.S. For example, while students from China represented 15.5 percent of all the awarded PhD degrees in chemistry from 1994 to 2003, Chinese students received only 5.3 percent of the PhD degrees at the nation's top five chemistry programs.
Students from countries with more advanced PhD programs also come to the U.S., but are much more concentrated in these elite programs. While students from Canada represent about one percent of the total number of PhDs awarded in physics and biochemistry programs across the U.S., the percentage of degrees that go to Canadian students at elite programs jumps to three percent of the total.
The aggregated number of foreign PhD students has grown significantly over time. The authors' assessment of science and engineering degrees, which excludes the social sciences, finds students from outside the U.S. accounted for 51 percent of PhD recipients in 2003, compared to only 27 percent of recipients in 1973. Furthermore, the number of doctorate degrees received by students from foreign countries now outnumbers the PhDs awarded to U.S. residents in the fields of engineering, the physical sciences, and economics. Only in the life sciences is this reversed.
From a policy perspective, one might expect as other nations' PhD programs improve, the flow of international students in terms of the number and quality of students will change as well.
The working paper "Internationalization of U.S. Doctorate Education" is available at: