Yup, it’s called a brain drain and it’s why until recently America held a vice grip on groundbreaking research and its commercialization.

Every prestigious (STEM) college I’m aware of, a large ratio of graduate students and professors are foreign.

Even in the EU, graduate students and professors come from other continents.

Many are Indian and Chinese, but there are people from all over Europe, South America, Africa (certainly Australia but oddly I don’t know any OTOH)…it’s very diverse. But everyone speaks English.

If you look at most decent engineering universities, are they any different if you restrict to engineering/science departments? I don't have statistics, but when I was in grad school, the mini-institute I was part of (5-6 faculty members + students) had more than 50% foreigners. And I think all the non-foreigners were born abroad (whether Green Card or US citizen).

In my very average undergrad university, the EE department had 2 non-American PhD students, and something like 6-10 international students.

What point are you trying to make by sharing this?

I'm amazed at how many of the respondents in this HN thread aren't discussing the super-mega-seismic externalities laid upon universities by the current administration. Universities always have issues, but there's an orange elephant in the room.

Somehow Trump manages to do 1,000 nasty things and people talk around their effects a few weeks/months later. We may be bored of talking about him, or centering conversations about what he wrought, but that's a mistake.

It’s due to fewer positions mentioned in the link though right?

MIT would always have more applicants than positions. The only thing that would drop total numbers of students should be fewer positions.

Which of course is just as much of an issue since it highlights a blatant attack on education in general.

Might be the only thing keeping America great. We lose the Chinese, Indians and Russians and we’re going to be a scientific backwater in a decade.

ah did not now. 41%

Would be nice to see if this number dipped from before. International students typically end up paying out of station tuition and is a huge source of income for the univs.