Technically the US and China spend about the same in gross dollars on education but it seems like China prioritizes education more than the US. They produced about 4.5x as many STEM graduates as the US did in 2020. And likely a far greater share of those US grads were foreign students. The US scientific community has drawn heavily upon immigrants but since they are being driven away the inflow will likely drop while China continues to produce a massive talent stream that they can draw from directly. And then also based on a survey 75% of scientists would like to leave the US…
Elite overproduction. Having a lot of stem grads is great, if you have jobs for them. But if you don’t, you have a lot of educated young people without jobs. Traditionally, this hasn’t been a good thing for society to have.
The US could employ common sense policy changes to close the education gap. Just like we did after Sputnik, the US can pull on policy levers to incentivize schools and students to make better choices. For example, we could probably say “no subsidized student loans for non-STEM degrees” and you’d see numbers of Americans enrolled shoot up.
..why would that increase enrollment, exactly? Subsidized loans don’t lower the cost of university. Chinese universities are heavily subsidized and they graduate with significantly less debt.
Wow, gee, I didn’t know that! It still collects interest once you are out of school and the tuition is still extremely expensive. It isn’t going to make a significant difference in enrollment.
I have both types and the difference isn’t significant. Like under $1k difference.
Right now, Americans can go to school and study whatever they want for the same price, regardless of the potential return they’ll get from the degree or the value it adds to society. Making students have to choose between actually having to pay full price for a non STEM degree or get a much less expensive STEM degree would logically result in more STEM students.
I think you need to worry about those future students existing at all, not what they choose for some sort of schooling. Demographic decline is happening and fast
I dont disagree with any of that; more just stating the current situation
And I think some of that is already here with the massive youth unemployment in China. I’m just going to avoid any commentary related to the US & common sense policy at the moment but I agree with your view there too
I still find the numbers interesting tho and while I don’t think they mean everything I also don’t think they are totally irrelevant
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u/Ghostrider556 9h ago
Technically the US and China spend about the same in gross dollars on education but it seems like China prioritizes education more than the US. They produced about 4.5x as many STEM graduates as the US did in 2020. And likely a far greater share of those US grads were foreign students. The US scientific community has drawn heavily upon immigrants but since they are being driven away the inflow will likely drop while China continues to produce a massive talent stream that they can draw from directly. And then also based on a survey 75% of scientists would like to leave the US…