Is The U.S. Facing a Brain Drain?

RT News reports:

Two fundamental building blocks for any modern technological, progressive economy are discovery research and scientific investigation. By their nature, these two pursuits carry a much slower return on the investment. In the past, the US could afford to be patient because its thriving industrial sector was a magnet for the word’s talent and investment - which is why successive governments have routinely placed their dollars there. That engine which used to power the US juggernaut has been disassembled and shipped overseas.  

Politicians will certainly blame the current crisis in academia on sequestration and partisan feuds over federal budgets, but that’s only part of the story. Cuts are not only consigned to federal budgets. According to a report by the National Science Foundation, States have also cut funds for public research universities by 20 percent, in constant dollars, between 2002 and 2010. If money is cut back, that means researchers are laid off, programs are frozen, and labs are closed. As a result, talent will begin to look abroad for better opportunities.  

According to a recent interview by RT with Benjamin Corb, a public affairs director for the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB), indicators for a ‘brain drain’ from the US are already starting to manifest throughout higher education. 

 “As a survey that we put together over the summer shows, one in five American scientists are considering leaving the country for better funding opportunities outside our borders,” he said.  

The ASBMB survey also found that half the researchers had either laid off, or were expecting to lay off staff due to federal budget cuts. This includes letting go of technical staff, but more crucially it’s hurting the future crop of highly skilled experts - graduate, PhD, postdoctoral and resident trainees. It’s becoming a noticeable issue, even for some of the country’s, if not the world’s, perennially top higher education institutions like Harvard and the University of Chicago medical schools, as well as the New York State University system, to name only a few.