The only noticeable drop is students from Taiwan, not because of a government clamp down, but rather improved economic and political conditions at home. In other words, U.S. students would be attracted to these careers by a tighter labor market. Interestingly enough, both Bromley and Schwartz are tenured professors and hence exempt from labor market economics. Were tenure abolished or greatly modified they would surely more keenly appreciate the situation of many APS members when U.S. university administrators began importing highly qualified and less expensive foreign nationals. The current oversupply of PhDs is clearly related to immigration policy, which is itself a legitimate, though often uncomfortable, topic for debate.
Foreign students supply half the labor.
It ignores the fact that the U.S. taxpayer largely bears the direct and hidden costs, while the majority of U.S. citizen PhDs-both native born and immigrants receive little benefit. Jr. Copyright 1997, The American Physical Society. The APS encourages the redistribution of the materials included in this newsletter provided that attribution to the source is noted and the materials are not truncated or changed.