If current trends require changes these should be implemented through the objective replacement of noncitizen graduate-school applicants by equally competent or superior U.S. applicants. The present situation works to the advantage of the United States when viewed from the perspective that superior, highly trained, well-motivated people are being added to a critical components of our labor force, without ascertainable interference with comparable opportunities for qualified U.S. citizens, expect possibly in the academic labor market The dollar coot to the country for acquiring the services of these unusually gifted individuals is relatively low, substantially less than the real coot of bringing a U.S. citizen to the same level of training and performance.
Federal policies bear some of the responsibility for the shift in balance to foreign-born engineers.
The latter would have the desirable goal of creating a technologically competent society that will function as a world leader in international competition, while guaranteeing high standards of economic well-being and intellectual achievements for its citizens. The size of the pool of B.S. engineering graduates with U.S. citizenship is much larger than the number who apply to engineering grad uate schools. One reason for this dearth of U.S. applicants has been the lure of immediate employment at very attractive salaries. Engineering faculty members have enjoyed differential salary scales that are generally higher by 10-20 percent, depending on rank than those of their colleagues at comparable ranks in other disciplines. Such allowances, however, have been made rarely, if ever, for graduate students.