Paying Attention to our International Students
By: David Bressoud @dbressoud
David Bressoud is DeWitt Wallace Professor Emeritus at Macalester College and Director of the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences
The August 7, 2020 issue of Science ends with a moving contribution from Ruofan Yu, a postdoc from China who spoke of the incredible stress that she and all international students are under these days, fearful that they may be deported, even accused of espionage. They are afraid to visit home because the ability to return to the United States is so uncertain. For Chinese students, these stresses are compounded by looks of mistrust that sometimes rise to explicit hostility. She speaks of the feelings of anger, frustration, and a yearning for support that she shares with all Chinese students in the United States, and how meaningful it was when her university issued a public statement expressing its support for these students.
Few disciplines are as dependent on international students as the mathematical sciences. There is a need for all of us to be proactive in expressing our support for them and doing all in our power to keep our country open.
Most mathematicians are aware of the fact that international students make up about half of all doctorates in the mathematical sciences awarded each year (Figure 1). What is much less well-known is how rapidly our Master’s and undergraduate programs have come to rely on international students (Figures 2 and 3).
Figure 1: Numbers from U.S. Department of Education Digest of Education Statistics. International students recorded as Non-resident Aliens.
Figure 2: Numbers from U.S. Department of Education Digest of Education Statistics. International students recorded as Non-resident Aliens.
Figure 3: Numbers from U.S. Department of Education Digest of Education Statistics. International students recorded as Non-resident Aliens.
As recently as 2002, international students made up less than 4% of Bachelor’s degrees awarded in the mathematical sciences in the U.S. In 2018, the latest year for which we have figures, they constituted 17.4%. Mathematics is unusual in this explosive growth. In 2018, international students earned
5.7% of Bachelor’s degrees in the bio sciences
6.2% of Bachelor’s degrees in the physical sciences
8.5% of Bachelor’s degrees in the computer sciences
10.9% of Bachelor’s degrees in engineering
None of these have seen the explosive growth witnessed in mathematics. Engineering was already at 7.7% in 1990. Computer science was 7.5% that year.
The other interesting observation is that historically women have been slightly underrepresented among international students when compared with the percentage of women with U.S. citizenship or permanent residency. Now they are slightly overrepresented. This means that if we take all international students out of the numbers receiving degrees in the mathematical sciences, women have done worse than usually reported (Figures 4–6). In 2018, among the U.S. citizens and permanent residents who earned a PhD in the mathematical sciences, fewer than 25% were women. This is the first time this percentage has fallen below 25% since 1996. For master’s degrees, it fell to 36.4% in 2018 and 41.7% for Bachelor’s degrees.
Figure 4: Numbers from U.S. Department of Education Digest of Education Statistics. International students recorded as Non-resident Aliens.
Figure 5: Numbers from U.S. Department of Education Digest of Education Statistics. International students recorded as Non-resident Aliens.
Figure 6: Note that the left-hand scale has been cut off at 40% to accentuate the change. Numbers from U.S. Department of Education Digest of Education Statistics. International students recorded as Non-resident Aliens.
As the United States closes its doors to international students, Mathematics is the field that is most impacted.
Reference
Ruofan Yu. 2020. Building Bridges. Science 07 Aug 2020: Vol. 369, Issue 6504, p. 738. DOI: 10.1126/science.369.6504.738 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6504/738
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