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Economic Study of Foreign STEM Talent

Updated: Author: Alina Kanametova

Reference Guides 128 pages Anonymized Access on request

A policy report from the Science and Technology Policy Institute on the economic benefits and losses linked to foreign STEM talent in the United States. It…

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About this document

A policy report from the Science and Technology Policy Institute on the economic benefits and losses linked to foreign STEM talent in the United States. It compares gains from work, study, entrepreneurship, and tuition spending with costs from trade-secret misappropriation, academic fraud, and intangible technology transfer. The report also discusses national security effects and provides net assessments across five foreign STEM talent categories.

Key points

  • Prepared for the Office of Science and Technology Policy on foreign STEM students and workers in the United States.
  • Groups the subject into five categories: visitors, workers, researchers, doctoral students, and bachelor's/master's students.
  • Estimates foreign-born STEM workers at 28-30% of the U.S. STEM workforce and STEM doctorates at 44%.
  • Reports foreign STEM doctoral students as about one-third of new STEM doctorates, with high post-graduation stay rates.
  • Estimates 2019 labor value-added from the foreign-born STEM workforce at $367 billion to $409 billion.
  • Estimates foreign STEM students spent $21.7 billion in the United States on tuition, room, board, and other education costs.
  • Finds cybercrime is the main route in the trade-secret theft analysis and does not treat foreign STEM talent as a critical factor in copyright, trademark, or patent infringement.
  • Does not produce a numeric loss estimate for intangible technology transfer, but discusses gross job-loss ranges linked to China and Chinese talent program salary figures.

When it helps

This report serves as background evidence on the economic value and possible risks associated with foreign STEM talent in the United States. It supports a broader policy record by laying out benefit-cost estimates and a net-assessment framework across several foreign-STEM categories.

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