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by grad_ml 2890 days ago
From the article a)approximately 80% of full-time graduate students in computer science and electrical engineering at U.S. universities are international students.

b)Economists Giovanni Peri, Kevin Shih and Chad Sparber notes “A 1 percentage point increase in the foreign STEM share of a city’s total employment increased the wage growth of native college-educated labor by about 7–8 percentage points and the wage growth of non-college-educated natives by 3–4 percentage points.”

3 comments

> approximately 80% of full-time graduate students in computer science and electrical engineering at U.S. universities are international students.

Just 80? LOL, that sounds low to me. I did an MSCS at a U.S. university in 2005, and I was one of two U.S. citizens in the entire _program_. I took multiple courses where I was the only U.S.-born person in the room, including the professor.

> b)Economists Giovanni Peri, Kevin Shih and Chad Sparber notes “A 1 percentage point increase in the foreign STEM share of a city’s total employment increased the wage growth of native college-educated labor by about 7–8 percentage points and the wage growth of non-college-educated natives by 3–4 percentage points.”

I don't doubt this correlation, but I do doubt that the relationship is causal in the direction suggested. More likely higher less supply of naive work to meet the needs of local industry -> both higher native wages and greater effort toward and eligibility for visa sponsorship for foreign workers.

So in the limit case where 100% of the STEM employment is foreign the average wages of native workers will be 220% higher than they are now? What mechanism will achieve this remarkable result?
STEMs be eating, shopping, getting hair cuts, and what not.