ORISE report suggests foreign doctorate recipients routinely take regular employment in the U.S. after completing postdoctoral appointments

The number of foreign, science, and engineering doctorate students who remain in the United States after graduation has declined slightly during the past five to 10 years, but long-term stay rates indicate that nearly two-thirds of foreign doctorates are continuing to stay in the U.S. These are the latest findings in a series of biennial reports that have been produced by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science Education and funded by the National Science Foundation since 2000.

The latest report is titled “Stay Rates of Foreign Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities, 2011.” It documents a study in which 2011 tax records—the most recent data currently available for the study—were used to estimate the proportion of foreign doctorate recipients from U.S. universities who stayed in the U.S. after graduation for any reason. The “Survey of Earned Doctorates,” published annually by the NSF, collects information from each graduate school on people completing doctorates each year. The Social Security Administration then calculates the proportion of those graduates with annual earnings of $5,500 or more, and these tabulations are used with appropriate adjustments (e.g., death) to produce the stay rate.

The 2011 stay rate for all foreign doctorate recipients, including those on permanent visas at graduation, was 68 percent for those graduating five years earlier, and 65 percent for those graduating 10 years earlier. [Read more…]