The joy of learning to build something useful, of unearthing what no one has seen before, of understanding what was once obscure or even a mystery, of finally putting the data together, of creating something new are intellectual and spiritual joys.
The satisfaction of disciplining yourself to effectuate a goal, of working with a team, of dealing with disappointment, of refining a goal as it clarifies itself, of moving towards a new one because the original was unrealistic are mature and honorable satisfactions. These joys and satisfactions are being denied to too many Americans as international students take their place as researchers, engineers, and writers in the competition for university grants paid for by American taxpayers.
The international best and brightest are getting better and brighter on our nickel. Which has positives, the most obvious of which is that Americans can use fresh perspectives from foreign higher educational institutions, whether at home or abroad. But what should be the proportions between international research students and the children of those who fund the projects that push, educate, and inspire them?
The math is rather simple.
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In 2024, American research universities received just under $60 billion in federal research grants. Since graduate students typically serve as the primary researchers under faculty supervision, a large portion of those funds effectively supports them. And given that a majority of international students in the U.S. pursue STEM degrees —a field that dominates federal research funding—it stands to reason that international graduate students are substantial beneficiaries of these taxpayer-funded grants.
Johns Hopkins University (JHU) received more federal grants than any other university in 2024, $4.2 billion, according to the New York Times . In JHU’s own words, “By degree type, the proportion of international PhD students has increased (34% in 2013 to 42% in 2023).”
If JHU’s 42 percent seems high, looking at statistics from ETS, which celebrates the internationalization of American universities, we find this: “In 2019 and 2020, 57% of all STEM doctorate degrees were conferred to international students.” Or, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, a U.S. government agency, we see that of the 32,321 doctorate degrees awarded in the U.S. in 2020-2021, 14,799, or 46 percent, went to “non-resident” students. Given that the 2020-2021 period was the height of the COVID19, JHU’s 42 percent seems somewhat on the low side.
Finally, we have numbers from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics showing that 39 percent of STEM doctorates went to international students in 2023.
Let’s use 40 percent as a conservative estimate for the nation as a whole, encompassing the social sciences and the ETS statistics from 2019-2020. Of the $60 billion in American taxpayer grant money in 2024, 40 percent, or $24 billion, went to funding international students to work on the most exciting and inspiring educational endeavor: being part of a team researching a crucial scientific or engineering question.
What does the U.S. actually gain from pouring billions in federal grants into international graduate students? Quite a bit, some argue. One common justification is that diversity is inherently valuable—that American students benefit simply from being around people of different backgrounds, as though the most multiracial and open society in the world isn’t already diverse.
The problem with that argument is that the vast majority of international graduate students come from just two countries: China and India. That raises a question—what exactly is the transformative cultural experience being offered? And what about the thousands of East and South Asian American students who are first- or second-generation Americans? Are they supposed to be enlightened by classmates whose backgrounds closely resemble those of their own parents or grandparents?
Diversity for its own sake—especially when reduced to race or nationality—is a shallow goal. What actually matters is diversity of thought, perspective, and training. Exposure to different educational systems can be genuinely valuable. But we should stop pretending that checking demographic boxes delivers intellectual enlightenment.
The second argument concerns the economy: the more international graduate students, the better. The patents created from research and the graduates who choose to remain in the States make the U.S. richer, and the $24 billion in grant money is more than paid back. There’s no arguing with the statistics in this matter. For example, I recall that over a decade ago, there was a discussion about making UC Berkeley private because its patents were generating more revenue than the state of California allocated to it. Finally, international students pay the full tuition upfront. In terms of dollars and cents, as things currently stand, international graduates are a significant economic boon.
Beyond the question of whether the world’s brightest—and often wealthiest—students could be replaced by capable Americans in high-level research—we did, after all, put a man on the moon—there’s a deeper issue: Why are we paying others to do the hard work instead of investing in our own?
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We are the world’s wealthiest nation, yet we funnel billions in research grants to foreign nationals while many talented Americans—who need only modest financial support—are left on the sidelines. A research grant is a ticket to intellectual freedom, a chance to explore one’s field without financial constraint. For scholars, it’s a kind of heaven. And yet tens of thousands of American students and would-be scholars remain locked outside the academic pearly gates.
If the fact that 40 percent—or $24 billion in 2024—of federal research funding goes to international graduate students annually strikes you as wrong, but you’re second-guessing yourself for sounding too nationalistic, you probably assume the person raising the issue must be. Let me assure you: I’m an expat living in Italy, where much of my heart—and all of my stomach—resides. But my soul is still in the United States. And these numbers bother me, because any nation that fails to take care of its own people first will eventually cease to be a nation.
I can tell you this: Italy would never dream of such a policy. In education, commerce, industry—you name it—Italians prioritize Italians. The idea that Italy would allocate 40 percent of its university research funding to non-Italians, especially from outside the EU, which has its own funding channels, would be so foreign to the Italian mind that it would require a lecture just to explain the concept.
If you love your country, you love its people. Giving close to half of the funds meant to advance cutting-edge research to educate and train others—while so many Americans go without—feels, to me, like a quiet form of national self-rejection. And that’s fine, if that’s what you truly want. It’s a free country—still. And it was made free by Americans who loved it enough to take care of their own.
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