yes
some leading engineering/science employers sometimes do not even offer interviews to some top=honors graduates of leading universities
...preferring to hire foreigners instead
so it is a mixed picture.
AND ....WHY do you think more American students don’t take engineering and science degrees? Well, the studies are harder, yes. But also...they are not stupid (as a group, anyway)... and the facts in the employment marketplace are well known...
1. many big firms prefer foreign workers
2. in some sectors like electronics, if a worker is over about 30 years of age.... and gets laid off...there is some very real discrimination against his/her ever getting another job.....the employers very much like to hire ‘out of the cradle’ the youngest people....if you’re over 35 or 40, you can almost forget ever getting hired again (or at least if you get another job, it may be after 3 or 4 years knocking yourself out trying several hundred applications..)
meanwhile, the firms continue to import and hire (mostly young) foreigners
these are not facts in 100 percent of companies, to be sure. but they do exist quite widely in many large firms...
so that the problems are very well known ... and this fact helps depress USA student enrollments in engineering and science
FINALLY, please note that some of our state funded universities PREFER foreign students! Why? Because the university can charge much higher fees to foreign students, so the campus budget is enhanced by taking in foreign students instead of Americans...really this happens a lot... many spaces in the entering class are taken away from Americans and given to foreign students instead, thereby further lowering the number of Americans taking engineering and science degrees.
Three things... all exist in siginficant degrees...some places more than others...but all are well-known facts and all 3 depress American student enrollments in engineering and science programs
Best,
fhc
oh yes, factor number 4.... the majority of new tech companies in SillyCon Valley are now started by foreigners, mostly from PRC or India, but some other places too.
Some of these companies hire on a non-discriminatory basis but we hear reports all the time that many of them are at least as biased in favor of hiring foreigners as are the so-called American companies that do it. So, that is factor number 4, only really in the last few years but very evident now.
In short, an American student has to think twice, or maybe three or four times, before committing to an engineering degree nowadays. That is, if s/he wants to get work (initially ... and after age 35 or 40).
Of course, a person might study engineering just because they enjoy it....
A badly tortured statistic, I'm afraid.
Most tech companies have multiple founders, and quite often one of them will be foreign born.
The Center for Immigration Studies has published frequently on this issue.
Nationally, less than 20% of tech company founders are foreign born, which is right in line with the number of foreign born USA workers, which is around 17%.
It's also important to remember that foreign STEM graduates from elite USA universities typically come from wealthy countries and return home within a few years.
The foreign STEM Ph.D's who stay typically come from second tier USA universities, and most of them are second tier students from China, India, Iran, eastern Europe, and Russia who desperately want USA citizenship.
Eh, that would be me. A masochist in some ways, I suppose? And, yes, it was VERY tough after I got laid off in 2008 (company collapsed due to poor planning for the overseas competition, plus the overall economy crashed).
1 and 2 are absolutely untrue in the “very large firm” I work in.