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It's harder to recruit PhD students and it's harder to fund them. NSF budget was cut 55% in the first year. The administration is doing everything possible to make it clear that no foreigners are welcome here. America is stabbing itself directly in the brain.
By Hammershaft 2026-01-2720:454 reply The %55 budget cut is proposed, it fortunately hasn't happened yet and it might not survive congress.
By ModernMech 2026-01-2721:36 They can cut budgets without Congress by reappropriating money now, it's one of the powers they've managed to usurp. But they don't have to cut anything, they manage to curb spending by throwing a wrench in the whole machine and watching awards crawl to a halt. They cancel grants, fire or drive out reviewers to increase review times, or delay follow-up funding. Maybe the funding comes through eventually but students need to be funded continually; the government will pull their visas if they don't have funding to enroll.
They're also straight up harassing and arresting foreign students for no reason, so they don't even have to muck with the budget at all to materially ruin things.
Damage has been done. I working on de-investing in the USA companies and investing in the EU. USA executive branch, legislative branch, and judicial branch are a complacent in stupidity. There is no stability in the USA and no longer rule of law.
By theshrike79 2026-01-2810:152 reply EU is more stable. A sigle person can't declare themselves dictator and unilaterally start applying rules affecting the whole of EU.
And the "extreme" tax thing is just pure propaganda. USA pays just as much, but it's not called a "tax", it's just insurance copays (whatever that is), credit card fees, childcare fees, tuitions etc.
By disgruntledphd2 2026-01-2814:381 reply As I often point out here, my marginal rate where I live (Ireland) and what I'd have paid in California were almost identical.
Now California is a high-tax state, but given that there's no health insurance included that seems pretty similar to me.
By compsciphd 2026-01-2821:512 reply were you not employed by an employer that was paying your insurance premiums? Heck, when I was in california the startup I was at was paying almost my entire insurance premium.
and in practice, I'd argue I had better quality of care from that than from my socialized insurance in my current country, though the socialized care does have some benefits.
reason for better quality of care is that in the US system for all its problems, the patient is the customer as they have many options and each doctor is running an independent business. my experience with socialized medicine is that the government is really the customer, not me, and doctors are not really running independent businesses (and when they do, they aren't particularly cheap). It's like having a single HMO that gets to decide what you get with little recourse. While some might equate it to health insurance companies in the US, I, at least, felt I had much more flexibility with them.
By SetTheorist 2026-01-2822:431 reply https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-vs-health...
The data does not support the claim that the US has "better quality of care"
By compsciphd 2026-01-299:33 the US is a big place with large variance in care. Places with socialized/centrally managed medicine are arguably going to have less variance. As I argued, "I had better care", not that everyone has better care.
As a techie with good insurance, I could be in the top percentiles of care in the US and therefore have better care.
By disgruntledphd2 2026-01-299:34 > were you not employed by an employer that was paying your insurance premiums? Heck, when I was in california the startup I was at was paying almost my entire insurance premium.
I didn't end up moving to California, mostly for family reasons. However, I do in fact get my private health insurance paid (mostly) by my employer in Ireland.
> reason for better quality of care is that in the US system for all its problems, the patient is the customer as they have many options and each doctor is running an independent business. my experience with socialized medicine is that the government is really the customer, not me, and doctors are not really running independent businesses (and when they do, they aren't particularly cheap). It's like having a single HMO that gets to decide what you get with little recourse. While some might equate it to health insurance companies in the US, I, at least, felt I had much more flexibility with them.
I mean, I am a specialist and I like when people listen to me about my specialist advice. Therefore, I'm OK with listening to doctors. Clearly I'll find another doctor if the advice doesn't work consistently but my prior is to listen to the experts, so I don't really see the benefit of the US approach.
By water9 2026-01-3113:23 That’s right they can’t just like lock everybody down into their homes and force them to get a vaccine for no freaking reason. The ex dream tax is what we pay in California which is driving all the business businesses out and driving all the homelessness in. The extreme tax is what midwits like yourself protect with the ferocity only surpassed by that of which you show for non-citizens
By Hammershaft 2026-01-2818:561 reply I don't think the taxes are a big factor. The most entrepreneurial tech-oriented startup hubs in the US are the highest taxed states.
The regulatory environment does make a difference.
By water9 2026-01-3113:24 And they’re all leaving…
By huxley 2026-01-2720:52 You’re not wrong that it hasn’t been passed by congress but just the proposal has already led to a massive decrease in grants. I am not as optimistic that Congress would go against admin policy
By cyanydeez 2026-01-281:42 Half of the admins goals are met simply by creating uncertainty.
European researcher here.
There is an other thing that should make America worry.
Research grants have been cut everywhere in the US. That cuts deep and terminated many scientific collaborations between USA and the EU Horizons projects in many STEMs research fields.
That created a void.... and sciences is like nature: it hates void (and the lack of money...)
My perception in the domain is that the resulting void is been fulfilled everywhere by new collaborations with China. Because China has the money, the infrastructures, the will to progress and a shit ton of smart engineers/PhDs.
There is today 10x more conferences in China... more exchange with China... more common projects with China than 10y ago.
So congratulations to the Trump team: your anti-intellectualism is actually directly fueling new technologies and research breakthroughs to the country you consider 'your enemy'.
You being an outside observer of my country, what do you think the mid-term (next ~decade) looks like if the US is somehow able to flush the toilet and do a complete 180 from a policy and administration perspective? I imagine even if people we need are welcomed back with open arms, they're not going to want to come. I sure wouldn't want to go back to a bar where the bouncer kicked the shit out of me!
Just curious, it's hard to see things clearly from inside the carnival.
As an outsider as well, I think the damage done will be hard to reverse in just a decade. You lost trust of your closest allies. Even after the current presidential term, why would we (Europeans, Canadians, ..) invest in ties with the US, when the _next next_ president can be an entire shitshow again?
The American people have shown that they are okay voting for the same nationalistic rhetoric twice. If it was just once, maybe it's a fluke. Now it seems more like a pattern hinting at the mindset of ~50% of Americans.
Also, if I want to be really pessimistic, I'd look at history, at some point Roman turned on Roman (Caesar crossing the Rubicon) after years/decades of political turmoil. The things happening today in Minnesota etc could be preludes a similar Rubicon crossing moment that will shatter the republic..
By ben_w 2026-01-2816:26 An irrelevant distinction.
The problem is that America returned power to a doubly-impeached, 34x convicted felon, where there were circulated photos of the boxes of unlawfully retained government documents he's stored in his bathroom and on the stage of a ballroom, and who was already known to hate all useful international institutions and who was already distainful anyone else's sovreignty.
That he added to this after the second election with the tariffs, visible corruption, sucking up to murderers, endangering our (by which, as a non-American, I mean every other nation's) security both directly and indirectly with both suggestions of military force against allies and also of refusing to aid allies when called for, plus all the ICE stuff we can see… that costs the US a lot of trust even if you can't reasonably blame the US electorate directly for failing to see that so clearly ahead of the actual vote.
All the second paragraph stuff though? That the electorate should've know from before the reelection? That should've had him in prison for the rest of his life, possibly even due to the stuff we heard about selling state secrets and under 18 U.S.C. § 794 getting on death row (which I disaprove of as a principle and call for the abolition of, but you in the US do have it), not returned to the oval office.
By derangedHorse 2026-01-2812:542 reply Not an applicable quote to parent. Everyone made a choice, but not participating is definitionally a different choice than participating and going along with a specific option.
By GJim 2026-01-2815:35 Hard disagree.
By not participating, you are choosing not to care, despite the evident danger this may bring (and has brought).
By filoeleven 2026-01-2822:04 That was a great argument up until the guy who led an insurrection was allowed to run for president again. At that point, if you're apathetic, you're supporting what's coming.
Edit: The Royal You, not the person I'm replying to.
By bossmandarin 2026-01-285:501 reply rightttttt
By esseph 2026-01-287:44
As an outsider not in academia, your system has poisoned your well.
We trusted in you to do the Right Thing, yet a significant sub-system of your culture has entirely successfully undermined your 'Checks and Balances' - a sub-system which has clearly been in action since at least the eighties.
I don't know how you get rid of that. It's You.
.
I get that America/the West is far from perfect.
By GuestFAUniverse 2026-01-2720:423 reply Are you kidding?
Currently I wouldn't dare to enter the US, while I'm sure I would be relatively safe in China. And: even before Trump the TSA had elements of despotism. All the while I never heard of Europeans being treated like shit in China -- simply the better hosts!
100% this.
I keep mentioning that to people when they bring up a quite anti-China narrative (or paranoia). Most people in the western hemisphere are way more likely to be negatively impacted by the US than China.
Europeans, Canadians etc are less likely to travel to China so of course Chinese media spying would be less immediately detrimental than the spying of US companies. But even when traveling to China, it's less likely you'll be treated poorly than when traveling to the US.
By sheikhnbake 2026-01-2721:033 reply We in the US have been so propagandized against China that even relatively progressive people that are completely against the Trump admin think China is an authoritarian hellscape. And while China is obviously not a utopia, I'd be hard pressed to find a metric there that hasn't surpassed our own.
By actionfromafar 2026-01-2722:184 reply China has no free speech and will start flexing its imperial muscle more now that the US is climbing down from the world stage.
China is alright if you keep your head down and you're not of the wrong ethnicity, locked up in a work camp and not allowed to have kids, or too openly gay or trans and so on.
Ah, so you do have free speech, I take it? Unless you criticise a certain assassinated far right activist, of course.
And don’t even get me started on flexing an imperial muscle. South America and the EU would like a word.
The history of civilization over the past 5,000 years proves that China has never been an empire of foreign aggression. On the contrary, look at the 300-year-old modern history of the United States. Take off the tinted glasses of racism and savor it for yourself!
By nec4b 2026-01-2819:45 China has literally has been an empire most of it's history. It's like the 3rd biggest country on the planet. Just Tibet itself is huge and was absorbed into China not so long ago.
US is regressing on trans rights, abortion, etc. Free speech is under threat with the president “attacking” media institutions. You have daylight murder by federal agents followed by propaganda campaigns to blame the victims themselves or on the Democratic Party to create more political friction.
No one is saying China is perfect in these threads, we’re just saying the US isn’t necessarily better. Two countries can be shitty simultaneously.
By actionfromafar 2026-01-280:503 reply Two countries can be shitty but the US hasn’t yet put a million of its citizens in jail because of ethnicity. Maybe going there in the future. That won’t white wash what China is.
The US, with around 4% of world population, has around 25% of the worlds prisoners, vastly higher in total and percentage wise than China.
By derangedHorse 2026-01-2813:301 reply It would not be higher in total if you included the estimated number of Uyghurs detained in internment camps. Even considering that, there are a couple other factors that don't make the numbers you presented mean much.
One factor is that the U.S. is the 3rd largest by population and will always skew higher in total prisoners than many other countries.
The other factor which explains the relatively high incarceration rate within the country's population is the investment into policing and reporting. We can take a city like Shanghai for example. They had a population size of around ~24m+ in ~2018-2019 [1] but only had 50k cops [2] (I couldn't find citable numbers for today but the data isn't too outdated). New York City, in comparison, has a current current population size of around ~8m [3] with 33k cops [4].
The 2 countries bigger than the U.S., India and China, also historically have had less investment in law enforcement, especially in rural areas [5][6].
[1] https://tjj.sh.gov.cn/tjnj/nj19.htm?d1=2019tjnje/E0201.htm
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Municipal_Public_Secu...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City
[4] https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/about/about-nypd/about-nypd-la...
[5] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3215865/chi...
[6] https://villagesquare.in/rural-crime-and-policing-in-indias-...
By esseph 2026-01-281:04 > but the US hasn’t yet put a million of its citizens in jail because of ethnicity
Even current events show this to be false, let alone: Jim Crow, Japanese Internment, Native American reservations, etc ...
It has put like 3 million, a quite a lot due to their social class. Disproportionately impacting a minority ethnicity in the process.
By actionfromafar 2026-01-281:142 reply Still not making China a good country
By piva00 2026-01-2811:09 I didn't state that, at all.
The point was that the US touts itself as a free country while having many perverse incentives and mechanisms oppressing part of its citizenry. There's a veneer on top of it of individual freedoms compared to a state like China but in reality it can be as brutal against its population as any totalitarian state, it's just that the power to subjugate and oppress isn't centralised and is more diffused through its institutions across history.
It's not too far in history that the US was deploying the National Guard to fire live ammo against protesters, American police has military-grade equipment deployed against their citizens, I think it makes it even harder that the oppressive power isn't centralised since to uproot this there are countless battles to be won for any change to happen. It's institutionalised, any big institution is really hard to change.
By Insanity 2026-01-281:39 No one is arguing that lol. I think you’re missing the point of these comments.
By sdenton4 2026-01-2816:20 As the bard said: "You think your living in the land of the free? Whoever told you that is your enemy."
By insane_dreamer 2026-01-281:101 reply US is quickly heading the direction of China, but China is much much further along the path of authoritarian hellscape: no free speech at all, no freedom of the press, all social media is heavily censored, and the GFW allows government control of the Internet (yes, I know, VPNs exist, but they can be shut down and aren't even on the radar of the vast majority of the population.) All this was already the case in 2017 when I left China and it's even more controlled now (COVID only increased government controls). You don't see this as a foreigner, but as a Chinese you absolutely do. Trust me when I say it's still, even with the current wanna-be dictator and his white supremist minions, much worse than the US in terms of freedoms.
On the other hand, China doesn't suffer from the US' current bone-headed anti-Science and "climate change is a hoax" nonsense, and have a much clearer understanding of where they need to continue investing in order to become the world leader economically and even politically, which Trump in his stupidity is handing them on a silver platter. So in that sense they are far ahead.
China is also of course much smarter when it comes to foreign policy, though Trump has set such a low bar that even a monkey could do better.
I'd rather not live in either country, but if I had to choose, I'd pick the US and it's not even close.
By Peaches4Rent 2026-01-286:151 reply Agreed. I think the original thread was about which country you would rather visit as a European. And it seems that China comes ahead
By insane_dreamer 2026-01-2823:15 China is a great place to visit. Living there long-term is an entirely different matter.
By betty_staples 2026-01-284:00 [dead]
> I never heard of Europeans being treated like shit in China -- simply the better hosts!
Yeah. Also lets not forget:
- Citizens from most EU countries can now enter China visa free. No ESTA and no other administrative crap. Generally no problem to enter and leave the country as long as you respect the law there.
- The Chinese authority are very cooperative when it is about granting some visting Visa to researchers. Most Chinese research centers and Universities have a some kind of direct link to an office that can bypass some of the procedures.
The situation is way easier than it was 10y ago.
If you dig into my comment history, i've been pretty pro China (despite a ding i will do every time: China rural areas are decaying faster than in the west. I think the main contributor is the difference between contryside/rural pay (80-100€ when i was there) and city/industrial pay (700-800€ with no qualification at the time)).
I will still add a caveat with what you've said: China make/unmake rules pretty fast, and while not hidden, those are not easy to find and understand (especially when you take into account enforcement). When those rules touch on immigration policy or on societal stuff change, it can surprise you. As a westerner you should always be OK, but this is a country with no rule of law, you should always keep that in mind.
> As a westerner you should always be OK, but this is a country with no rule of law.
Let's be clear: I am not discussing nor defend China internal policies here. I honestly do not care and I am not pro China.
I am pointing a single fact: As a EU researcher, it is easier now to go to China than to go the US for conferences and collaboration. And we do feel more welcome there.
That single fact alone should terrify any US politician with a brain.
By orwin 2026-01-289:00 Sorry, it wasn't a criticism of what you said, i wanted to add a caveat because what you said was true in 99.9999% of cases, but as China laws application are arbitrary (and their laws change all the time), you still ought to be careful when going there.
By detritus 2026-01-2811:15 I'm guessing my flawed use of an asterisk, resulting in a weird highlighting out of context, confused your interpretation of what I was saying, because I believe we're suggesting the same thing.
By adev_ 2026-01-2721:32 > what do you think the mid-term (next ~decade) looks like if the US is somehow able to flush the toilet and do a complete 180 from a policy and administration perspective?
I honestly do not know.
Academia works with networking between peers and moves where the money is.
In Academia, the relation between researchers and the 'names' in the domain matters a lot. But the money stream matters even more.
When relations are created, I do not see them 'ending' just because US decided to play the good guys again and open the money stream again.
It will help to restore some links yes, but will probably not cut any ties created with other countries.
By bulbar 2026-01-286:32 Regarding general politics / economics, the damage has been done. The western world has now started to create a western world that's not centered around the US as it was the case before. It is yet to be seen if the US will again be or remain being part of the western world.
It's a bad development but necessary, sadly. We can only hope that Europe rises and comes out as a new strong center eventually, because we need one to counter all those powerful and evil actors in the world.
By theshrike79 2026-01-2810:18 You need a constitutional change.
Something ironclad that can't be changed by an "executive order" in 30 minutes.
It has to make sure nothing like this will ever happen again, there can't be public officials who can just NOT show up to congressional hearings and if they do they can just blatantly, provably, lie - because there is no penalty for lying except a honour system.
Your supreme court has to have term limits with no reelection like the German equivalent and be comprised of different strata of folks, so that all of them aren't politically nominated.
The trust is gone and not easily fixed without something really drastic happening - barring a brutal civil war, I can't see a quick way out of this. Sorry.
By 1718627440 2026-01-2815:11 The problem is that separating from the USA as idea has been floating around for some time. Thinking they have jurisprudence over allies, forcing allies into supporting stupid wars and operating global surveillance companies are not things that started with Trump.
By donkeybeer 2026-01-288:29 Whenever the last maga dies will be the beginning of your country being trusted again. So at least a few decades. Just another administration won't do.
By PennRobotics 2026-01-3010:35 After the 2016 election, my advisor's entire research lab relocated to Europe except for two candidates who were nearly finished with a PhD and got co-advised.
The majority of us who moved became proficient in a foreign language. Some got permanent EU/UK/Swiss residency or even citizenship. This lab continues to attract researchers from the U.S. and then place them mostly into European and Asian universities or businesses. These folks are largely not going back to America short of forceful expulsion via European anti-immigration policy. I know other research group leaders who have done this same thing.
Someone I know in the U.S. has a PhD/grants/awards and wants to stay close to family/home (in a mid-sized city of a Republican-leaning state) yet hasn't been able to find a job or academic position in biological engineering after a few years of actively looking. The longer they work outside of their major, the harder it will be to secure an engineering/academic career later.
For too many in the U.S. (particularly where I grew up; a farm town) politics is a team sport and the hatred of the other team only intensifies as the government invests in higher education and research. They're willfully blind to the fact that cancer treatments, major agricultural advances (crop resilience, production efficiency, genetic modification), smartphones and fast internet access, trucking, and nearly every aspect of their lives which has vastly improved comes from social spending. Instead, it's stickers on gas pumps and chants at NASCAR races. Leftist voters are not as decisive at the voting booth as Republicans, and there's still right-wing momentum in many states across all levels of government, the judicial system, and the leadership of the largest companies.
I firmly disbelieve the U.S. can reverse course even after a decade. In my opinion, it would require immense structural and cultural change: breaking up the two-party system, rejecting money in politics, political/judicial age limits, a major push to disrupt clandestine foreign meddling, shifting the partisan balance of courts in a way that cannot later be weaponized, heavy investment in infrastructure and high-visibility patriotic (ideally non-partisan) programs similar to Eisenhower's, the sort of intense media regulation that would restore local journalism in small towns, paying teachers significantly more plus developing more public trust in the educational system, public research investment, high taxes, strong social programs, a rejection of the propaganda that America is the greatest country in the world; basically a shift toward being more like the countries that actually(*) have a high standard of living.
Who has the power to implement these sweeping changes? Would it be a conflict of their personal interests?
By somethingsome 2026-01-2720:362 reply Hi, I looked into joint collaborations between many countries and EU, but honestly I didn't really find anything EU-China that was interesting, most funding agencies do not fund collaborative projects EU-China, or maybe I'm missing something, in any cases it didn't strike me. If you have some examples I would be curious.
There are way more opportunities with other countries that I'm aware of, mostly EU-EU.
By adev_ 2026-01-2721:24 You are not going to find much because China is not yet part officially of Horizons (South Korea and Japan are but not China).
Most of these collaborations happens under the hood and are peer-to-peer and project based.
I can speak for the fields that I am close to:
- For Astrophysics, China already provide both hardware and computing resources to some projects. Conferences in China are in common and exchange are frequents. Rumors of collaborations on Space and scientific satellites are also on the way.
- For nuclear physics, China is actively participating in several software stack used for nuclear fusion. There is also mutual collaborations on some nuclear fusion reactors and they regularly host conferences where EU researchers are invited. They progressed tremendously compared to 10y ago.
- For particle physics, China was historically playing alone and was planning to create and operate their own particle collider similar to the LHC in size. This is not on the table anymore. There is a deeper collaborations with several EU institutes including CERN, they also voiced their interest in the FCC project.
- For Neurosciences, their labs has permissions to execute wet experiments on animals that are forbidden on most EU territories and that I will not describe. A lot of data are shared both way between China and several EU labs. Many neurosciences related conferences have emerged in China, exchanges are much more common that they were.
- For HPC and A.I, this is by far the most active and pushed research domain actually. Alibaba, Tencent and others are even proposing computing resources for free on some projects in exchange of conference attendance in China and collaborations. There is not much collaboration on hardware (due to embargos and NDAs) but a lot of collaborations on software.
By bnjms 2026-01-2720:46 I’m unfamiliar with academia but doesn’t this only measure formal funding? It doesn’t measure collaboration with separate EU funding.
By seanmcdirmid 2026-01-281:21 China is definitely the big winner of the second Trump administration here. America alienating its friends like Canada just pushes them closer to China, and retreating from the stage of world science means China can fill the gap.
I guess it is actually going to happen, in 10 years, 20 years max, no one will think the world super power is America anymore, it will clearly be behind China by then.
By WinstonSmith84 2026-01-2720:381 reply I certainly believe you, but you're missing the point of the current administration goals. Trump wont be around in 10 years when the consequences of their actions become clear. In fact, he is gone in 3 years, and the admin is only concerned within that timeframe. Their strategy is quite clear: please their base while simultaneously positioning the family for influence on a global scale.
By adev_ 2026-01-2722:20 The damage is done.
Scientific collaborations are built on trust, not on an election mandate. And the trust is undeniably damaged.
Which funding agency will accept to bring money to the table if the other partner is likely to run home and abandoned everything on the next election 2y later ?
This was already a problem with long term collaboration with NASA and the back and forth of Congress funding, Trump just extended the same issue to all other STEMs fields.
By NedF 2026-01-2723:34 [dead]
By TacoCommander 2026-01-2720:491 reply [flagged]
By Nasrudith 2026-01-283:14 Creating huge inequalities among people as opposed to highlighting them? Seriously? That doesn't sound like something derived from reasoning, it sounds like rationalization from feelings first.
By Intralexical 2026-01-2720:251 reply > So congratulations to the Trump team: your stupidity and your hate for intellectualism is directly fueling new technologies to the country you consider 'your enemy'.
Do we have any evidence that they actually consider China (or Russia) to be "the enemy"? They are fellow authoritarians, with a shared goal of normalizing domestic political suppression.
It’s both.
Every authoritarian country thrives on “we’re surrounded by enemies, enemies everywhere” trope.
But, of course, all those glorious leaders happily shake hands and dine with each other, patting their backs and sharing ideas on how to keep peasants in check and themselves in power.
By briantakita 2026-01-2721:51 Kayfaybe...Donald Trump worked with WWE for a reason...
By gdilla 2026-01-2815:17 plenty of tech bros voted for this.
By ajzushzb 2026-01-2720:04 [dead]
By emeril 2026-01-2721:07 [flagged]
By john_moscow 2026-01-2720:352 reply Unpopular opinion: there has been a steady decline of standards in the research community in the past decade or two. First reproducibility crisis. Then, some topics becoming political taboo where the unorthodox opinion would get you fired and canceled. The credibility of the science in the West has been falling, and the recent change of administration is predictably axing something that has a perceived strong bias in the opposite direction.
An optimist in me hopes that we can get back to unbiased science, where it doesn't have to agree with the current side, but both sides perceive it as fair and agree to leave it alone for common good. A realist thinks that it will happen in China, and the West has just run out of steam.
By munificent 2026-01-2720:491 reply > back to unbiased science
Science has always struggled with biases. There was no perfect time in the past that you are imagining where that wasn't an issue.
If it seems worse today, it's largely because the systemic biases that were already there are becoming more visible, which is a sign of progress.
By briantakita 2026-01-2721:53 When Science replaced Religion...Science took the place of Religion...
By adev_ 2026-01-2722:30 > Then, some topics becoming political taboo where the unorthodox opinion would get you fired and canceled
This is garbage.
What you describe might be the case in some social-sciences circles but never has been the case in most STEMs fields.
If you have a (sensical) unorthodox idea that displease a research director, 10 other research directors will be very happy to dig up this exact idea in a slightly different context.
This is how sciences progress.
By guywithahat 2026-01-2720:094 reply > It's harder to recruit PhD students and it's harder to fund them
If it’s harder to fund them then it should be easier to recruit them. I don’t think both can be true at the same time, unless you’re saying it’s harder to fund foreign PhD’s with US tax dollars in which case I think you’ll find limited sympathy for your cause.
By bauldursdev 2026-01-2720:49 It's not a fixed size of PhD candidates competing. A future PhD candidate may choose to not become a future PhD candidate because of changes. For example, a high school or undergraduate student might read all these articles and statistics about how funding is getting pulled and research is becoming more difficult and choose to take another path. They are no longer a competitor to be a PhD candidate, they do not bid down the prices.
By BeetleB 2026-01-2720:22 > unless you’re saying it’s harder to fund foreign PhD’s with US tax dollars in which case I think you’ll find limited sympathy for your cause.
As your sibling pointed out, the end result is China benefiting from that void.
By jaredklewis 2026-01-2720:24 Maybe I’m missing something, but why can’t it be true? If I’m a PhD deciding what to do with the next few years of my life, the fact that government jobs currently seem very unstable might make PhDs hesitant to choose this path. There’s probably also at least some PhDs (given the overwhelmingly left leaning politics of grad students) that don’t want to be involved with this administration. So maybe more PhDs are going into the private sector.
On the other side, budget cuts might mean that you have less money to spend on the PhDs that are interested.
So it doesn’t seem inherently contradictory to me.
The NSF buys research. PhD funding is not a gift, it is payment for a job. Buying research from citizens or noncitizens is not meaningfully different.
By pvaldes 2026-01-2818:26 And is a hard work. USA buys also research partially finished in other countries for cents a dollar when they hire scientists. Harvesting the low hanging fruit without paying a dime for their first 25 years of education. A big percentage of their patents came from discoveries done by foreign researchers. Some of this patents were extremely lucrative for US in the past.
STEM people in science (used to) populate places like NIH, NSF and other granting agencies. Theh were project managers responsible for funding decisions, or actual researchers. Remember that people used think that pharma just did marketing with all the new drug ideas coming from academia or government labs? Well, these people were either the ones paying the academic labs or actually generating what pharma marketed.
They also were the project managers and researchers in places like NRL and ARL, the premier research labs in the Navy and Army. Guiding weapon development along with the blue/green suits. They staffed DOE labs doing funding and research for things that went bump in the night, cleanup, energy development, etc.
PhD's are the psychologists on staff in the VA helping glue veterans back together. They're also the -ologists (immune, endocrine, ...) who work with the MD's to diagnose and treat people. They also review new drug proposals to make sure they're tested for safety and effectiveness.
There's probably some salted through the other departments doing things like agronomy, geology, ... Things that help food and energy production. There's more than you think in the various security agencies - people were surprised why the government was hiring for computational linguistics back in the 80's. They also handle funding for things that turned into that Net/Web thingie you're using to read this.
Is it useful to have these kind of people on the public purse? Depends on whether you think funding research, regulating drugs, weapon research and cleanup, treating patients, ... are important. They're cheaper than the corresponding private individuals would be if they were contractors or being paid externally.
By giraffe_lady 2026-01-2720:001 reply I think, for the VA specifically at least, this isn't accurate. I'm sure they have some phd psychologists around for other things but the bulk of the work you mentioned will be done by counselors with masters degrees and some psychiatrists overseeing them. Psychiatrists, as well as "the -ologists" you mentioned, are specialized medical doctors. They all get the same schooling and then specialize through the residency system.
An MD is a doctorate-level degree and MD + residency is generally considered enough education for even research within a speciality, certainly patient care within it. MD/PhDs are rare, usually doing policy/leadership or extremely specific technical R&D. Almost never see them doing patient care, when you do it's normally because they misunderstood their own career interests in their 20s and now have to live with it.
This thing is real bad but psych treatment at the VA isn't why.
By jleyank 2026-01-2721:16 the -ologists can be both, then. My academic experience in ancient times had them as medicine related PhD's, but I guess MD's can specialize in that area from a treatment rather than a research area. MD/PhD's are rare but quite valuable for research projects because they can see patient records wearing their MD hat, but interact with the research teams with their PhD hat. They tend to have mediocre bedside manners cuz they rarely see a bed, and they're sorta burned out coming of all that schooling.
By esalman 2026-01-2819:16 My wife is a PhD in recycled asphalt materials and pioneered the use of such materials in New Mexico.
Under her PhD supervisor she directly worked with the NM department of transportation as a consultant. She did all that as an international student besides her graduate studies while being paid at 50% FTE (+tuition).
It takes between $10m (rural) to $100m (urban) to build a mile of interstate. Recycled materials can reduce the cost by 15-50% while still being equally as sustainable for decades.
Fortunately she is no longer at risk (or minimal risk) job/immigration wise. But others are not as fortunate. Just yesterday I learned that a PhD student from my alma mater was turned back from port of entry and his student visa denied. Reason? He traveled with his University provided laptop without written authorization. I understand that there are embargos and sanctions and trade restrictions, but really?
By dmoy 2026-01-2720:06 NRL et al do a lot more than just weapons research too.
By mekdoonggi 2026-01-2719:001 reply There have been a huge amount of cuts to the Veteran's Administration disguised. Hiring has been frozen, then people leave and their positions can't be filled, then they cut that position saying "it wasn't filled so wasn't needed".
By snarky_dog 2026-01-2719:44 [flagged]
