Since the mid-2000s, China has consistently graduated more STEM PhDs than the United States, a key indicator of a country’s future competitiveness in STEM fields. This paper explores the data on STEM PhD graduation rates and projects their growth over the next five years, during which the gap between China and the United States is expected to increase significantly.

Policymakers continue to debate the ability of the United States to attract and retain top international talent. This Issue Brief assesses how many international Ph.D. graduates across various STEM fields and nationalities intend to stay in the United States after completing their degrees.

James Dunham is the Interim Director of Data Science and Research and an NLP Engineer. His doctoral research at MIT addressed measurement problems in political science using unstructured data and natural language processing.

Talent is core to U.S. competitiveness in artificial intelligence, and international graduate students are a large source of AI talent for the United States. Graduate student retention has been a historical U.S. strength, but that strength is endangered by recent trends, finds a new CSET report.