Fact of the Week: The Proportion of Temporary Visa Holder Doctorate Recipients in S&E Fields Has Increased Since 2010
Source: National Science Foundation, “2023 Doctorate Recipients from U.S. Universities” (report by National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, December 2024), https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf25300?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery.
Commentary: In a recent report, the National Science Foundation analyzed the Survey of Earned Doctorates to examine the trends of individuals who earned doctorate degrees in the United States. Although the report analyzes doctorate degrees awarded in all fields, the main focus is to examine the trends in the degrees awarded in the science and engineering (S&E) fields. Based on this NSF analysis, temporary visa holder doctorate recipients have declined in the S&E fields but still constitute a large proportion of the overall S&E doctorates awarded. From 2022 to 2023, the number of temporary visa holder doctorate recipients declined by 1 percent largely due to their decline in the S&E fields. However, as of 2023, these doctorate recipients still make up 39 percent of the overall S&E doctorate degrees awarded. Moreover, a longer trend back to 2010 shows that these doctorate recipients have made up an increasingly larger share of the overall S&E doctorate degrees awarded. From 2010 to 2023, the proportion of doctorate degrees awarded to these doctorate recipients rose 4 percentage points. Relatedly, temporary visa holder doctorate degrees in S&E fields have increased 93 percent since 2003 compared to 58 percent for U.S. citizens and permanent residents.
Although temporary visa holder recipients still constitute a minority of the overall S&E doctorate degrees awarded, they make up a majority in degrees awarded in specific S&E fields. For example, temporary visa holders earned 62 percent of computer and information sciences doctorate degrees, 56 percent of engineering degrees, and 53 percent of mathematics and statistics degrees. Despite their temporary visa holder status, a vast proportion of these doctorate recipients ultimately choose to stay in the United States post-graduation. In 2023, 85 percent of these doctorate recipients reported that their post-doc or employment position was located in the United States. Moreover, the expected stay rate in all S&E fields for these recipients were over 80 percent, except in the health sciences and social sciences fields, in 2023.
