Back to India: US universities lose sheen

When Bidya Binay Karak decided to get a Ph D. in solar astrophysics, she didn't consider going to America, the land that - lest we forget - put man on the moon. This, despite the fact that the US is widely upheld as the bastion of astrophysics research. The reason? "Institutes like the IISc [Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore] offer world-class master's and doctoral programmes," she says, as a matter of fact.

Her colleague Nitin Kumar agrees. Why go when you can get a pretty good education at home for a fraction of the cost and save nearly a lakh of rupees in qualifying entrance exams and application fees? Plus, you don't have to worry about visa restrictions, or about funding being cut off midway. And you have better job opportunities when you complete the course.

They are not the only ones who now find the US less attractive as a destination to pursue a doctoral degree.

"There is a drop both in the number and the quality of Ph.D. applications, more noticeably in the last two years." says Anand Sivasubramaniam, professor of computer science and engineering, Pennsylvania State University (Penn State). "This year, of the more than 700 applications we received from prospective graduate students worldwide, the number of applications from top Indian institutes such as the IITs and IISc was in the single digit.

Less than three years ago, this number was in the double digits," he says. An article this February in The Chronicle of Higher Education reported a 50% decline in the number of new Indian graduate students this Autumn at the University of Georgia. The computer science department at California State University (Long Beach) saw a spate of prospective master's students from India abandoning their application process midway.

The numbers are stark even for graduate courses. According to the US Council of Graduate Schools, in 2009, there was a 14% reduction in offers of admissions to prospective India-based students; a 16% drop in first-time enrollments from India; and a 12% decline in graduate applications from Indian students.

"It's the beginning of a trend, an indicator that something is happening and that Indian students are not coming here like they did in the past," laments Dr. Nathan Bell, director of research at the Council.

You don't have to look far to find the reasons for this. With the US economy in a shambles, there are severe budget cuts at state-funded universities. The prospects of obtaining a full waiver of tuition fees are slim. Dwindling grant money also means that local students stand a better chance of getting a research fellowship than foreign students. So, many Indian students end up working for free. Last semester, Atulya Prasad, a master's and Ph.D. candidate in biomedical engineering at New York's Stony Brook University, worked as a research assistant sans the stipend.

The situation doesn't improve upon graduation. The growing political backlash against the loss of American jobs, and the rising anti-immigrant sentiment means that getting a work visa - let alone getting a job - is as tough as it can get. So much so that now, even the lure of a US-located son-in-law is starting to fade. "The classic America-educated son-in-law syndrome is almost nonexistent as students, especially from tier 2 schools, hardly get jobs in the US after they graduate," says Satyavrata Samavedi, a Ph.D. candidate in tissue engineering at the Virginia Institute of Technology (Virginia Tech).

But the recession is not the only reason for the drop in Indian students. Back in India, better funding, facilities and opportunities are attracting more students to the sciences.

The number of Ph.D. students pursuing physics at IIT-Bombay has increased steadily, says Urjit A. Yajnik, professor of physics at IIT-Bombay, who is on a sabbatical at McGill University in Canada. The total number of Ph.D.s at IIT-Bombay rose 49% from 1,028 students in 2003-04 to 1,528 in 2009-10. India is also attracting a trickle of top  notch scientists from America. "Compared to even three years ago, there are more opportunities for teaching and research in India. We see more post-doctoral fellows in theoretical physics willing to take up jobs in India than in the US," says Savdeep Sethi, professor of physics at the University of Chicago.

Recent Indian graduates from American universities are also opting to return home on the heels of visa barriers, longer job searches, and competition from more experienced employees seeking to re-enter the workforce. Of course, trimmed funding in the US also means that quality of research has fallen too. "I could have learnt a lot more if funding was available, because the scope of the research was scaled back," rues Atulya Prasad. Karthik Bharath is another such. He is doing a Ph.D. in statistics at the University of Connecticut, known for its statistics department, but plans to return and teach in India. "Our department admits around six Ph.D. students each year. Last year, there were just two, and some recent students from China received no funding at all," he says.

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