While we whine about offshoring “good” jobs , we neglect the looming scientist and engineer shortage crisis.  In The New American Workplace, the authors provide insight into alarming trends.  The number of doctorates in science and engineering awarded to U.S. citizens since 1997 has declined by 16 percent.  One quarter of all PhD scientists are foreign born.  Some 50% of technical graduate students currently studying in the U.S. are foreign born.  The odds of an infant receiving an engineering PhD from a U.S. university are greater if the child was born in Taiwan.  Immigrant scientists outperform American-born counterparts. Indian and Chinese immigrants account for over 25% of the new start-ups formed in Silicon Valley.  In the past the U.S. has benefited from supplementing its own lack of technical graduates by attracting the best and brightest workers from other countries.  However, times have changed.  Shifts in American attitudes toward immigration, fewer visas for highly skilled immigrants and more foreign-born graduates returning to their home countries are all creating a shortage of scientists and engineers.  Scientists and engineers are needed to keep America at super power status.  America can begin at the beginning.  It starts in K-12.  The relationship between education and workplace success is widely known and accepted  – and ultimately, American economic competitiveness depends on knowledge power.  The shortage of scientists and engineers requires action on many fronts on many public policy issues.  America needs a pipeline of thinkers and innovators and doers.   

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