Comment Foreign students? (Score 1) 38
I always thought most Masters and PhD's were foreign students intending on returning home after they graduate. Other nations value those degrees relative to 4-year-degree much more than the USA does, for good or bad.
Big degrees are a status symbol and corporate bragging point in many countries. "We have more PhD's than our competitor" works as a selling point in business-to-business transactions.
US companies generally see them as overqualified for the actual positions they have available, meaning they'd have to pay them more to do rather mundane things, like upgrading their network, and not inventing network protocols or whatnot.
Most work is not cutting edge R&D. Sure, their R&D departments will have advanced degrees, but that's usually a small percent of a typical co's staff.