FOREIGN STUDENTS: BOON OR A THREAT?
Published By: NYT, 03/27/1983, by William Greer

AS MORE and more foreign students earn engineering degrees from American universities, their role in high-technology industry has become a hotly contested issue that pits engineer against engineer, educator against educator and nation against nation.

More foreign students attended American universities last year than ever before, and nearly one-quarter of them studied engineering. And in 1981, for the first time, more foreigners than Americans received American doctoral degrees in engineering.

Some universities say that without the foreign students, they would not have the faculty or the students to maintain engineering departments. And some high-technology companies say that the industry is in such dire need of engineers that without foreign engineering students they would be forced, as some already have been, to move some of their operations outside the country.

This point of view was enunciated earlier this month by John Calhoun, director of business development at the Intel Corporation in Santa Clara, Calif. In testimony before a subcommittee of the House of Representatives considering immigration changes, Mr. Calhoun said: ''The problem is absolutely one of a shortage and not one of lower-cost labor. We in the industry have been forced to hire immigrants in order to grow.''

Some groups of engineers, on the other hand, say that there is no shortage, that in fact the foreign engineers who remain in the United States after having completed their education reduce the number of jobs and depress salaries. What is needed, they say, is not more engineers, but further training for engineers already in the work force.

The position opposed to Mr. Calhoun's was voiced at the same hearing by Dr. David Lewis, chairman of the Career Activities Council of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. Citing data from a nationwide survey showing that salaries had decreased in constant dollars, he said: ''If there were a shortage of engineers, their salaries would have risen.''

Now, the world's governments have entered the debate. Taiwan has taken steps to reverse what it calls the ''brain drain'' to the other nations. The United Nations has adopted a resolution calling upon its members to adopt policies to mitigate the damages caused by the reverse transfer of technology. And Senator Alan K. Simpson, Republican of Wyoming, and Representative Romano L. Mazzoli, Democrat of Kentucky, have introduced immigration-reform bills that would require all foreign students to return to their home countries for two years after they complete their studies here. SUBCOMMITTEE hearings held this month on the Simpson and Mazzoli b ills have provided the most recent forum for the debate. But in t estimony from engineers, universities and industry, the statistics u sed to bolster one side of the argument often contradict those used f or the other side, and those involved say that much of the relevant i nformation is out of date.

What is clear from the hearings, however, is that the increase in the number of foreign engineering students, and further projected increases, have fueled the debate over whether they should be allowed to remain in the United States after having received their degrees.

According to the Institute of International Education, foreignstudent enrollment in the United States increased 6 percent in the academic year that started last September, from 307,696 in the 1981 academic year to 326,299 in 1982. Foreign students made up 2.6 percent of the total United States enrollment in higher education. A sharp decline in the number of Iranian students was cited as the reason why last year's increase lagged behind the 8 percent increase from 1980 to 1981.

In 1982, 23 percent of all foreign students in American universities were majoring in engineering, the largest proportion since the institute began conducting its annual census of foreign students in 1950. There were also increases in the proportion of foreign students who chose business, management, mathematics and computer sciences over the natural and social sciences and humanitites. Such a distribution demonstrates ''the vocational orientation of foreign students,'' according to the survey.

In the 1980-81 academic year were more doctoral degrees in engineering were awarded to foreign students than to American students, according to the National Research Council. The council reported that 49.1 percent of the engineering doctorates went to foreign students, while Americans earned 46.2 percent. The nationalities of the remaining 4.7 percent of the students was unknown.

Just how many foreign engineering graduates have returned to their home countries in the last five years has not been documented. The most recent study was conducted by the United States Department of Labor in 1978. In a wide-ranging survey of the aliens holding nonimmigrant visas, it reported that one out of three foreign students did not return to their countries after having finished their education here.

Both immigration bills introduced in Congress last month would require all foreign students to return to their home countries for at least two years if they wish to come back to the United States. Both bills include sections that would waive the two-year rule for foreign students who marry United States citizens or who, depending on their degree, receive an offer for a job that the Labor Department has certified no American is available to fill. THE Senate version of the bill, however, specifies that no more than1 ,500 aliens who marry citizens can apply for permanent residence andn o more than 4,500 aliens who receive job offers can apply. The Housev ersion also restricts the number of foreign students who can remain h ere by limiting it to those who apply before 1989.

The Senate passed its version last August, but the House bill failed to reach a vote before adjournment last December. In reaction to last year's bills, a meeting at Snowbird, Utah, of the heads of computer-science and computer-engineering departments unanimously adopted a resolution that recommended that the proposed legislation be amended to retain or ease provisions of current immigration law in their fields.

In the hearings in mid-March on the new bill before the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees, and International Law, Dr. Lewis, who said he represented the views of 43 engineering societies, testified that there should be no exemptions to the twoyear rule because there was no shortage of engineers here.

''Some organizations have claimed that a critical shortage of engineers and computer scientists already exists,'' he testified. ''They argue that the foreign engineering students should be allowed to stay in the country to replace the alleged critical shortfall of engineering manpower. The Engineering Affairs Council disagrees with that position.''

Dr. Lewis, who is the chairman of the Career Activities Council of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, argued that if there were a shortage of engineers their salaries would have risen.

''In fact, the recent I.E.E.E. salary survey data for 1981 shows no significant escalation.'' he added. ''In fact, our data base shows that the second lowest-paid engineering specialty is computer science, the specialty in which the shortage is supposed to be most acute.''

The survey reported that the average salary among a group of 6,702 engineers was $36,867 in 1981. In 1972, the average for a similar sample group was $19,100. Adjusted to compensate for inflation, the 1981 salary corresponded to $17,733 in 1972 dollars. And the higher the income level, the more the engineers lost in ''real income,'' the survey reported.

Mr. Calhoun, of the Intel Corporation, testified before the subcommittee on behalf of the American Electronics Association, a national trade association for more than 2,000 electronics companies. He said there was in fact a shortage of engineers, that salaries had increased to reflect the demand, and that industry and universities needed the foreign engineering students to meet the demand.

A study by the American Electronics Association of 610 companies in 1981 projected that there would be an annual shortfall of 20,000 engineering graduates in electrical and computer-science engineering through 1985. In addition, a survey of 1982 salaries published this month showed that the average salary among 67,000 nonsupervisory engineers with degrees increased 9 percent from what it was in 1981.

He noted that at Intel foreign engineers make up 50 percent of the M.S. degree graduates, and 66 percent of the Ph.D. graduates hired through the United States university system.

''The shortage is so severe that Intel has already opened design facilities in Israel, France and Japan simply due to the availability of highly skilled technical talent,'' he added. ''Experience has shown that costs of operating an R & D (research and development) facility in these developed countries are no lower than for operating a similar facility in the U.S., but these other countries do have a better supply of engineers.''

Other high-technology companies including Atari Inc., National Semiconductor, Wang Laboratories and the Apple Computer Company have moved some of their operations overseas. Such moves by American hightechnology companies give an ironic twist to the political battles being waged over what many developing countries see as the drain of their highly skilled workers to countries where salaries and standards of living are higher.

The most recent example was a resolution adopted by the General Assembly at the United Nations last Dec. 20. The resolution recommended that members ''should, as a matter of urgency, give due consideration to the formulation of policies with a view to mitigating the adverse consequences of the reverse transfer of technology.'' It also recommended that developed countries ''should assist and support the efforts of the developing countries towards the full utilization of their own trained personnel in promoting their economic and social development.'' The United States, Britain, France, Italy and many of the other developed countries voted against the resolution.