I have to agree that there is potential for a very damaging shift. I read a review of the best educational systems on earth. New Zealand lead in primary school reading, the Netherlands in secondary school language skills, Singapore lead in math skills. The place the USA excelled was graduate school. Students from all over the world come for our graduate programs, and many stay, giving us a major "reverse brain drain" boost.

Graduate schools are getting the double whammy of more difficult visas and cuts in funding. A couple of anecdotal examples: I have a friend who is a very bright geophysicist from Poland. He was in an elite PhD program at Colorado School of Mines, and most of those graduates went off to help produce oil and gas in the US, something we have been very successful at lately. Every single student in his graduate class was from outside the US.

I have two close relatives who received PhD's in Marine Biology through programs affiliated with Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass. The MBL is a private nonprofit institute founded in 1888. They have had 63 Nobel Prize winners, and research on giant squid axon lead to the understanding of how nerves transmit information. A friend involved with the finances of the MBL has indicated that between the cuts in NSF and NIH grants, the reduction in partner university funds, and the reduction of foreign visiting researchers, it is likely that this 137 year old research center will be closing.

The effect of this massive hole being shot in our own foot will definitely damage American competitiveness, innovation and high tech skill levels.