College applicants looking for a marketable and AI-proof education could do worse this fall than apply to Purdue. The public university in West Lafayette, Indiana, is spearheading perhaps the most exciting semiconductor education initiative in America today, offering a suite of programs from associate degrees to PhDs. 

The question is: Will its graduates end up contributing more to the U.S. economy or those of its major economic rivals, chief among them China?

Purdue’s program, one of the first offered at such a scale by an American university, is aimed at training students in areas from chip design to fabrication and packaging. As record investment flows towards onshoring the semiconductor industry, such programs are becoming essential: the U.S. will need at least 40,000 trained semiconductor engineers to staff the fabs and offices expected to come online in the coming years, according to estimates by the Semiconductor Industry Association, a trade group

Foreign students are likely to be notable beneficiaries. As is the case at many American public universities, international students account for almost one-fifth of the total student body at Purdue, and double that at the postgraduate level. More than half of Purdue’s international students come from just two countries: India and China.

But with the U.S.’s immigration system making it difficult for such foreign graduates to stay and work in the country, many of those educated at Purdue may end up employing their skills back home or elsewhere, as global competition for talent in the chips industry reaches a boiling point.

…the biggest source of risk is not students but people who work with sensitive IP and who develop highly-specialized skills, most of whom will have spent years in the private sector.

Remco Zwetsloot, an adjunct fellow with the International Security Program at the Center for Security and International Studies

At a time of rising techno-nationalism, the case of Purdue shows how higher education is having to balance support for the U.S.’s drive to compete with China, with idealistic principles about open access and its pragmatic need for money — international students pay more than three times as much in tuition as in-state students at Purdue. With federal and state governments offering no clear guidance, Purdue and institutions offering similar programs in turn risk drawing criticism for working at odds with the U.S.’s industrial and national security goals.

“When you look at the history of how the semiconductor industry developed in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, returnees from the United States played a major role in launching domestic companies there,” says Remco Zwetsloot, an adjunct fellow with the International Security Program at the Center for Security and International Studies, a Washington, D.C. think tank. “But they were mostly experienced managers and researchers, not recent graduates.”

Purdue’s semiconductor initiative is the brainchild of university president Mung Chiang, a former science and technology advisor to President Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo. The initiative debuted in mid-2021, just as the global economy was hamstrung by a shortage of chips. 

Since the passage of the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which unlocked $52 billion in incentives for chipmakers to onshore in the U.S., Purdue’s program has become a critical hub for training future engineers and designers. It has pledged to put as many as 1,000 undergrad and graduate students a year through its semiconductor programs.

“Purdue was first out of the gates and at this point is very clearly the leader,” says Vijay Ragunathan, director of semiconductor education at Purdue. “I don’t think there’s a comparable program in the U.S. anywhere.”

The program has a leadership board that advises on curriculum development composed of a who’s who of the chip industry, including executives from Intel, TSMC Arizona, Nvidia and other firms. A top executive from the Dutch company ASML — an essential player in the semiconductor supply chain — will be co-teaching a course on extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography. Purdue has also partnered with American chipmaker SkyWater Technologies to build a $1.8 billion fab on campus, as well as Taiwan’s MediaTek to build a chip design center. 

Moreover, Purdue has deliberately positioned its program as an aid to other countries’ national semiconductor ambitions. It has partnered, for example, with the government of India — a rare instance of a university signing a MOU with a foreign government — to help the country build up its chip making capacity.

In turn, it seems likely that China’s chipmakers will be interested in Purdue’s graduates. Although China has fallen behind India as the institution’s largest source of international students, it still accounted for one quarter of the international study body in 2022, according to university data.

Purdue’s Raghunathan says that enrolling Chinese students in the school’s semiconductor program won’t constitute a risk to U.S. intellectual property or national security. “The purpose of what we do at the university is to provide foundational education,” he says. “We don’t have access to, or deal with, sensitive or classified technology. That’s a separate division and there are appropriate safeguards to ensure that critical research is appropriately protected.”

Others support tougher safeguards — even from within the same university.

“Rules must be very stringent when it comes to semiconductors,” says Keith Krach, who as undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment during the Trump administration, led an initiative to secure critical technology, such as the U.S.’s 5G network from Chinese involvement. He later founded the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue, which works to bridge the divide between the tech sector and foreign policy decision-makers. “Since China is targeting our best research institutions, I recommend universities conduct third-party security audits and background checks for personnel involved in critical technology areas to safeguard America’s assets and determine who would be susceptible to adverse foreign influence.” 

In 2020, the Trump administration canceled the visas of thousands of Chinese graduate students and researchers with ties to universities affiliated with the People’s Liberation Army. The rate at which U.S. visa offices have denied student visas has also risen, reaching a historic high of 35 percent in 2022, according to State Department data. (The department does not disclose student visa denial rates by nationality.) Those factors, alongside broader U.S.-China tensions, have contributed to a decline in the number of Chinese students studying in the U.S. since the peak, in 2020. 

“I would say there are definitely technology transfer risks associated with U.S.-China talent flows, and there should be some protective measures in place,” Zwetsloot says. “But the biggest source of risk is not students but people who work with sensitive IP and who develop highly-specialized skills, most of whom will have spent years in the private sector.”

Administrators at Purdue say that they have no intention of restricting Chinese international students from enrolling in its semiconductor program. “As an educational institution we’re cognizant of these larger concerns, and we balance that against the fundamental mission of the university which is the dissemination of knowledge,” Raghunathan says. 

Not all Chinese international students intend on taking their talents home after graduating. In fact, at the highest levels of graduate study, few do. In 2021, almost three-quarters of U.S. doctorate recipients from China indicated that they hoped to remain in the U.S. 

…because we have a need for talented engineers from Taiwan, China, India and other countries, we must do something from an immigration standpoint for students we want to stay.

Keith Krach, former undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy and the environment and founder of the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue

But the U.S.’s immigration system has made it steadily more difficult for international students to stay and work in recent years. The selection rate for the H-1B visa lottery — the primary work visa pathway for holders of bachelor degrees or higher — fell to a record low 14.6 percent this year. Unlike countries such as Canada or Australia, the U.S. does not have a straightforward visa program for workers with highly in-demand skills. 

“There is really no discussion happening [about immigration reform for specialist professions like semiconductors],” says David Bier, associate director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, who wrote a report earlier this year, titled Why Legal Immigration is Nearly Impossible. “The motivation to discuss these issues has gone down. There doesn’t seem to be the will to open up the immigration system.”

Even advocates of greater scrutiny believe that policymakers should make it easier for U.S.-trained students to stay. “The broad scope of China’s National Intelligence Act creates a need for caution and thorough background checks,” Krach says. “But because we have a need for talented engineers from Taiwan, China, India and other countries, we must do something from an immigration standpoint for students we want to stay.”

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Click here to read Bob Davis’ Q&A with Keith Krach on weaponizing trust.

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