An analysis of the foreign-educated elite academics in the United States

Abstract

Abstract This study collects the educational backgrounds of 14310 full professors from top 48 universities in the United States. The aim is to analyze the role of foreign education in academics training in the United States. There are two parts of the analysis. In the first part, we find the countries from where the professors get their education. We note that there are some concentrations in provision of undergraduate studies. For example, Greece provides more undergraduate degrees to professors than the whole continents of South America or Africa. Moreover, we show that most of the foreign-educated professors get their undergraduate education from high-income countries. In the second part, we find the ratio of foreign-educated professors by the type of the university and the academic field in which they currently work. We show that the ratio of foreign-educated academics does not vary with public ownership of the university or the ranking of the university. However, the ratio of foreign-educated professors varies significantly among academic fields.