Abstract
For decades, politicians, policy makers, and industry leaders have told a disturbing narrative: An inferior educational system, this account goes, prevents many young Americans from entering STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields, weakening the nation’s innovation and scientific enterprise. The resulting talent shortage, it reasons, can only be overcome by admitting larger numbers of foreign nationals who have the required skills. But this narrative misrepresents what actually drives large numbers of capable, ambitious, well-educated Americans away from STEM fields and toward careers in business, law, medicine, and other nonacademic endeavors: a university labor system that exploits would-be scientists.