Not quite sure what you point is but your third sentence seems to contradict your first sentence.
From my almost 40 years of working in the “STEM” fields both as a worker bee & manager my observations are, new BSs/BAs in math & science will get “entry level” type jobs maybe as a lab technician or beginner programmers, then if they show any initiative at all the move “up” which could mean out to a different job. These “entry level” jobs might be at a lower salary level then an engineer but within 5 years that difference dissipates. For liberal arts & humanities BAs its much harder to get started, now I am talking about corporate or government hiring. But once that happens again its the individual. The biggest problems I have seen is liberal arts, etc seem to have an “attitude” the “corporation” is required to do them a favor until they write that “Great Novel” or something equivalent. “Liberal
Arties” etc who strike out on their own and make it. Great! More power to them!
When I was an undergraduate there were a lot of profs in engineering and even the sciences with industrial experience. Now its very rare, in fact I detect a hiring prejudice against them. That trend of hiring profs who haven’t stepped outside the doors of academia since they entered at age 18 started during the Vietnam War. Goal was obviously to protect them from the draft!
As far as foreign students there is way way too many of them in STEM fields at US colleges& universities. Unfortunately for a lot of state schools they need them for the extra money they bring. Some schools would be hard pressed to keep their graduate programs going without foreign students. Other issues driving the foreign student surge, the schools getting “academic ego & reputation boost” by having foreign students, also after 50 some years of allowing this to occur, there are a number of “foreigners” maybe on paper USCITS but in practice and attitude not really. They are now not only in the faculty but in administrations of colleges/universities often “feathering their nests” for themselves and other foreigners. Additionally I have seen them break every hiring regulation civil rights law to hire their tribesman, clansman & nationality. Doing things no native USCIT could do. Also the college/university gets to indulge themselves in the fiction that they are doing that “world citizen thing”. They are part of this world community and not part of the USA or even the state where they sit.
So in so many ways they are subversive to US standards, yes definitely true!
Just pointing out that even S.T.E.M programs produce their share of failures but point out that it’s okay because the ones that do secede at the very tops of their fields contribute significantly more to the Industries and success of the country.
I.E They S.T.E.M. programs are a good bet, and that’s where we should be focused.
As for fewer and fewer practical applied teachers ... is there any wonder in the political correct cocoon the Colleges wrap themselves up in?
Go look at some of the countries who have faced upheaval over the last 50 years. See how many of them have been driven by ‘student’ lead revolutions.