How to fill the knowledge worker gap?

Ben Bernanke argued in a speech today at the "Conference on New Building Blocks for Jobs and Economic Growth", that the government needs to play a role in promoting R&D and expressed concern that in the US government support for R&D and particularity basic science has been declining while in developing countries such as China and India it has been rising.

He also noted that government policies to promote R&D are not restricted to issues of funding but have implications for immigration policy and education policy.

Education

I was educated, for the most part, in Britain where subject specialization begins at 16, and the last two years of high school are devoted to at most four subjects, generally in science (in may case, math, physics, chemistry and biology), languages, humanities or the arts. At university the courses offered as part of the physics program I followed, in common with most British universities, were all related to aspects of physics or math; the only non-physics course I took was an elective in macro-economics.

It was not until I started teaching in the US that I began to gain and understanding and an appreciation of the liberal arts model. That being said, while I have sympathy for the aims of liberal arts education, I do wonder whether it is generating the trained workforce the country needs to support its economy. Although I do believe that an education in heterogeneous subject matter may improve innovativeness, I am also concerned that we may be creating population that is 'jack of all trades and mater of none'.

Immigration (Make, buy or rent?)

If we can't fill the shortage in knowledge workers by growing our own, then, runs the argument, we should adjust immigration policy to ensure that students are encouraged to study here and remain here once they graduate. It seems to me that a flaw in this argument is that for many (though clearly not all) the only reason they stay in the US after getting their education is a lack of opportunity in the countries from which they come.  As China and India's economies grow, and opportunities there for knowledge based work increase, the disincentives to retruning home will diminish and knowledge workers will again be in short supply in the US. As importantly, as China and India's educational establishments continue to grow in reputation, fewer and fewer students will see the need to get their higher education abroad, and the US' ability to attract and potentially retain knowledge workers will decline still further.  

Ultimately, until we make as good if not better use of our own intellectual potential relative to other countries, there can be no long term solution to the knowledge worker problem.