In the United States today among international students, about 350,000 are in college and about 500,000 in graduate school.  (These figures plus a work study provision add to about 1.1 million which is the common estimate of all international higher ed students.) There are about 425,000 foreign persons graduating with a bachelor’s or graduate degree who due to their student visa (F1) are temporarily authorized to work. This and a few more postings in the future focus on these 425,000 persons.  They are highy vulnerable now to cutback or radical change by the administration.

I am posting because these worker rolls have grown significantly in the past ten years – about tripled – and because given the track record of the administration to using Executive Branch initiative (and not necessarily allowed by law) on visa policies, these students may or may not be in trouble in the months ahead.

An attractive feature of study in the U.S. is the chance to work here, temporarily and possible permanently with a green card. There appears to be upwards of a 50% chance to get a green card if a graduated student obtains a student-related work authorization, hangs in, gets a H-1B visa, and then applies for a green card.

At this moment (September 22) their status does not appear to be threatened by the Trump administrations Executive Order on September 19 in which Trump set a $100,000 entrance fee. This fee appears to be set for future H1-B visa holders. (There are about 700,000 existing H1-B holders.  The Executive Order was rolled out with much confusion – the Secretary of Commerce’s description of it varied from what the White House said. The administration issues immigration-related orders with no advance notice and with apparently little planning.

In this posting the international student-related visas are succinctly reviewed.  International students can work after graduation under two programs:

Standard Optional Training Program (OPT): available to all F1 (student visa) holders for 12 months after graduation. Enrollments rose from about 77,000 in 2014 to about 200,000 today.

STEM-related OPT: able to work for three year if the college or graduate degree was in the STEM area. Enrollments rose from about 21,000 in 2014 to about 200,000 today.

A third program called Curricular Planning Training (CPT) is designed only for students while they are enrolled in school – think college internship placements tied to the student’s major> Their ranks rose from about 92,000 in 2014 to 130,000 in 2014.