International students not finding jobs

Student Lounge International Students
1

<p>Hi,</p>

<p>I just wanted to discuss a huge issue that's going on right now in U.S. colleges: International students don't have jobs.</p>

<p>Just think about it. I have up to 100 international friends that are looking for jobs, but all the student worker jobs are taken. A new facility has been open that caters to students (e.g. cafeteria, fast food, etc.) and contracts with the University, and also due to new changes in government regulations, international students can work for companies contracting with the university, as long as the commercial units serve directly students.</p>

<p>That's all great, but a bunch of them applied, and they were accepted, got their social security, and now the employer is changing his mind, saying that it's easier to accept American students because the background check takes too long, what on earth?</p>

<p>International students are limited to $20 hrs/ week of work, and every semester they save up in order to pay for the next semester and then they have to start all over.</p>

<p>I've read several posts about how American students lose their jobs due to international students and how they shouldn't offer them scholarships and so on, but seriously now.</p>

<p>American students can find EASILY jobs in a walking distance off campus (McDonalds, Dollar General, etc.) whereas international students are not allowed to work off campus at all. I promise you there are many international students who would work in Walmart, McDonalds, any place really and they wouldn't complain, but they can't!</p>

<p>They cannot get jobs, they run out of money, they're out of food and everything else. I really think the U.S. Government needs to think about changing regulations at least about working off-campus. I don't mind if they keep the limit to 20 hours/week, at least that way international students could get a job, and not have to worry every semester about whether they can pay tuition or not.</p>

<p>And I've also read multiple threads about American students giving their taxes to fund international students. So what? The international students pay taxes as well when they work, plus they get no financial aid, FAFSA is not available, scholarships are hard to get. For real now, if international students could work off-campus legally, instead of having to get cash under the table, they would GLADLY pay tax. That would result in a bunch of revenue for the Government.</p>

2

<p>The U.S. economy has not fully recovered after the Great Recession of 08. American students can’t find jobs, either. Schools cut back on services that previously were a source of income for both American and international students. Changing regulations might help some international students, but the real problem is the overall U.S. economy slashing jobs.</p>

<p>Bottom line: it’s expensive to study in America. The American economy continues to be very weak. If you’re counting on part-time jobs in the U.S. to help pay your expenses, you will be in trouble. Period.</p>

3

<p>I’m not saying it will just help some international students, I’m saying it will help U.S. economy as a whole. If international students would work off campus for the jobs available that are not being taken by American students, it would result in tax revenue.</p>

<p>I’m not saying it’s easy with a part-time job for college, but it would really change the situation for not just a few number, but a LARGE number of international students.</p>

<p>When you’re stuck and you don’t have any money, what do you do? If you’re an American student you have opportunity to find a job anywhere, be it fast-food restaurant or not. If you reject that job, why wouldn’t an international student be able to take it?</p>

<p>It makes me mad when people post things like :" I don’t owe anything to these illegal immigrants" and such things, when they have no idea whether the person is illegal or not, or why they would work off -campus, and so on. </p>

<p>Whether people admit it or not, jobs are available for American students. Whether they complain that they can’t find a job, the real issue is that they DON’T want a fast-food job or a lowly job, but if an international student takes one they call him “illegal” and insult him and say that all internationals steal American jobs.</p>

4

<p>An international student is not an illegal immigrant. (If someone confuses those two concepts, that’s their problem.) Every nation in the world regulates where visiting international students can and can’t work. U.S. is no different in that regard. Laws pertaining to illegal immigrants are a whole different story.</p>

5

<p>If you think international students are being unfairly discriminated against at this particular facility, that would be an issue to take up with the administration of your university. Are there fewer jobs than anticipated? Was false advertising involved? Are international students truly more work/expense for the employer(s)?</p>

<p>You can bet that if it is easier or cheaper to hire US students, an employer will hire them first. That is just business.</p>

6

<p>Didn’t you (and your friends!) have to prove that you have the money to finance your college education before you got your visa? What happened to that money to leave you relying on non-existent campus jobs for tuition and living expenses? </p>

<p>Like it or not, the US welcomes international students mostly for the money that they contribute to the economy. There’s more than enough demand for unskilled jobs and entry-levels jobs for college graduates among Americans - no need to import foreigners to fill those. (It would even be a good thing if there are some open jobs in your area - that might motivate employers to pay a living wage to fill the vacancies.) </p>

<p>P.S. I am an immigrant myself. As much as I sympathize with your situation, I don’t think the country would benefit from a gazillian foreign students working their way through college. (There would undoubtedly be a huge influx of foreigners if that became a real option.) Quite to the contrary, your post convinced me that we might need stricter regulations to ensure that foreign students have sufficient resources to pay for their education before we let them into the country.</p>

7

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<p>Where is this economic town filled with jobs? Which American can just walk in and get a job???] Every company has down-sized. Have none of your international friends kept with the US economy? Big companies are cutting their human resources departments and making 1 human resource department at the main headquarters. Anyone over a certain age cannot find a job. I agree with Katlia. The economy in the US has not recovered and you want a job for your starving friends because they are international? </p>

<p>Please take a look at those employees at the fast food chains, and note that those employees are generally not students. The reason: many families, who don’t have the luxury of affording an American university education, work in those restaurants to support their families. </p>

<p>You and your international friends were supposed to provide bank records indicating one year of savings to get a visa. Did you all lie to immigration? No one said your American education would be free or easy. Your friends were very naive in thinking that not only would they get a US education, but they would also get a job with income. Welcome to our world. </p>

<p>My daughter (an American student) looked for a job (for 3 months before she gave up). She applied online and filled out many, many applications. One employer even told her, “well I would hire you, but we have so many people with families that can work any hours, and you have limited hours of availability”.</p>

<p>Another daughter, who received her BS in Engineering had to wait 4 months to find a job because of sequestration issues, so the companies weren’t hiring but her school loans were due.</p>

<p>You will not receive any sympathy or changes in regulations if you continue assuming that you are entitled to more that what current students can get. Not happy? Your home countries also have universities.</p>

<p>FWIW: Some campus food services are mandated by the university to give jobs to low-income work-study students. It’s something they have to do to comply with federal financial aid regulations.</p>

8

<p>By the way, if you are in financial difficulties through no fault of your own, you can petition for a hardship employment authorization that allows you to work off-campus on the same terms as on-campus employment (20 hours per week while school is in session, full-time during breaks). </p>

<p>To get a hardship employment authorization, you’d have to show that you had the resources to pay for your education before you left for the US, but that your resources have changed unexpectedly and for reasons outside your control. This would be true, for example, if the currency exchange rates between your home country and the US have changed dramatically or if one of your parents had to retire early due to an unforeseen disability.</p>

9

<p>I do think this opens an interesting question. I don’t think there’d be a scandal if after getting a 3.0 international students were allowed to work off campus for 10-15 hours, making it as easy (ie., difficult…) as for American students but with the added limits of time per week and GPA minima - this is done in other countries, without any harm to the economy (… actually, with benefits to the economy, since the students immediately re-invest their salary into buying stuff locally; granted, tuition is lower elsewhere so in the US there would probably be more money invested into tuition than rent or food or miscelaneous elsewhere, but still part of it would go to rent/food/miscelaneous ie the local economy). If the students can maintain a B- or C+ average while working AND can find a job, I don’t see what the harm is.</p>

10

<p>Which countries are those? </p>

<p>

There’s a few issues. First, the international students might take jobs that Americans rely on for a living. Second, it might encourage international students to start college in the US without a solid funding plan, thinking that they can earn enough money to make ends meet. Then, when things don’t work out, they might resort to illegal measures to get to money or be a burden on their local American community when they ask for their help. </p>

<p>The US already does have a fairly generous program in place to let international students gain work experience related to their education: OPT. Students can use this part-time while classes are in session, if they so choose.</p>

11

<p>GPA requirements for job permission? That would open up a whole new can of worms!</p>

<p>Hey, it’s pretty easy to have a high GPA in community college. A lot harder to do so in competitive programs at selective universities. How are you going to address the resulting GPA differences? On a case-by-case, school-by-school basis?</p>

12

<p>Well, we can assume that if the students got into a certain college, they can do the work.</p>

<p>The idea is to make sure the students come to study, not to work, but if they show they have the basic funds to pay for their studies and can handle these studies well, why not allow them to work for pocket money (because let’s be honest here, that’s what it is, pocket money to be spent locally - some percent of wages may go toward tuition but overall if the student doesn’t have enough money to pay for basic tuition, room, and board, s/he wouldn’t be able to afford it with 10-15hours a week at a minimum wage job.)</p>

<p>That’s what Canada has decided to do, but Britain, Belgium, France, etc, allow internationals to work after one semester* and there’s been no negative repercussion for them. In fact Canada calculated that students spend enough that it’s worth it making them come (and letting them work a little), and just launched an ambitious campaign to attract international students.</p>

<ul>
<li>they don’t require a certain GPA, they require a pass on all classes taken, but since a pass is actually fairly hard to achieve, I “translated” that as a 3.0. Could be a Pass in the US too. :slight_smile: After that first semester, the requirement is that the student doesn’t totally fail the entire semester, which would lead to losing the visa anyway. Fairly easy to check: Passed/failed.</li>
</ul>

13

<p>But Canada, France, Belgium, etc are not the US. Canada is actively trying to attract more immigrants. France and Belgium don’t get too many international students because of the language barrier.</p>

<p>The US, in contrast, doesn’t need floods of immigrants <em>and</em> there’s a lot of interest among young people to move here. And once you are here, there are ways to stay. (Like marrying a US citizen, which can be arranged if one is determined enough…) </p>

<p>It’s easy enough to work your way through community college if you have a legal means of employment and a free place to stay. I noticed that many foreign students (especially from Asia and Mexico, less so from Europe) have extended family in the US whom will let them stay for free. Students visas would effectively become family reunification programs.</p>

<p>If you’ve been reading these boards for any length of time, you know that students do cheat on the financial documentation they have to provide for visa purposes. They temporarily borrow relatives’ money to get the bank statement for the requisite amount of savings, or they get a sponsorship letter from someone who doesn’t actually plan to sponsor them, and so on and so forth. Unlike you, I do not trust international students to provide documentation that they have enough money to cover the cost of attendance and only work for extra spending money.</p>

14

Probably late in replying to this thread. But would like to leave a comment now that I have read it. Some of you have projected international students in the worst possible manner siting that they have lot of vested interests to come to USA. US is called the land of immigrants and most of you have immigrated from somewhere. It is interesting to note how the thinking changes once you have a US passport.

15

But these students aren’t here on an immigrant visa. They’re here on a student visa which required them to document adequate funds in order to be awarded the visa.

16

I, too, am an international student, and yes, it does suck not to able to have a job. I can relate to your frustration.

However, ask yourself: would YOUR country let foreign students get jobs when their domestic students are already struggling to find decent jobs to pay off the student loans? Most likely, no. I know Korea wouldn’t at least.

Not only that, if the foreign students are allowed to work freely, there are chances that they will send money to their families in their home countries, which will result in “losing dollars”. I don’t know how to explain this in English because I heard this from my mom in Korean, but you get the jist.

17

Did your college require you to provide the financial support source and bank statement before you were admitted and enrolled? Most colleges require this. If your college did require then you have no basis for looking for jobs.

$20/hour is a lot for on campus jobs. US students cannot get that rate either, unless they work as interns outside of campus.

18

^^^^Exactly.
Many many college jobs pay barely above state minimum wage.

19

It looks like a typo. OP probably meant being limited to 20 hours/week. (There’s no limitation on the hourly wage earned by F-1 students.)

That said, college in the US is expensive and foreign students should not plan to rely on on-campus employment to make ends meet.

If you originally had a plan to finance college without on-campus employment, and your financial situation changed to make that difficult (e.g. due to a change in exchange rates or because your parents lost their job), you can apply for a “hardship employment” permit. That would allow you to work off-campus without touching your OPT.

20

Financial aid isn’t an entitlement. It’s not for the students who were born in the US and it’s certainly not for international students. Grants through the FAFSA aren’t available because your families don’t live in the US and they haven’t paid taxes here. Why should American students have to compete with internationals for jobs in their own country? Why should young people who can’t afford to attend college in their own country have to compete with internationals for the jobs they need to support themselves? Students who don’t have the money to support their education here should invest their money in an education in their own country, not flout our laws because they don’t like them.