I think that most of the international students in USA are worried about not having a job upon graduation under TRUMP’S REGIME.
I am one of them. 
Is this a reason to worry?
Are US mnc’s willing to sponsor a H1B visa for us?
What is the scenario for the students from STEM major?
my aqcuintance is graduating from U of New Mexico this year and the place where he was interning signed a contract with him for a few years as a full-time employer after his graduation(he is a data analysist). So, seems as nothing has changed.
We are experiencing the opposite. ^^
Neither my dh’s nor my dd’s companies will employ non-citizens.
The big corporations will not sponsor non-citizens because a lot of contracts are government-funded. It is posted on employer websites’ main pages. It really didn’t start with Trump, it’s been that way for a while. Some of these STEM positions require security clearances that require US citizenship.
Also, the US has unemployed citizens and wants to employ its own residents first.
So, when you come to the US, it is understood and expected that students are guests and will return to their countries after graduation. No guarantees are given that employment is included.
@“b@r!um” and @thumper1, any further information?
How likely is it that you will find a job on OPT under current conditions? If you graduate from Stanford, likely. If you graduate from a small liberal arts college, exceedingly unlikely. And that’s just the first hurdle. Not everyone who found an OPT job will get an H-1B, and not everyone who gets an H-1B will eventually get a green card.
If you are Indian, your only feasible way to a green card in the next 30 years is by marrying a US citizen. That’s because of country-specific quotas, with green cards for Indians being oversubscribed and having decades-long waiting lists.
None of the bottlenecks have anything to do with Trump, by the way. The current H-1B cap was set in 2004. The country-specific quotes for green cards were set in 1965. The current administration’s only contribution so far has been to insist on more paperwork and more interviews, with the stated intent of clamping down on abuses of the H-1B program (such as employers paying below-market wages for H-1B positions, or Indian staffing firms seeking H-1B visas for positions that don’t qualify for an H-1B at all).
In short, plan on leaving the US when you are done with college. If your only reason for going to college in the US is the hope that you may be able to stay, don’t even start.
Internationals NEED to network. The hiring manager needs to feel like you’re ‘the right person’ more so than a citizen/PR. With STEM PhD from an elite school and being in California it never felt too difficult for me, but definitely harder than for citizens.
A lot of my colleagues did a postdoc after PhD, and during those couple of years applied and received EB2 NIW through self-sponsorship, which transitions into permanent residiency, but that route will run you about 10k in legal and filing fees. You need some sort of ‘extraordinary’ basis for EB2 - a PhD and good publication record.
Without an advanced degree I think it’s very difficult unless you end up working for an employer that’s exempt from the lottery, or if you are eligible for other work visas like TN or there’s a similar visa for Australians. Even then, you need to network. A lot of employers will not be thinking that they can bring you onboard on a non-H1B visa, and so they will not consider you.
You pretty much cannot apply to jobs through online portals successfully because a lot of them will have a box to check if you’re authorized to work in the US without sponsorship, and if you click NO (you can’t blatantly lie on an application) then you get automatically screened out by the system. Really really go to job fairs and network hard.
@“b@r!um”
Yes I am Indian ( so I have a BIG reason to worry )
I will be attending Drexel University( because of the co ops) and I’ll be majoring in Computer engineering.
Can you provide some ‘insight’ on this?
Please be careful about the co-ops. If you use more than 364 days of full-time CPT for co-ops, you will lose all of your post-graduation OPT. Drexel recommends that international students on a 3 co-op plan complete one of their co-ops outside of the US, or do an unpaid part-time internship for one of their co-ops in the US, to avoid losing their OPT. http://drexel.edu/scdc/co-op/policies/international-students/
Once you get your student visa, take note of the expiration date on the sticker in your passport. Personally, I’d be very careful about going abroad after that expiration date because you’d have to apply for a new student visa in order to return to the US. I hear that student visa applications for Indians have a way of getting denied for suspected immigration intent. You may prefer to avoid taking that risk a second time.
I honestly don’t know how international graduates of Drexel fare in the job market. Drexel students or alumni would be in a better position to share anecdotes.
I have noticed that several of my Indian co-workers at my current job decided to take a job in Canada and leave the US entirely. It appears that people may be losing their patience with the US immigration system.
@“b@r!um”
I know this is out of context but I think that you can help me on this. I got a 36k scholarship but I will still need around 25k to attend.
Can you tell me about some people who are willing to sponsor students?
Probably your indian co-workers?
Sorry, I cannot help you with your college finance situation.
@“b@r!um”
Just one last question.
If my family member is ready to be my co-signer, should I take a loan from the US?
Please consider the job scenario for Indians and the Visa thing while answering. USA has lower interest rates if we compare it with India. Please list the pros and cons. Thank you.
No. You should not borrow $100,000 in the US. To begin with, that is an outrageous amount to borrow for an undergraduate degree. Even US students shouldn’t be borrowing that kind of money for anything other than medical school. As an international student, you have no guarantee whatsoever that you will be able to get a job that will allow you to pay back that amount of money. Your co-signer could be stuck with the debt.
You can’t afford Drexel. You need to find a less expensive place to study.
How will you repay that $100,000 if you don’t get a job in the US? Co-ops won’t be especially helpful in paying down the debt particularly since you’re encouraged to only do 2, instead of 3, co-ops so as not to use up your OPT. As an international student you’d be facing a $100,000 debt and poor prospects of a long-term job in the US. I think you’re intelligent enough to understand this does not seem like a rational decision.
I concur with the moms that it seems like an extraordinarily bad idea to graduate with $100,000 in debt for an undergraduate degree. Even for a US citizen with no immigration worries, let alone for an international student.
But let’s think through the details of your proposal. It’s not easy to get a $100,000 loan from a private US bank. Does your relative own real estate in the US that they can take a mortgage out on for you? If not, are they a US citizen with a sufficiently high income that a bank might trust them to repay an unsecured $100,000 loan? (Google debt-to-income ratio.)
Lastly, I would like to caution you to factor future tuition increases into your budgeting. For example, annual tuition and fees were $40,741 in 2013-14 and $52,002 for 2017-18. That’s about a 6% annual increase. If that trend continues, tuition and fees might reach $67,000 in your 5th year.
If you are lucky, the income from your co-ops will pay for future tuition increases. You are still short about $100,000 even with the co-op income already accounted for.
How will you pay it all back (WITH INTEREST!)???
Thank you everyone for taking out some time to answer this.
Considering your view points, I won’t be taking a loan for my UG course.
I had no other option other than considering the loan or doing my Bachelor’s from India(which I don’t want to). I was rejected by most schools and I am currently waitlisted at my Dream school. Now, if I cut off Drexel from the list, I am only left with waiting on the Dream school. Info?
@happymomof1 @“b@r!um” @“aunt bea”
I don’t understand how you would pay for a dream school?
I don’t understand why you wouldn’t choose to do this? You are not are not guaranteed an admittance, scholarship nor a job in a US school.
Have you explored possibilities of studying in Europe or Australia?
If you want to study somewhere other than India, you still have a few options.
- You could look towards Europe (minus the UK). Many public universities there are free or almost free to attend, even for international students. Some teach Bachelor's degrees entirely in English (e.g. the [Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences](https://www.hochschule-rhein-waal.de/en/faculties/technology-and-bionics/degree-programmes/electronics-bsc-electrical-engineering-bsc)). A handful even have degree programs targeted specifically at international students who may wish to immigrate, where the degree program starts out in English and then transitions to the local language over time (e.g. the [University of Applied Sciences in Dresden](https://www.htw-dresden.de/?id=34263.html)).
European universities also tend to have rather late application deadlines. You can still apply now to start this fall, if you were interested.
- You could take a gap year, improve your ACT score, and then apply to American universities with automatic full-tuition scholarships, like those offered by the [University of Alabama at Huntsville](https://www.uah.edu/admissions/undergraduate/financial-aid/scholarships/merit-tuition-scholarships) for an ACT score of 34, or the [University of Mississippi](https://finaid.olemiss.edu/scholarships/#8) for an ACT score of 33.
If you are somewhat flexible about your major, there are a bunch more financial aid opportunities at colleges with a computer science program but no degree in electrical engineering, such as liberal arts colleges with need-based aid for international students.
Could you say more about Australia? I was under the impression that international tuition at Australian universities is quite expensive (on par with out-of-state tuition at American public universities), but I might be wrong. Are there cheap Australian universities or maybe scholarship opportunities?