International students who stay in US land top jobs – Study

More than 70% of the 1,323 international students who studied in the United States from 2016 to 2023 remained after graduating, says a new study released on Tuesday (29 April). Of these graduates, 73% have STEM degrees, and more than half (57%) are working for Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Fortune 500 or IT and software service companies.

Conducted between December 2023 and March 2024, Global Talent: International student trends after graduation, which testifies to the success of international students who remain in the United States, appears at what many consider an inflection point in America’s traditional openness to international students.

Since President Donald J Trump returned to the White House, thousands of international students have had their visas cancelled for minor, if any, infractions, and hundreds have been jailed, including at least one student from Tufts University for writing an editorial in the student newspaper voicing her support for the Palestinians in Gaza.

“American leadership in technology innovation is largely due to our higher education system and the US culture of exploration and innovation as opposed to rote learning and regurgitation as the dominant culture in many other countries’ education systems,” said Ben Waxman, CEO of Intead, a global academic branding and market research consultancy that produced the report in collaboration with NAFSA, the world’s largest association of international educators, and Fox Hollow Advisory, an international educational consulting firm.

“Add to that reality … there are not enough American students diving into STEM programmes in the US. For the US to maintain its technology advantage in this area of economic growth, the country needs talented and smart STEM graduates.

“Until Americans start turning to this field of study in droves, US economic growth will rely on international students focused on STEM,” said Waxman.

Graduate profile

With the exceptions of the University of California, Davis, and the University of Texas at Austin, the Intead project surveyed graduates from 10 lesser-known and different-sized universities, such as Salem State University (Massachusetts) and Wichita State University (Kansas), which enrol 6,239 and 17,700 students, respectively.

“We wanted to include high-interest states (California, Texas, and Massachusetts) as well as a middle-of-the-country, less common study destination (Kansas),” said Waxman.

South Asians made up the majority, 41%, of international student graduates, with East Asians being 15% and Latin America and the Caribbean 13%. Europeans accounted for 7% of the graduates, and 5% originated in the Middle East and North Africa, while 5% came from Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, and the rest from North America and Oceania.

Waxman’s group found that 60% of graduates had masters degrees, with 21% and 18%, respectively, having bachelors and PhDs. Sixty four per cent of the graduates were male and 36% female.

Employment patterns followed the discipline studied. Of the 77% with STEM degrees, 62% were employed in either computing, IT or engineering and manufacturing, while 6% worked in science or pharmaceuticals.

No cheap labour

While the number of respondents who answered questions about their wages was small, it suggests that the common fear that international students entering the US workforce depress wages is misplaced.

“Our very limited research uses US Department of Labor data to show that for two specific jobs in two specific locations in the US, employers are paying prevailing wages to the international graduates. Employers are not getting cheap labour in STEM areas by hiring international graduates,” Waxman wrote in an email.

The study also found that international students who remained in the United States were 21% more likely to either rent or own a home – a traditional barometer of contributing to the national economy – than were domestic graduates.