International students seeking employment in the U.S. after graduation must wait until April 2013 to receive an H-1B visa after the cap on visas was reached in June this year, the earliest that limit has been met in four years, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website. This means Brown graduates who hail from outside the U.S. and did not receive visas in the most recent application pool cannot begin working until October 2013 at the earliest.
The H-1B visa is for skilled non-immigrant foreign workers and international students educated in the United States hoping to work in specialized fields, particularly the STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. American companies must petition for the employment of foreign workers through the visa program, as workers are unable to apply for the visa as individuals.
The government only issues a limited number of H-1B visas each year, in accordance with U.S. immigration laws. The cap was increased by 20,000 in FY 2006 to 85,000 visas - 65,000 of which are issued to foreign workers in specialty occupations and 20,000 of which are reserved for people with advanced degrees who are exempt from the regular cap, according to H1base.com. When there are more petitions than available visas, the government holds a lottery.
The speed with which the cap was reached this year is mainly a result of economic improvement, said Elizabeth Goss, an immigration attorney at a firm in Boston.
Goss, who gave a workshop on employment and visa options at Brown last spring, said the dip in visa applications in the last few years began at the start of the economic downturn in 2008 when "we had pretty bad hiring across the nation, and the numbers (of visa applications) were reflective of that time period."
More people are seeking to hire new employees this year, and she predicts that the government will need to hold a lottery again for the next round of H-1B applications, she said.
Given the high demand to work in the U.S., students must compete for a limited number of visas following college.
Applying for a work visa
To obtain an H-1B visa, students must first find employers willing to hire them and apply for a visa on their behalf.
Since Brown students are "highly motivated and very smart folks," they are "already very likely to succeed" in academics and in procuring a job after college, Goss said. At the community college level, foreign students are more likely to struggle, though "it depends on the person," she said.
Immigrants are "much more willing to take risks sometimes, (and) it's hard to compare them with the average American student because they're not the average student in their own countries," Goss said. The process often comes down to "who has the gumption to make it and who doesn't."
To work in the United States calls for a certain amount of networking in order to find employers who will be willing to petition for visas on behalf of students.
"When I consider working in the States, I think I try to get involved more in the community because I will work with them," Sang Won Sim '14.5 said. Compared to the U.S., networking in her homeland of Korea is less critical, she said. Sim said she will most likely return to Korea for graduate school but eventually wants to apply for a visa to work in the U.S.
Another factor for employers to consider when hiring international graduates is the cost of an H-1B visa. Each visa costs $5,000, and the company petitioning on behalf of the student is responsible for paying this fee. "For a company, $5,000 might not be such a big price, so it's never been a show-stopper or a deal breaker," Goss said, though this amount can be greater if there are legal fees involved.
"I'm really nervous," Sim said of applying for an H-1B, because "it costs a lot of money, so most of (the) companies don't want to give working visas that easily." The cost is one of numerous considerations in the visa application process, though Goss said students should not assume that companies will be unwilling to petition for their visas just because of the cost.
Sim said it may be easier to get a working visa in certain fields of study like computer science, though she does not anticipate the visa process will affect her choice of concentration. "I want to do what I want to do," she said.
Working in the U.S. is not the only choice to make after graduating from Brown, as there are numerous international employers who hire students to work outside of the U.S, said Elke Breker, director of the OISSS.
"It's not just the U.S. or nothing else," she added.
Filling the employment gap
In light of the limited number of H-1B visas available each year, students can also make use of alternative options that will allow them to stay in the U.S. until the next visas are available.
The majority of international students at Brown take advantage of an Optional Practical Training program after receiving their degrees from Brown, Breker said. This program allows students to work for a company and receive training in a specific field, while filling the time between their graduation and when they can reapply for the H-1B visas.
The training is a one-year employment authorization that students can receive after completion of their academic degrees. Students who study in the STEM fields who are in the training program can often get an additional 17 months of experience on top of the one-year employment option.
Among students who graduate from Brown in STEM fields, "the additional 17 months are being utilized more than in the past," Breker said. This increase in training for STEM students could be a sign that students want to preserve their flexibility to change employers or work for multiple employers while remaining on their F-1 student visas - the vi
sas they have while attending Brown - or because their employer is unable to petition for an H-1B visa at that time, Breker said.
Students who begin the training are not required to complete it before they can change to another visa such as the H-1B. Students will typically begin working for a company through the training, and the employer will then offer to apply for an H-1B visa so that they may stay at the company for up to six years.
Some students are able to find employers outside of the optional practical training who "want to hire them under the H-1B visa as soon as possible, so (the students) will likely skip the optional practical training," Breker said.
