Indian Students and STEM: A Love Affair with US Institutions

TL;DR

The demand for STEM professionals in the US is growing rapidly, with a projected 10.8% increase from 2022 to 2032. The CHIPS Act of 2022 has further highlighted the need for skilled workers in the semiconductor industry, which will need an additional 115,000 jobs by 2030.

To address this demand, US industry associations are advocating for visa reforms to attract and retain foreign-born STEM graduates. These reforms include extending the H-1B visa grace period and introducing the Chipmaker’s Visa, which would create 10,000 new visas annually with a fast track to a Green Card.

The GEIR program allows universities, states, and cities to sponsor foreign entrepreneurs without cap restrictions. This program enables universities to sponsor students on F-1 visas or recent graduates on OPT, bypassing the H-1B lottery. Institutions like the University of Michigan, Massachusetts colleges, Ohio’s Global Cleveland, and others have established successful GEIR programs.

Indian students considering US education should know that many US manufacturers, universities, and governments are eager to support and retain them. Beyond academic excellence, they need innovative ideas and dedication to leverage opportunities like GEIR to build successful careers in the US.

Read the full article. 

Indian Students Dominating STEM Fields

Institutions of higher education in the USA know that although Indian colleges/universities rarely boast the latest and best in laboratories, they nevertheless turn out students with a solid base in the fundamentals. They are receptive to Indian students – especially those seeking admission in STEM courses because they are well aware of their potential.

This is news? Nah! Indian students figured it out long ago.

The numbers tell the story: In 2022-23 Indian students studying in the USA numbered 268,923. Of these, 110,000 were enrolled in Mathematics and Computer Science. These two majors alone accounted for 41 per cent of all the Indian students.

Exact figures for the number of Indian students pursuing degrees in other STEM fields, such as life sciences (including medicine) engineering and STEM-MBA, are not available, but adding these numbers would surely push the percentage of Indian students in STEM courses well past 70 per cent.

Nearly half of the master’s and doctorate degrees in STEM fields conferred by US universities are earned by foreign students and more than half of these foreign students are Indians.

So, Indians on the path to a STEM degree know that the universities LOVE them.

But WHO ELSE loves them? And HOW MUCH do these others love them?

STEM Jobs for Indian Students  

The annual demand for people qualified in STEM disciplines is growing faster than the American universities can produce them. The Bureau of Labor Statistics* projects that demand for qualified people in STEM occupations will grow 10.8 percent between 2022 and 2032—faster than the growth rate of the overall workforce (2.3 percent).

Of course, there are STEM jobs and STEM jobs: some STEM occupations are expected to expand rapidly, others will remain flat or shrink. (Zilberman & Ice, 2021). 

The Zilberman and Ice article on Why computer occupations are behind strong stem employment growth is long, detailed and takes us off on a tangent, but it is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand STEM job market dynamics. 

Since 2022, when the US Congress passed the CHIPS Act, a particular set of STEM occupations has been under intense discussion. This legislation, aimed at bolstering domestic semiconductor manufacturing capabilities, has spotlighted the semiconductor industry as a critical area of growth.

The Semiconductor Industry’s Growing Demand

The US semiconductor industry employs approximately 3,45,000 people and will need to add 1,15,000 new jobs by 2030 to keep up with demand. The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) estimates that roughly 67,000 (58 percent of projected new jobs) risk going unfilled, based on current degree completion rates.

The SIA and other industry associations are working on several tracks to meet the personnel shortfall and one of those tracks is of vital concern to Indian students. The associations are lobbying the US government to take a global approach to talent acquisition and retention.

Opportunity for Indian Professionals 

Over the past six months, many articles have appeared that make the case for visa reforms and special measures that will enable the US to hang on to thousands of people from outside the US who have high level technical skills. They are pushing to make it easier for foreign-born STEM graduates who wish to work in the US to do so.

Writing in the newsletter of the American Physical Society titled: Chips and Science Bill Isn’t Enough. America Needs to Retain Its International Students, University of Houston physicist Dr Jacinta Conrad argues:

Highly skilled, international students and scholars are integral to maintaining a robust economy and keeping our nation competitive amid increased global competition. They’re a perfect complement to our domestic workforce, bringing fresh perspectives, diverse experiences and ingenuity to our universities, laboratories and companies. If we fail to attract and keep talented students and researchers from around the world, the recently passed semiconductor and innovation legislation will have been in vain.

US universities know how to attract international students; keeping them involves lobbying lawmakers to change visa rules. In the US, legislation starts with lobbying by concerned interest groups. Over to the major US semiconductor manufacturers and their lobbyists.  These manufacturers have three main strategies in their quest for changes that will make it easier for them to retain skilled workers from abroad.

Strategies for Retaining Foreign STEM Graduates 

Strategy 1. H-1B visa rules changes:

Manufacturers propose extending the H-1B visa grace period beyond the current 60 days. Royal Kastens, a lobbyist for SEMI (Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International), explains in an article on Visa Shakeup On Tap To Help Solve Worker Shortage explains:

“Currently, the grace period is set at 60 days, meaning if an H-1B visa holder loses their position, they have 60 days to find another one or leave. This is inadequate. In our industry, roles take around 87 days to fill, meaning they are 27 days past the statutory cap of 60 days. Extending the grace period offers the best chance of success.”

Strategy 2. Chipmaker’s Visa

The Economic Innovation Group proposes a Chipmaker’s Visa to address the talent gap:

• Issue 10,000 new visas per year with an expedited path to a Green Card.
• Auction 2,500 visas quarterly to qualifying firms, with ownership transferred to the sponsored worker.
• Renew the five-year visa once to give firms time to scale up and train domestic workers.
• Use visa auction income to fund training programs for American workers and scholarships for American students.

Adam Ozimak, chief economist at the Economic Innovation Group in the same article Visa Shakeup On Tap To Help Solve Worker Shortage, says that the obvious solution would be to increase total annual caps (65,000) and per-country caps (7 percent of the total) of H-1B visas. 

The higher the cap, the more talent you have. Having more talent would obviously be better for manufacturers. It’s not just about sidestepping the lengthy, difficult visa process. It’s also about creating assurance that there is a dedicated number of visas for this industry. We want companies to know that they are going to be able to find the immigrants they need to give them the competence to invest and expand.  We have an industry with extraordinarily urgent needs and extraordinarily high importance for national security and geopolitical concerns. Raising the caps is likely to run into challenges on Capitol Hill due to immigration being a hot-button topic.  We have to aim for the do-able and we think a Chipmakers visa will get support.”

Strategy 3. Global Entrepreneur-in-Residence programme (GEIR)

This strategy bypasses the legislative route.

While US universities are open to international students, retaining them after graduation—whether to work at American companies or to start their own firms—remains a challenge. The H-1B visa, allocated through a random lottery, often feels like a gamble with decreasing odds, rather than a strategic approach for attracting global talent.

However, there is a significant loophole in the H-1B visa rules. Non-profit organizations, including universities, states, and cities, can sponsor local entrepreneurs without any cap on the number of such individuals. This provision is known as the Global Entrepreneur-in-Residence (GEIR) program.

How the GEIR Program Works

Institutions of higher learning can identify and vet likely candidates among students on F-1 visas or recent graduates on Optional Practical Training (OPT). As non-profit entities, universities are categorically exempt from the H-1B cap, allowing them to sponsor these individuals without restrictions.

The university becomes the official sponsoring entity for the visa. They can hire the sponsored person part-time, accept volunteer commitments in roles such as student mentorship, or simply allow them to pursue their entrepreneurial ventures independently.

Universities do not need to apply for special programs or seek government approval to implement GEIR. The decision to create a GEIR program lies solely with university officials, who can choose to support entrepreneurial talent without bureaucratic barriers.

Here are a few of the US states and cities that have set up programmes enabling them to make use of the GEIR provision. 

• Michigan: Way back in 2010 the state of Michigan launched its Global Detroit programme and expanded it in 2019 to include GEIR programmes at University of Michigan, College for Creative Studies, Lawrence Tech, Michigan Tech, and Wayne State University.
• Massachusetts: The state of Massachusetts set up its GEIR Program ten years ago as part of the Massachusetts 2014 Jobs Bill.  Many colleges and universities in the state are GEIR sponsors.
• Ohio: In 2011, Ohio discovered the GEIR option and launched its programme under the name of Global Cleveland.
• Illinois: GEIR came to the state of Illinois in 2017. It works through Chicago-based institutions, including Columbia College, DePaul University, Illinois Institute of Technology, Loyola University and Northwestern University.
• Maryland: Maryland calls its programme Maryland Global Gateway Soft Landing.  It’s been running under the state’s Department of Commerce since 2021.  Some of the state’s universities also have GEIR programmes.
• California: In 2023, California plunged into its GEIR programme with a state-allocated budget of $2 million.  Initially, it will operate on all campuses of the University of California.
• New York: In January of this year, the State of New York launched two schemes: one is university-based and follows the standard GEIR process, the other will operate under Empire State Development, which is the state’s umbrella organization for the state’s economic development financing entities, The New York State Urban Development Corporation and the New York Job Development Authority. New York Governor Kathy Hochul announced that her administration would “create new avenues for immigrant entrepreneurs,” focusing on “graduate and doctoral students…to obtain sponsored visas that allow them to continue performing and commercializing research without leaving the state.”
• New Jersey: The state announced a GEIR programme this year.  Initially on pilot project scale but expected to expand. 

What Indian students have to know about GEIR is that they need more than just brains in order to take advantage of it. They also need ideas and the guts to commit themselves totally to the hard work that turns ideas into profitable reality. 

Trawling through Google turns up website after website discussing foreign STEM talent retention. It is obvious that the USA, as a nation and as a collection of states, is now sharply focused on reforms and work-arounds that will keep high-skilled foreign workers and provide a congenial climate of foreign entrepreneurs. The writers emphasize that failure to reform will result in rapid relegation of the US to the ranks of the second rate.

Students aspiring to study in the US know that achieving that dream is Stage One. With a degree in hand, they move on to Stage Two: building their careers. Students going into STEM courses should feel highly encouraged to learn just how many manufacturers, as well as universities, state and city governments really, really  LOVE them.