If the United States and its respective universities are going to brand themselves as diverse places of opportunity with high rates of international students, it should be understood that each student, regardless of their country of origin, should be granted the same opportunities in the U.S. job market.

The outcome of the ongoing legal battle between the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers — a labor union based in Washington state — and the Department of Homeland Security over an extension to an Optional Practical Training program for international students in STEM fields will affect this demographic of students studying at U.S. institutions, including Syracuse University.

The current 17-month extension rule is set to expire May 10. And if a newly-proposed ruling currently under review is approved and includes an extension, it would allow international students at SU and across the country seeking to gain work experience in U.S. STEM industries. If not, it would require most international students to return to their home countries within a year of graduation.

As the extension dispute courses through the legal system, it should be understood that students without permanent U.S. residency should be able to seek out post-degree job prospects without facing excessive limitations as long as they are qualified and rightfully selected to fill the position.

This is reinforced by the margins of U.S. students to international students when it comes to the general qualifications needed to secure STEM-related jobs.

A 2014 Brookings Institution study found that STEM skills are in high demand, “particularly those associated with high levels of educational attainment.” Following this, the Pew Research Center published findings that while international students earned just 11.6 percent of all doctoral degrees earned at U.S. institutions in 2012-13, they accounted for a majority of all doctorates in engineering and in computer and information sciences and half of all doctorates in mathematics and statistics.

When U.S. students aren’t stepping in to fulfill requirements set by American employers for these jobs, it is justifiable for international students to harness these opportunities and bridge this gap.

But it is telling that U.S. students aren’t meeting this demand, considering a 2015 report by employment expert Anthony Carnevale found that recent bachelor’s degree holders in STEM fields had an average unemployment rate of 8.3 percent between 2011 and 2012. This demonstrates that the ongoing debate at the intersection of foreign students and the U.S. labor market is reflective of a much larger issue regarding the long-term effects of current federal policies.

It is possible that recent U.S. graduates with citizenship are poised to satisfy STEM-related employment openings, but are being failed somewhere in the system approaching college graduation. This sheds light on the impending need to reshape these policies accordingly to ensure that the U.S. is structured to be able to take care of its citizens before others.

Though this is far easier said than done, the complex of having an excess vacancy of STEM positions for international graduates to fulfill while U.S. graduates of the same area of study collect social welfares is solely counterintuitive.

In the context of the extension regarding the OPT program for international students, market opportunities extend to each graduate, maintaining that the most qualified candidate is selected for the opportunity.

But it is integral in addressing the greater issue of U.S. unemployment that this discussion transcends a seemingly niche extension and is representative of the multifaceted understanding that U.S. students studying STEM should not be set up to fail in the first place.

Published on February 11, 2016 at 1:11 am

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