If You Read Carefully, IIE Reports Fewer Foreign Students, More OPT Workers

The actual numbers are these: The total of enrolled foreign students decreased from 903,127 to 851,957 between the two academic periods, but the number of recent alien graduates in the Optional Practical Training (OPT) foreign-worker program rose from 175,695 to 223,539.

A nearly 6 percent decrease in the number of actual (enrolled) foreign students, when the 2019/2020 academic year is compared to the 2016/2017 one, but
An almost 29 percent increase, in the same time period, of
alien alumni holding federally subsidized jobs while still on their student visas, positions that if filled by citizens would lead to no subsidy at all.

What was always missing in the past — but perhaps not this year — was any reference to the subsidies paid to the employers of the OPT workers, subsidies that last from one year to three depending on the nature of the education received by these alien alumni. Longer subsidies apply to alumni who have a STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) curriculum, rather than a non-STEM one.

You see, if you are a foreign college grad in this country you can be hired (while still here on your student visa) at an 8 percent discount, because the employers (and many of the alumni) need not pay payroll taxes. So an employer facing two recent grads of equal ability, and each willing to work for, say, $50,000 a year, has this choice to make if one of them is a citizen and the other is an alien “student”: The employer can save $4,000 a year if he chooses the alien — a remarkable fact that, probably again this year, will be missing from reporting on the new edition of “Open Doors”.

It is unfortunate that too many families with college students did not vote for Trump...This program will likely be expanded under the Globalists and it is a career killer for US students :(

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