Barriers grow for international students seeking U.S. jobs: The ‘American dream ... is collapsing’
Published Sun, May 24 202610:15 AM EDT
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3:41
Running out of options in the U.S., more international students are eyeing alternative paths abroad
Sakshi Patel has known since she was little that she wanted to study in the U.S. She says she pictured herself landing a job in New York City, the financial capital of the world, and living out her version of the American dream far from home.
Patel, who earned her master’s degree in financial management from Boston University in May 2025, says she has about two months left on her current work authorization and is job hunting full force. If she doesn’t get a job within that time, she’ll have to move back to her native India.
As difficult as it is for recent college graduates to gain their footing in
one of the worst entry-level
job markets in
recent memory, international graduates are also having to navigate an unpredictable immigration environment in order to jump-start their U.S.-based careers and lives. Faced with additional and increasing difficulties, some international students are putting together backup plans.
After graduating last year, Patel, 23, began working as a business analyst with a nonprofit under the optional practical training program, or OPT, the work authorization available to international students after they graduate. After her one-year OPT expires this summer, though, she’ll need to find an eligible job related to her degree, then apply for a
STEM OPT extension of up to two years — available to some graduates with science, technology, engineering and math degrees — in order to stay in the U.S.
Patel told CNBC Make It that she’s been “making every effort” to network and land a job in the U.S. The experience has been tough, she says, but she remains optimistic: “I came with that dream to the United States, and I still hope to live that dream.”
International graduates face additional hurdles in tight job market
Approximately 84,000 international students will earn bachelor’s degrees from American universities in 2026, according to an analysis of National Center for Education Statistics data by the Economic Innovation Group.
Sakshi Patel graduated with her master’s degree in May 2025 and hopes to secure a full-time job in finance.
Courtesy of subject
As of 2025, about 306,000 international students were working toward their master’s degrees and 153,000 toward their doctorate degrees, according to the latest available data from
Open Doors, an information resource sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. Tens of thousands of these students are likely to hit the U.S. job market after earning their advanced degrees this spring.
Many new grads will enter a weakening labor market for young workers.
Job postings on Handshake, the early career site,
were down 2% between July 2025 and March 2026 compared with the same period the year prior, and down 12% from 2019-2020, just before the Covid pandemic. The unemployment rate for recent college grads age 22 to 27 stood at 5.6%, according to
New York Fed data for March 2026, compared with 3.1% for all college graduates and 4.2% for all workers.
There are students concerned about whether the U.S. is a place where they can build their careers.
Erica Ford
International career development coach, Cornell University
Erica Ford, an international career development coach at Cornell University, says job hunting has gotten more difficult for students in recent years, including for the 300 international students she directly supports each year.
Students in STEM fields who would have been in high demand in previous years are now happy to get just one job offer, Ford says. Doctoral candidates are seeing
a drop in research jobs and are pivoting to industry opportunities, and those going into the
nonprofit sector are seeing their potential employers conduct layoffs, she adds.
The low-hire job market negatively affects students as a whole, but international students have to navigate additional barriers, such as temporary work authorizations, Ford says.
“Some of the most common concerns are: Are employers still hiring international students right now?” she says. “Am I being screened out because of my temporary work authorization or because I said that I would need sponsorship in the future?”
Whether due to immigration policy changes, the tighter labor market or a combination of multiple factors, data shows employers scaling back on opportunities for international grads: The share of full-time job postings offering visa sponsorship dropped from 10.9% in 2023 to just 2.6% in 2026, according to Handshake data provided to CNBC Make It, with the tech sector seeing the steepest decline.
Before, there was this golden standard of coming to the U.S., staying in the U.S., [and] realizing your American dream. This dream is collapsing.
David Li
Ph.D. candidate in Madison, Wisconsin
Beyond the job market, international graduates face additional hurdles in a challenging immigration environment under the second Trump administration.
For example, application processing for some immigration benefits, including the OPT program, has been paused for people from countries that are part of President Donald Trump’s travel ban,
Inside Higher Ed reports, leaving many F-1 visa holders in limbo and unable to begin working after graduation.
Students are ‘parallel planning’ as their ‘American dream ... is collapsing’
Many international students are responding to the job market and immigration hurdles by taking more time to find opportunities and “parallel planning,” Ford says.
They’re still pursuing opportunities in the U.S., she says, “but they’re also looking either back home or in a third country that’s not home and not the U.S.,” especially across Europe, Southeast Asia, Canada and Australia.
David Li, 29, a doctoral candidate in political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says he plans to start looking for postdoctoral programs and jobs in academia in September. Given
federal funding cuts to U.S. universities, he’s also considering opportunities in Europe, his native China and elsewhere in Asia, he says.
Li says the increasing strains around immigration have “shaken the confidence” of his peers who aspire to study and work in the U.S. Two years ago, if someone got an offer from a U.S. university to study, it was assumed to be their best option, Li says, but not anymore. He says many of his younger peers are now considering studying and starting careers in Hong Kong and Singapore instead.
“Before, there was this golden standard of coming to the U.S., staying in the U.S., [and] realizing your American dream,” Li says. Now, “this dream is collapsing.”
10:56
Why Gen Z job hunting is out of control right now
The U.S. issued 97,000 fewer F-1 visas to international students to study full-time in the U.S. for the 2025-26 academic year than for the previous year, a 36% drop, according to an analysis of
U.S. Department of State data by
The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The growing obstacles could have long-term impacts on incoming scholars, Ford says: “There are students concerned about whether the U.S. is a place where they can build their careers.”
The loss of international grads in the U.S. could also have broader economic consequences.
Former international students from American universities have gone on to found one-quarter of U.S. startups valued at $1 billion or more, according to a
2022 analysis from nonprofit NAFSA: Association of International Educators.
The impact of the loss could be especially significant in STEM fields. Researchers say a one-third reduction in the number of international STEM graduates could lead to
annual gross domestic product losses of $240 billion to $481 billion over the next decade, according to an October 2025 working paper published by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.
“The research literature provides strong and consistent evidence that high-skill immigration drives U.S. productivity and economic growth, with the largest effects from STEM-trained immigrants ... [arising from their] effects on new business formation, scientific discovery, and the patenting of new economic ideas,” the authors wrote.
Trump has previously said it’s a good practice to allow international students to study in the U.S., particularly those from China, and that reducing their numbers could cause financial harm to the university system,
Fox News reported in November.
Those comments stand in contrast to some of his administration’s policies, including moves to
revoke thousands of student visas,
limit international student enrollment, and cap the length of time students
can stay in the country.
First jobs are just the beginning of immigration challenges
Despite the tough job market, Ford, of Cornell, reminds international students that employers are still hiring and encourages them to embrace networking by taking actions such as attending conferences or messaging hiring managers, instead of relying only on online applications.
“In a market in the condition that we’re in right now, taking that extra step to build relationships and make personal connections makes a huge difference,” Ford says.
Doing so could help international students “be more than a candidate on paper” and build professional relationships in the U.S., where they may have limited connections compared with domestic peers, Ford says. They may also benefit from gaining a better understanding of how the U.S. recruitment market and timeline work differently from that of their home countries.
Even graduates who secure a job after college aren’t free of ongoing immigration stressors. That’s the case for Xinran Xu, 24, who is from China, earned her master’s degree from the University of Michigan in 2025 and works as a statistician at a medical device company outside Minneapolis.
Xu’s OPT expires this month. She says her company has been supporting her in working with an immigration attorney, paying the appropriate fees and helping her apply for an H-1B visa that would allow her to continue working in the U.S.; her petition is currently under review, she says.
I just want to use that time to make a fair effort [at getting a job in the U.S.] so that I don’t have any kind of regrets.
Sakshi Patel
job seeker in Boston
The Trump administration’s recent changes to the H-1B visa process have already caused a stir: In September, the White House announced a
$100,000 fee for new H-1B visa recipients coming to the U.S. The change didn’t directly affect Xu since she was already residing in the U.S., but the move signaled to her that the process for work authorization seems to be getting more restrictive.
More uncertainty could lie ahead: In March, the Department of Labor
proposed a new rule that would increase the minimum salaries required for employees seeking H-1B visas by
21% to 33%, depending on their designated job level. The proposed change could lead to
fewer opportunities for younger international workers, who are earlier in their careers and less likely to command higher salaries.
Xinran Xu says changes to immigration policies today make it feel more difficult to build a life in the U.S. than for previous foreign-born workers.
Courtesy of subject
Staying in the U.S. in effect means preparing to confront changing immigration policies. Xu says establishing a life in the U.S. feels harder for international grads today than it was before.
“I’m just expecting a bumpy road throughout the next five years,” she says.
As for Patel, in Boston, she says that ultimately “if my destiny is in India, I will get a job in India.” But even if she ends up moving back home, she says, she’ll still try to find a way back to the U.S.
Until her OPT authorization ends in the summer, she says, “I just want to use that time to make a fair effort so that I don’t have any kind of regrets.”
— CNBC’s Nathaniel Lee contributed to this report.
