Foreign students out-earn their native-born peers
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Workers with college degrees who come to the U.S. on student visas out-earn their native-born peers, but also do more of the research and development work critical to the economy, according to a new analysis of data from the National Survey of College Graduates.
Why it matters: The Trump administration is using student visas as both policy tool and negotiating leverage on trade, potentially forcing a sharp decline in the number of foreign students in coming years.
By the numbers: As of 2023, there were about 2.1 million year-round full-time workers in the U.S. with Bachelor's degrees who first came here on a student visa, per the Economic Innovation Group, which did the research.
- They earned a median salary of $115,000, compared with an $87,000 median for native-born workers with at least a college degree.
- The salary gap holds firm across age groups, the analysis finds.
The intrigue: 27% of those who came here on student visas are engaged in research and development work, compared with 12% of native-born workers, a sign of how critical students from outside the U.S. are to innovation.
- "Further impeding international students' ability to stay and work after graduation would be a major blow to the United States' R&D ecosystem," according to the report.
Zoom out: "The story here is that people who come here on student visas are very talented and ambitious and hardworking," Connor O'Brien, research and policy analyst at Economic Innovation Group, tells Axios. "They offer skills that employers are willing to pay a premium for."
- "It doesn't necessarily say anything about the skills or those qualities of native workers," he adds.
