Doesn't the US hope that those highly educated students stay in the US afterwards? I was always under impression that this was the main goal of those programs. Get the smartest from other countries, show them how good it is in your country, and hope for them stay and contribute to the economy.
Absolutely not. Maybe the US should, but according to the rules, a student visa is "nonimmigrant intent" and expressing the desire to stay in the US after your studies are over may in fact be grounds for denial of a visa because they may think you're going to overstay.
F1 is a "non-immigration" visa - meaning that it is explicitly designed so that the students do not stay after finishing the studies. There are "dual intent" visas which are designed with the intent of possibly staying, such as H1B. But technically, expressing intent to stay can be a reason to be denied F1 visa.
> Get the smartest from other countries, show them how good it is in your country
That may be true, but that's not what F1 is made for, by design.
Many of these students pay the bills of the department as graduate only students, and for the students it's a jump point to the US job market. Both enjoy the benefits of a misaligned program.
Depends on the administration, which is really a problem if you want to consistently attract talent. Seems like an opportunity for Trump to ostensibly change nothing while taking what looks like a hard-line on immigration.
There's an added benefit to Trump of punishing universities for their continued pushback against much of his goals (e.g. Title IX lawsuits, harboring undocumented people/not complying with ICE).
> Doesn't the US hope that those highly educated students stay in the US afterwards?
I'd say the average American does not hope this, no. Foreign students are driving up the cost of tuition as they're usually quite wealthy and displace seats for underprivileged Americans, especially in state-run schools.
I don't know why someone would come to the US to study other than the hopes of immigrating. There are better schools in Europe and elsewhere that are much cheaper or even free.
On the off chance we actually face some sort of shortage of critical skills, there are other visas for that.
That's not true. Almost all state universities charge a much higher tuition fee to foreign and out-of-state students (sometimes two to three times higher). That higher fee is used to subsidize the fee of in-state students. Sorry to be crass, but please do some research before spewing your bullshit online.
> That higher fee is used to subsidize the fee of in-state students
An uncited, flimsy excuse. Most universities could function just fine without out of state students, but that might result in a cutback of some of the wasteful spending these institutions create.
In any case, the seats are a finite quantity. Most public universities in the US have competitive admissions. Guess who's not getting admitted in place of students on visas? That's right, the most underprivileged parts of our society, which is why I said seats.
