Every year, nearly 1 million students from around the globe earn their higher education at colleges and universities in the United States. Optional Practical Training (OPT) allows international graduates to gain valuable hands-on experience and begin contributing their education and training to the U.S. immediately. Without OPT, many international graduates would have no choice but to leave the U.S. and take their skills to our global competitors instead. Protecting the option of OPT for international graduates is critical to attracting, educating, and retaining promising talent from around the world.
Blog/Policy & Research/Immigration/Legal Avenues
What is OPT?
Optional Practical Training
Policy Brief
OPT is a critical component of U.S. higher education for international students, particularly in STEM, and factors significantly into students’ decisions to study in the U.S and to remain afterwards.
International graduates of U.S. colleges and universities use OPT to live and work in the U.S. on a temporary basis
Optional Practical Training (OPT) allows international students who are studying at or have graduated from U.S. universities and colleges to remain in their F-1 student status and be authorized to work for a U.S. employer in their field of study.
Students in any field can apply for “post-completion” OPT for up to 12 months, while those with a degree in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) can get an additional two-year “STEM extension,” for a total of 36 months of work authorization and training. The Department of Homeland Security maintains a list of degree fields that qualify for the STEM extension.
With OPT, students apply their education in a real-world setting, developing their skills while also gaining work experience and building their professional networks, which in turn helps launch their careers. OPT is a critical component of U.S. higher education for international students, particularly in STEM, and factors significantly into students’ decisions to study in the U.S and to remain afterwards.
In FY 2023, 276,452 students were authorized for post-completion OPT while an additional 122,101 students were authorized for STEM OPT. Most OPT participants have degrees in technology, engineering, or business, and more than half have master’s degrees.
OPT is an important but imperfect bridge, allowing graduates an opportunity to develop their skills and build relationships with potential employers while determining their future immigration options.
OPT is the primary way in which international graduates can gain work experience and begin their careers in the U.S.
OPT has become even more important as immigration options for international graduates have become increasingly inaccessible.
Over the last decade, the number of students receiving OPT work authorization has more than doubled, and work authorizations for STEM OPT have tripled, while the total international student population in the U.S. has only grown by about 15%. At the same time, international graduates with advanced degrees make up a greater share of the H-1B applicant pool, growing from 25% in 2013 to more than 50% by 2019 (archived link). This increased percentage shows that international students are filling important roles in the labor market and that employers want to hire U.S. graduates. However, it also demonstrates that the H-1B lottery is even more overcrowded and inaccessible than ever.
After their F-1 visa expires, graduates might look for an employer to sponsor them for a green card or a temporary skilled work visa like an H-1B visa. But the low annual supply of H-1B visas is consistently outstripped by demand. There are only 65,000 H-1B visas newly available each year, plus an additional 20,000 set aside specifically for applicants who hold an advanced degree from a U.S. college or university.
In FY 2024, USCIS selected 188,400 registrations out of 758,994 submitted—only 25%—that would have a chance to even apply for an H-1B.
Graduates will face an even more difficult road to securing a green card if they would like to live and work permanently in the U.S. The F-1 student visa does not allow for “dual intent,” meaning immigrants cannot come on an F-1 visa to study if they also plan on moving to the U.S. permanently, which makes transitioning to a permanent status very difficult. If they transition to an H-1B in between, they still have to wait in backlogs, potentially for a decade or more, before a green card will be available for them.
OPT is an important but imperfect bridge, allowing graduates an opportunity to develop their skills and build relationships with potential employers while determining their future immigration options.
American leadership in these critical and emerging industries, bolstered by effective immigration programs like OPT, is important for protecting national security and ensuring the U.S.’ strategic competitive advantage.
Americans benefit when international graduates stay and work in the U.S.
When international students are allowed to work and contribute, everyone benefits. International students contributed $43.8 billion to the U.S. economy and supported more than 378,000 jobs in the 2023-2024 academic year.
Experts have found that high numbers of OPT participants in a region are associated with higher earnings and lower unemployment for U.S. workers. By contrast, the Business Roundtable estimates that curbing OPT could cost 443,000 jobs over a decade, including 255,000 jobs held by U.S.-born workers. This same study posits that restricting OPT could also cause declines in hourly wages across all employees and in GDP.
The potential for hands-on training and a pathway to future employment is essential in attracting and retaining highly-skilled international students at a time when countries like Canada, Australia, China, and India (who offer their own post-graduation work programs) are competing to attract that talent for themselves. OPT also gives U.S. employers an opportunity to evaluate recent graduates as future employees and contributors (DHS notes that many OPT employers end up sponsoring students for visas).
The sectors with the highest share of OPT workers include universities and educational institutions; healthcare providers like hospitals; manufacturing, banking, and financial firms; and technology companies.
Maintaining the ability for talented individuals to live and work in the U.S. is particularly important in STEM-related fields, like semiconductors and artificial intelligence, where employers compete globally for the best talent in the world and often face a scarcity of qualified available workers, particularly as the U.S. is still in the early stages of modernizing and expanding STEM career pathways for U.S.-born students. American leadership in these critical and emerging industries, bolstered by effective immigration programs like OPT, is important for protecting national security and ensuring the U.S.’ strategic competitive advantage.
So long as international students still want to study in the U.S., OPT and STEM OPT will enable them to gain valuable work experience after graduation, even if only for a limited period of time.
OPT is a valuable educational tool and a bridge to career paths in the U.S.
The opportunity for hands-on, practical training with world-class companies is an important aspect of the U.S. higher education system that helps recruit prospective students and adds tremendous value to their classroom education.
A 2022 FWD.us research study revealed that more than three-quarters of prospective international students want to stay and work in the U.S. after graduation, including 77% of students pursuing STEM and business degrees. Unfortunately, Congress’ failure to modernize our immigration system over the past three decades has left OPT as virtually the only bridge to post-graduation employment available for international graduates. Graduate students often use their time on OPT to support and perform basic science research and development at their universities. Other students will use STEM OPT to begin working directly for a U.S. employer. They are continuing to contribute after graduation and are building relationships with employers who could eventually sponsor them for longer-term immigration benefits.
Note: Survey question: “If you were graduating from your intended degree program today, would you seek a visa to stay and work within the U.S. if a visa was easily accessible to you?” Among those saying yes, “How long would you ideally like to live and work in the U.S. following graduation?”
Source: FWD.us 2021 survey of prospective international students to the U.S., as part of QS Quacquarelli Symonds’s annual international student survey.
Source: FWD.us 2021 survey of prospective international students to the U.S., as part of QS Quacquarelli Symonds’s annual international student survey.
A more recent FWD.us study focusing specifically on students considering advanced STEM degree programs at U.S. colleges and universities found that more prospective students were anticipating short-term stays in the U.S. after graduation—three years or fewer—compared to a couple years prior. We believe this shift is driven in part by prospective international students coming to better understand the lack of long-term pathways after graduation.
Note: Survey question: “If you were graduating from your intended degree program today, would you seek a visa to stay and work within your country of study if a visa was easily accessible to you?” Among those saying yes, “How long would you ideally like to live and work in your country of study following graduation?” Findings are for all survey respondents, including those who indicated they would not seek a visa following graduation. To make findings more representative of future students, results were weighted according to recent origin distributions of international students likely to study in the U.S.
Source: FWD.us 2021 and 2024 surveys of prospective, advanced STEM international students likely to study in the U.S., as part of QS Quacquarelli Symonds’s annual international student survey.
Source: FWD.us 2021 and 2024 surveys of prospective, advanced STEM international students likely to study in the U.S., as part of QS Quacquarelli Symonds’s annual international student survey.
While this shift should raise some alarms, it also highlights the critically important role OPT and STEM OPT programs play in the race for global talent. So long as international students still want to study in the U.S., OPT and STEM OPT will enable them to gain valuable work experience after graduation, even if only for a limited period of time. This gives them the opportunity to contribute significantly to U.S. based research and development, and during that time, they may even find access to a more permanent pathway, boosting retention and allowing them to continue contributing to American industries and innovation for many years.
Congress and the administration must continue to protect and strengthen OPT, while at the same time improving the bridge to longer-term career paths for international student graduates.
Congress and the administration must protect and strengthen OPT and STEM OPT
OPT is the only immigration benefit available exclusively to international student graduates. Congress and the administration must continue to protect and strengthen OPT, while at the same time improving the bridge to longer-term career paths for international student graduates.
Ending or limiting OPT, as the Trump administration previously considered, as some members of Congress have proposed, and as immigration restrictionists have tried to do through litigation, would be disastrous. Ending OPT would eliminate the only dedicated pathway available to these graduates, forcing most of them to take their education and training elsewhere and further reducing interest in the U.S. for future international students.
Instead, Congress and the executive branch must protect and expand access to OPT. A provision at the end of the FORTRESS Act, offered as a Republican amendment to House consideration of the NDAA for FY25, would have established OPT in statute.
Meanwhile, it’s important to ensure that the degree fields that qualify for the STEM OPT extensions are kept up to date. The Department of Homeland Security has sought to modernize the STEM OPT fields of eligibility by adopting an annual review process and ensuring that the fields designated for STEM OPT contain relatively new fields of instruction, like data science and other multidisciplinary fields.
As the global competition for talent heats up, Congress must take steps to address the underlying issues making it harder for the U.S. to recruit and retain top global talent. This should include dedicated immigration pathways for international graduates, such as a post-graduation work visa, particularly for graduates whose education and work is in the national interest and relevant to national security and economic competitiveness; expanding the use of existing legal avenues; and allowing “dual intent” for F-1 visa applicants. Additionally, Congress should increase the number of temporary H-1B visas and permanent employment-based visas available each year, eliminate per-country caps, and clear decades-long green card backlogs.
